“She said her favorite color was black and I knew she was lying.” said Kestae.
“And that’s why you got in a fight?” I asked.
“Well yeah, I sort of just exploded on her for copying me. I don’t care what her favorite color is. I just want it to be her favorite color.” replied the 9-year-old.
There’s a significant part of me that resonates with Kestae- that desperately wants people to like what they like and to be okay with their preferences. On occasion I unabashedly listen to country music and I make no qualms about it. Keith Urban holds a special place in my heart. And you know what, I don’t care how many of my friends think he’s lame, I’m still going to listen with pride and considerable enjoyment. It’s freeing, being able to decidedly like what you like without the need for approval.
I’ve spent a good amount of time thinking about what individualism is and how it fits into community. I’ve wrestled with what healthy individualism looks like and what it doesn’t. Sometimes I have days where my desire to be an “individual” is so strong that I find myself pressing up against anything that my friends like. If everyone is reading Donald Miller, I’m reading Grace Paley. If everyone is listening to Fleet Foxes, I’m listening to, well, Keith Urban. There’s a serious problem with this sort of thinking though- a kin to herd mentality- the person who fights tooth and nail for individualism is actually not an individualist. In fact, the person who has to fight to be different never gets to experience what they want. Fighting is reacting and reacting is not choosing.
Both the conformist and the hyper individualist fall prey to a weak sense of self. Even in high school this was apparent. On one side, there were the kids who wore Abercrombie & Fitch everyday because they just wanted to blend. On the other side, there were the kids who lived in the perpetual state of Halloween because they were so afraid of not being seen. In both instances, you have people who are scared and lost and unsure of what they really want. You have a collection of people who have no idea who they are; perhaps that’s why high school is so toxic for so many. In the end, it doesn’t matter what side you fall on, you never get to be yourself because you’re preoccupied with the pending approval of those around you.
Our responsibility as children of God is to be individuals. I’ll say it again because I believe it so much. Our responsibility as children of God is to be individuals- to wear the names we’ve been given and to live out the vision he has for our lives. I used to think this was wrong, the desire to be uniquely me, but I’ve come to know that if we actually believe in this whole “body of Christ” idea, we’ve got to get serious about becoming the people he’s called us to be. This means embracing who we are and trusting that because of his goodness, we’re significant enough to fit in the grander kingdom picture.
What we are not responsible for is living out the desires of those around us. If we find ourselves only motivated by the efforts and dreams of other people, we’re living a reality that is not our own; we’re vicariously living through someone else. And similar to pageant moms, it’s never a pretty sight. There’s something remarkable about the notion “This is what I wanted because I wanted it, not because it made my neighbors like me.”
The false self, the one that rises and falls on the desires of other men is a pleaser, a hoax, a mere generic. The copied self is a fraud and a lie that’s never going to make you feel okay with yourself. If we aren’t thinking for ourselves we’ll essentially become people who simply act and respond, opposed to people who dream and become. We’ve all been given independent judgment. Don’t be so quick to ignore it for the sake of someone else.
The way I see the world is unique; the way you see the world is unique. Our preferences are of value. The things that we can create with our own two hands are of importance. We can’t go on not knowing who we are, we can’t go on forging the flavor of the week; because if we do, it’s certain we’ll begin to look like the Great Value brand found at Wal-Mart.
Ayn Rand talks about the individual being against the collective. But the more I learn and the more I come to value the individual, the more I see her thinking as faulty. Not only is it faulty, it’s dismal. I believe in a different future for the individualist. A future that says the individual is the collective. The individualist alone is weak, but when a group of people who own their uniqueness join together and share their lives they can become the new collective. The true individualist has no need to fear conformity if they’re really who they say they are. A yellow crayon doesn’t have to run around demanding its color- people just see that it is yellow. It lives in the box with all the other colors and never loses its yellowness. The more important reality is, is that yellow isn’t nearly as beautiful as the palette comprised of the colors of a sunset.
And that’s the vision in all of this- it’s my hope for all of us- that we would become people convinced of our worth and our ability to add to the conversation. That we would be individuals who are the collective.
