When to Not Stay True to Yourself

Sure I was a complete fucking dork to have a quote written on a white board in my room, but I do still try to live by this idea.  I think most us do to some extent, whether we know of the quote or not.

The majority of us struggle to stay true to ourselves though–particularly when security, money, peer pressure, or the potential to get some ass comes into conflict with who we are.  Most of us cave and cower in these situations, sacrifice our principles, accomplish nothing, and hate ourselves afterward.

And then we don’t learn from our mistakes, and we do it again…and again and again and again until we have no idea who we are any more, or what we were trying to accomplish in the first place, and that’s when we find ourselves eating alone at Taco Bell and contemplating laying down in the drive-thru and waiting for some stoned idiot to vehicular manslaughter us at 2 AM (or is that just me?).

Because we suck at this, we really admire and exalt those who don’t back down from who they are.  We see it as ahigher form of being, and for good reason.  In many circumstances, staying true to yourself is courageous, it’s noble, and it’s indicative of a high feeling of self-worth.  If you know yourself, and you’re true to that person, and you love that person, that’s a big chunk of life right there.

But what if, sometimes, staying true to yourself totally sucks dicks?

Free Bird used to be my favorite song of all time.  It still arguably is (That’s not weird phrasing.  I spend most of my life arguing with my own brain.), but I’ve come to feel very differently about it over the years.

For those of you who have not heard it, first of all you’re an inadequate human being and instead of reading this, you should spend these next six minutes sitting quietly and feeling bad about yourself, but I’ll describe it for you anyway.

Free Bird is essentially a nine-minute ode to stubborn individualism.  It has two verses and choruses about how the protagonist can’t be with his love interest any more because he can’t (or won’t) change who he is.  This is followed up by 4 minutes of rocking the fuck out that perfectly lines up thematically with the song’s lyrics.  It fades out around 9 minutes, but not in the bullshit “I don’t know how to end this song, so uh, let’s just turn down the volume,” kind of way. You get the distinct impression that Free Bird is really meant to go on forever–thus signifying the protagonist will continue to fly free, and remain eternally unchanged.

It’s a beautiful, tragic, powerful motherfucker of a song.  And as somebody who used to live a life that was somewhat against the grain or abnormal, (or as others would call it, “creepy and unsettling”), I always felt a sense of pride listening to the song–a sense of “Fuck the world.  I’m going to be exactly what I am, and I’m going to be happy that way.”

And in a weird way, I do still take pride in that whole idea.  But here’s the other important thing about Free Bird.  It’s a nine-minute masterpiece about a stubborn refusal to change that was usually performed with this as the background.

And of course when most of us see that, our reaction is something like, “Oh God!  Change!  Change that now!  The thing behind you!  Change it!”

And there’s a lesson here: sometimes, despite your own pride and what you consider to be your integrity or individuality, you should really fucking change a little bit.

Our Addiction to Stubborn Individualism

Unfortunately, many of us don’t see things this way.  We love stubborn individualism so much that we praise it even when it results in the person sucking.  There is something tragically beautiful about sticking to your guns even when those guns are uncontrollably shooting everyone around you.  Hell, this phenomenon is the basis for Donald Trump’s poll numbers.

After his McCain comments, literally any sensible human being would have been like, “I gravely misspoke, and I seriously apologize.  Of course the guy who can no longer lift his arms because he refused to leave a POW camp early because it ‘wasn’t his turn’ is infinitely more heroic than my bloated orange ass can even fathom.”  That’s what any reasonable person would say, of course.

But there’s something appealing to people about being unreasonably true to who you are, what you’ve said, and what you’ve done.  There’s something so alluring about somebody shitting their pants on national TV, and then looking into the camera and saying, “I meant to do that.  That’s who I am.  Fuck you.”

The problem with doing this, as you might have guessed, is that then you have to walk around with shit in your pants, which is unpleasant for you, and torture for everybody else.

Nobody wants to walk around with poopy pants.  The only reason Trump is able to do it is because he’s convinced he has “The best smelling shit in the world.  People everywhere tell me my poop smells like strawberries.”

The Trump phenomenon is a perfect example of the danger of exalting of stubborn individualism in the wrong context.  If you take the premise to its full conclusion that everyone should always stay true to themselves no matter what, pedophiles should molest kids because deep down, that’s who they are and what they want to do.  That’s literally the justification NAMBLA uses to fuck boys.

