Be neither a conformist nor a rebel, for they are really the same thing. 
Find your own path, and stay on it.  (Paul Vixie)

When those two lines crossed my path yesterday it gave rise to me it began a line of thinking about my tendency to rebel.  Whatever the norm has been I seem to always have to find a few ways to go against the grain.  Is it because I am uniquely original?  In at least a few ways how I act and what I do falls within the unique realm.  It is also clear to me that my nonconformist approach is actually a manner of conforming to some ideal I have set for myself that clouds a self-view of who and what I actually am.

There is within me a paradox of wanting to fit in and a desire to be different from every one else.  Those two forces pull me in opposing directions and stretch the center of my being where the “who and what” I truly am exists.  This pulling in opposite tracks has gone on for so long, it is frequently unclear where the boundaries of my own truth actually are.

To illustrate that point, I am uncertain if my lack of interest in sports is because I was never particularly good at them or I was never good at sports because I was never interested.  That began so long ago in childhood I have no idea what the clear answer is.  Whatever the root of behavior, my disinterest today in sports is real although I have no idea where it is rooted.

There is been a mustache, goatee or beard on my face for 31 years except for a few days here and there when I would cleanly shave everything off.  Immediately I would dislike seeing myself clean shave in the mirror and allow the whisker re-growth to begin.  Am I giving in to habit or personal taste?  I really don’t know as I began wearing facial hair so I did not look so much like my father who I strongly resemble except he was always clean shaven.

The clothing I wear today is mostly conventional and traditional.  Yet, I always have to have a few accents I think of as just being myself.  I wear my wrist watch upside down, a habit that began in 6th grade as a tribute of a beloved teacher who did the same.  I wear a short stand of mala beads on my right wrist and say it is to remind me of what I believe it.  Yet, I know part of wearing them is to make a statement about being different.  How much of each I am frankly uncertain.

The longer I thought about what I perceived as my rebellion, the more I have gotten in touch with how I had given in to conformity.  I remember well still wearing jeans to work in my late 20’s and not being taken seriously by upper management.  That was when I decided to cut my hair shorter and start wearing dress pants, blazers and ties.  Over time that played a part in changing the perception of others, but dressing up was not something I ever really cared for.  I was promoted, but I wonder how much was due to my self imposed dress code and how much was due to my change of outlook.  Today you will be hard pressed to ever find me in a tie unless circumstance dictates I have not other choice.  Does that mean I have at least in this instance found a little of my true self?

Realizing I am dating myself, I will readily admit I protested against the Vietnam War in the early 70’s and was a sign-carrying proud hippie at the time.  However, looking back I am hard pressed to sort how much was based on my true political beliefs and how much was to fit in and be a part of a group I identified with.  Even at this distance of years, I believe there was a measure of both in my behavior.

Certainly there are burdens that come with age, but for me there is also a benefit of a slow clearing of the fog that hides my self from “me”.   The “who am I” question was one I often asked in my younger years, but lacking long term experience of living an answer never echoed back in response.  With five decades plus of life knowledge, today when I ask myself “who am I” bits and pieces of answers actually do come if I am patient.  Slowly but surely I am discovering which parts of me that come from rebellion, which ones come from conformity and which parts has always been true and real to my nature.  While my view of self will always be incomplete and not completely in focus, I am grateful for the understanding as it comes.  Often this period of my life is the most unsettling and uncertain, but it is also the most rewarding as I find the peace of truly coming to know my self.  I am thankful for this bit of personal evolution!

All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another.  Anatole France