Whoever said blue and green should never be seen obviously never saw bright blue skies over the green fields of England on a midsummer's day.
I was walking through Sainsbury's the other day, perilously close to the chocolate and confectionary aisle, which has caused me a lot of problems of late. I say problems but more accurately I am referring to clumsiness. You see I keep accidentally knocking boxes of Jaffa Cakes and chocolate orange Kit Kats in to my basket. As if that's not clumsy enough, I also keep accidentally paying for them and then accidentally eating them. However, I digress.
As I was perusing the finest wares that Sainsbury's has to offer, I overheard something which I found rather sad. A young mother was hovering near some kind of Disney stand with her son who I estimate to have been perhaps around 4 years old. The boy was admiring the handiwork of the Disney accessories and picking up a pink Disney hairband, he asked his mum if he could have one. Now, she's probably a good mum and wants only the best for her son and could have any number of reasons for rejecting his plea -- perhaps money is tight and she couldn't afford it. The reason she gave though, suggests otherwise.
"You don't want that -- it's for girls."
Okay, so that moment is hardly going to change his life, but 100 of those moments might. He'd forgotten about the hairband as soon as his mum declined the idea, but it's worth thinking about. What is this incessant need for people to conform? The fact that he had asked for a traditionally feminine accessory evidences the idea that his 4-year-old brain wasn't bothered about what others might think and that much must have been clear to his Mum. So if he wasn't bothered, why was his mum? The thing is, do we want a world of conformist followers or do we want a world of pioneers? Of course, there is nothing wrong with following a good idea that benefits society, but what is the actual advantage of a boy not wearing a pink headband?
Conformity results in soldiers committing war crimes because they can tell themselves that they are just following the orders of their governments. Conformity results in millions of women trying to achieve an ideal look based on what interns at glossy magazines can do with Photoshop. Conformity results in millions of Russians having to suppress their sexuality because there is a small chance they'll get beaten to death in the street if they reveal it. Conformity is the enemy of creativity and allows others to control one's destiny.
If astronomers like Galileo had completely conformed, we might still be scared to sail past America for fear of falling off of the edge of the world. You can just imagine the sort of thing he must have heard a lot -- "You can't go around saying the world is spherical -- people will think you're odd." Just because a million people say you're wrong and nobody else agrees with you, doesn't mean they are right.
Natural selection favors diversity -- you only have to look around you to see that. If you want to walk around the shops in your pyjamas, then do it. If you want to dip your Mars Bar in your coffee then do it -- there's probably somebody else, somewhere in the world, who does that. Probably -- I wouldn't know. Nope. Definitely would have no idea about that. Whatsoever.
Worried that somebody might think you're crazy? Worried that everybody even, might think you're crazy? Well the worry might be well-founded but it doesn't really have any practical use. And ask yourself this, what's odder? Being you or pretending to be somebody else?
Be different.
Be you.