Licking the Razor's Edge (2015)

It is only one example among many, and yet it clearly illustrates an important Truth:
exercising our freedom to conform ensures the loss of that very freedom.
*CONFORMITY ADDICTION CREATES HOLLOW RELATIONSHIPS …
The impulse to judge those who are different as “strange”, “weird” or even “dangerous”
is extremely strong in humans. This causes us not only to shun and ridicule those
brilliantly “odd” individuals who have so much to offer us (and our communities), it
makes our relationships with friends and loved ones brittle as well.
When love is given conditionally, it becomes weak. As such, whenever we “love” our
friends and family members because they are like us, our Love for them becomes based
not in who they truly are, but whether or not how they are choosing to behave and
function “appropriately”. This is not real Love, and our “loved ones” know it.
As a consequence, our relationships lose their depth of intimacy, a depth that can only
come when Caring is detached from performance and given unconditionally —
regardless of how the other looks or talks or acts or believes. In essence, though our
conformity pulls us tightly together, it actually keeps us far apart.
*CONFORMITY ADDICTION MAKES LIFE MEANINGLESS …
Conformity encourages us to behave “normally”. It wants us to have a “good job”, own
“important stuff” and do the “right thing”. We are persuaded to be “responsible” to our
family, friends and country. And we do so … we adopt a cookie-cutter life — not
because we want to, but rather because we feel like we have no choice. And this is where
our Soul begins to “fade” …
Instead of following our dreams, we take whatever job we can get and hold onto it no
matter what – even if it involves doing things that violate our own principles.
Instead of choosing to Love our partners for all their Good Qualities, we bemoan that we
are “stuck with them” – and distance ourselves from them emotionally.
Instead of serving our community in ways that are small-yet-significant, we live lives of
not-so-quiet desperation; enduring meaningless days enslaved to repetitive routines,
exhausting obligations and mindless habits.
In essence, in striving to fit in to our culture, our lives are no longer fit to live.
“It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”
~ Krishnamurti
“If you stand up and be counted, from time to time you may get yourself knocked down.
But remember this: A man flattened by an opponent can get up again. A man flattened by
conformity stays down for good.” ~ Thomas J. Watson, Jr.
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