This is a difficult one. Because it’s a question that I don’t have an answer to. I’m still exploring it, and I probably will be for most of my life.
Let’s set the stage: The other men at my job decided to engage in something very basic and masculine – find out who could lift the most of something that was very awkward and heavy. When I discovered this impromptu contest, I loudly proclaimed that their behavior was stupid. They pressured me to try it anyway. I remained firm in my position.
So it’s quite a simple situation, really. And is like so many others. There are some particular details about this that might be interesting to explore, but in the end, things boil down very far, into the most essential, basic questions about what it means to be an individual who lives among others.
My Premises
My argument basically came down to a certain set of beliefs. First, I believe that the urge to conform to the standards of others is a weakness. This is an obvious result of my home-schooling and religious upbringing. I learned from the stories of martyrs that remaining firm in one’s beliefs in the face of pressure was the truest strength. And I was taught that I was a special, unique person, purely because I had been home-schooled; I had been saved from the cookie-cutter effect of “institutionalized schooling” and was free to be my own unique person. Which was its own lie, but that’s a topic for another time.
Second, I believe that one of the most toxic parts of masculinity is its tendency to push men to do dangerous things, for the simple reason that they are dangerous. As someone who enjoys being alive, and is relatively goal-focused (read: strategic approach to life), I really don’t like taking unnecessary risks. So, for example, I’ve never broken a bone, and am quite happy with that. Picking up heavy things, when there was a strong possibility of breaking my back, clearly wasn’t going to interest me, and I was disappointed (though not surprised) that so many of the guys that I respect would engage in something so unneeded and risky.
Exploring a Self
Now, I know that this set of beliefs handicaps me in certain ways. Important ways, even. Because I know that friendship is essentially an exploration of sameness, sometimes within difference, but always coming back to sameness. Friendships are built around similar lifestyles, similar pasts, similar beliefs, similar interests, similar ways of thinking. As C.S. Lewis wrote, “The typical expression of opening Friendship would be something like, ‘What? You too? I thought I was the only one.’” And my distaste for the idea of conformation makes friendship difficult. I’ve over-focused, perhaps, on making sure that I am fulfilling my own unique self, and now I find it hard to exist within a setting that involves other people being different than me. Which is such an unexpected life problem to have to deal with.
Which isn’t to say, of course, that I am alone and friendless and all dramatic and stuff. I mean, I am dramatic, but I try to rein it in. I have friends, and family, and an amazing wife. But every time I think that my male coworkers are idiots for something or other, I remember that, in that moment, I have set myself apart from them. It’s a strange feeling.
I’ve had a thought recently, that a fundamental part of an individual’s identity is the set of things that he or she is elitist about. Shortly after, I came across a quote, as I read Dune by Frank Herbert, who is an immensely better writer than I: “What do you despise? By this are you truly known.” So, in a way, an individual is such to the extent that he holds himself apart from the group. As the set of things that a person “despises” grows, they cut themselves off from certain parts of other people’s experience. Individualism is loss.
But at the same time, to not go through the process of learning who you yourself are, is to lose so much of life. One cannot traverse life entirely caring only what others think and feel. One must know oneself as well. And I don’t know how to balance that.
A Quick Aside
I pressed one of my coworkers for explanation (though I will note that I was shamefully uninterested in actually understanding his thought process, and far more in arguing with it as much as I could). He said that they were doing it to prove to each other that they could. I eventually rebutted “To seek validation is weakness.” — because that’s how I say things when I’m in a philosophical mood.
I think I believe that. Though, even if I do, I know I’m a dirty hypocrite. Because, had the challenge been in something that I am actually skilled in, that I have committed life energy to learning, I would absolutely have shown it off, and I would’ve hoped for accolades in doing so. But, at the same time, I think I may have something there. To submit your being, your self, for inspection of others, to say that they are judge of the value of your identity, because you cannot be that for yourself, is a type of weakness.
But at the same time, the term “weakness” makes it sound like a moral failing, and it totally isn’t. It doesn’t make me or you a bad person for needing validation and a confidence boost from other people. But it does hold us back. And if we give that power to the wrong people, it can destroy us.
Towards a Conclusion: How to Be Yourself
I wasn’t sure, for a long time, where else to go with this. I felt like I was left with an impossible situation: The degree to which you focus on finding yourself, on being distinct and unique, is the degree to which you will find it difficult to identify with and relate to other people. To know yourself is to isolate yourself. It feels like a choice between isolating yourself through your self-integrity, or letting your own identity be swallowed up in the mass of people around you. And both options kinda suck.
I was, of course, completely wrong. On so many counts.
First, I completely missed the whole point of friendship that I mentioned above. If everyone was like, “Oh, I don’t actually have any strong likes or dislikes; no interesting ideas or theories; and no special interests” there would be no friends. And that is a truly awful prospect. I missed that ending: “I thought I was the only one” – friendships are made through similar interests, precisely because those interests are not universal. It’s true, I was separating myself from these men, but I was focusing on that so much (purely because I spend so much of my time around them) that I forgot that my closest, most meaningful friendships are built around the same traits that were separating me. To throw that away, merely so that I would feel slightly less different at work, would be utter foolishness.
Second, I had concluded that being an individual means cutting yourself off from human experience. There is an element of truth to that, but there is still a bridge to those other realms. It’s called Empathy. Not in the usual sense of “You are in pain, and I understand why, and your feelings are valid.” But in the much more general sense of “I don’t know anything about this part of the world that you are in, but I am genuinely interested in hearing more.” In this scenario, I wasn’t seeking to understand what they were doing – I was casting judgment. Of course I felt separated – that’s what judgment does. I was the one doing the separating, while blaming them. I was so wrong to do so. Instead of declaring that they were all stupid conformists who are going to hurt themselves, maybe I should’ve just said that I wasn’t really interested, and urged them to be careful. This would’ve been the moderate choice, and I did not see it.
There’s a difference between a boundary, saying “This is me, and that is you, and this difference is a good thing” – and a wall, saying “This is me, and that over there is you, and you must stay away.”
P.S.
It’s funny how thinking about things can take so long, sometimes. At the time of writing this sentence, this event happened more than a month ago. And, at the end, it wasn’t even that profound a solution to figure out.
Remind me about this the next time I start feeling especially smart.