This is why we shouldn’t always stick to our guns.  This is why we should recognize when we’re Trumping/NAMBLA-ing (they’re literally the same thing), and apologize for what we are, and wipe the shit out of our underwear.

That’s what I’ve been trying to do even though I truly was happy in my old life, and there’s a reason why.

Being Happy with Yourself Isn’t Enough

A few years ago, I was an awkward, anti-social, narcissistic shut-in, and I was proud of that.  Nobody believed me, but I truly was a happy person.  I felt those things made me who I was–somebody who didn’t feel the need to fit in with this world, who’s separation from the world allowed them to maintain objectivity, who was able to achieve the rare human miracle of being happy by themselves.

Or as most would call it, a loser loner weirdo with a mass shooter vibe.  I mean this is still my driver’s license picture.

But even though I was happy and proud, it’s worth noting that because of this pride, I was adding nothing to the world other than bad masturbation jokes that nobody read, I wasn’t advancing in my life at all, and I was missing out on things that actually made me even more happy, like human contact, effective communication in my writing, and being a part of my family.  I never called my mom, I never kept in touch with my friends, I ate terribly, and though I had self-confidence, it was shitty, wrong self-confidence that led me to proudly march in the wrong direction.  These aren’t things to be proud of.  They objectively blow.

So How Do We Change?

The simple solution to all of this would be to blow up your personality and start from scratch.  Throw the fedora in the fire and find Jesus.  Lose your sense of humor and focus only on your studies.  Decide you no longer like competition and are now really into taxidermy.

Almost none of us should do this.  Even the worst of us have good qualities, and those are worth holding onto.  Osamabin Ladin might have been great at parties.  He just really needed to work on the whole “murderous terrorist” thing.

So we need to find a way to differentiate between what we should change and what we should maintain.  In my experience, this takes a unique kind of self-evaluation.  Most think of self-evaluation as looking inward, but for me, it’s been about looking outward, and asking questions based on that.

What is this actually doing for me?
Are my good intentions accomplishing anything?
How is this impacting others?
Is doing what feels right leading to positive over all results?
Or am I just jerking off into the world’s hair?

(Still with the masturbation jokes.  Shame on me.)

In order to understand this, you have to observe how you’re interacting in the world around you, and you also need to actually listen to others–particularly people you know and trust.

Of course, this doesn’t mean you should blindly follow someone’s objections or complaints.  There are totally times when 15 of your friends tell you to not do something, and every single one of them is wrong.  But you should listen to people, and ponder the points they’re making.

Basically, fuck objections.  Listen to persuasions.

You shouldn’t not perform with a confederate flag because someone is like “Take the flag down!”  Fuck that guy. He doesn’t have to watch.  But when your friend says, “Hey, I know this isn’t your intention, but I think you’re kind of riling up some awful people in that crowd with a ‘yeah, bring back black slavery!’ fury,” maybe it’s time to think about what you’re doing.

I’ve tried all of this, and I’m happy to say I’ve shed some of my proverbial background Confederate flag.  Not all the way.  I’m still probably about 96% of the person I was 5 years ago.  I still lose touch with my friends.  I still tell jerk-off jokes no one reads.  I still don’t call my mom enough.

But I do try to listen to people, and I try to communicate with them instead of just my subconscious, and I’ve lost some of that delusional self-confidence.   I have a better sense of reality, I’m trying to get better, and that’s the key.

These methods are flawed of course, because they’re based on subjective human evaluation.  Some will do the most effective self-evaluation they can, and still conclude that “stopping the faggots” is a great idea. 

It’s also flawed because many people just won’t want to do it.  You don’t want to proudly be who you are, and then find out that you’re a dick.  You’ll feel like an idiot.  It’s a square kick in the ego’s nuts to admit that the person you’ve been strutting around as for the last couple decades totally sucks ass.

So how do we protect our egos while looking to improve ourselves?

The key, I think, might be in loving your attempt to change your faults.  Become obsessed with how great you are at trying to be better–even if you fail.  Take pride in the attempt to change.  Take pride in the one step forward you take before you inevitably fall seven steps back.   That’s okay.  It’s okay to keep sucking, as long as you’re really trying not to.

So stand tall and take pride in the best parts of who you are, and take even more pride in the fact that you’re only going to get better.

I guess what I’m really saying is, throw yourself a flag burning party.