To conform or not to conform?

Conformity is relative. One person's non-conformity is another person's narcissism. For me, conformity is more about ideas rather than about what someone wears or what someone does for a living.

Some of the biggest self-styled "non-conformists" (in the music industry for example) are the worst conformists of all.

Both. A part of being myself is the fact that I have alot in common with everyone else. Conformist, non conformist.

They're all just labels and if you label yourself a non conformist then you are still conforming to a group of people who think the same. If you think about it it's rather contradictory. I'm just myself.

I leave the labeling for others to do :-).

Start life as a conformist until you truly understand the reasoning behind conformity. It's an easier path until you're prepared for nonconformity. It's important to craft many metaphorical masks for yourself and wear them at appropriate times.

You begin life with only 1 mask, and if you only kept the 1 mask your whole life, people would start hating you by the time you reached adulthood. You talk to your grandmother differently than you do a young niece of nephew. You talk to your boss differently than you talk to your close friends.

There's nothing inherantly wrong with that. Control your bag of masks and you'll be able to open more doors in life. I saw the movie American story X when I was in my freshman year of high school.

I don't endorse hate mongering at all or any of the racism from the movie, but I took a lesson from the dynamic between Ed Norton's character and the old man that was the "king of the skinheads". Ed Norton was the leader of the conformist skinheads. The old man that ran the place looked like an ordinary businessman you'd see filling up his gas tank.Be the old man in your own life.

You don't have to dress the part of your ideology to hold certain values. Be a curveball.Do the unexpected. If you saw me on the street, I'd look like a poor overweight redneck.

I dress sub-casual for nearly everything. But if you stopped and had a conversation with me, you might find me to be a very interesting person. I can fix a car and help you move or debate Aristotle and take an atheist view of religion.

I can catch a fish or hit a target 100 yards away with a .306, but I can also explain quantum physics and advanced calculus. Surprise people. Those are the most interesting people in life.

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.