I thought about this topic after I finished reading The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams. I’d like to share something she said: “How reassuring it must be to know how you should act: like having a definition of yourself written clearly in black type.”

This is an apt description of a person who conforms in totality to what someone has either dictated or requested of them. Soldiers have to conform to specificity because it’s literally a matter of life and death, but what about the average person who follows what others want to see as if they were in a movie or play (or “reality” TV)? Sometimes the director is totally unaware of the person’s true nature and only wants them to be the perception they’ve always believed.

I think the reality TV casts are the best examples of this type of conformity. They may not have a written script, but they are definitely acting the way that they think people expect them to. I’m sure that some of how they are on screen is a glimpse of their true personalities, but embellishment is read between the lines. What I want to know is if the embellishment is who they themselves are or want to be, or if they believe it is what is expected of them.

And for those of us who are not on screen, we still follow certain scripts because we conform to specific settings and circumstances because we anticipate what others expect of us. I have yet to meet the person who maintains the same disposition in every situation.

Of course this is how stereotypes are born. Each person follows the rules and regulations of a particular group so that they become the common characteristics of the majority in that particular group. What is wrong with this picture? The classification of a much larger population of people who share similarities such as color or sex being categorized as a single group. There is too much diversity within those two groups to generalize them all and to expect them all to follow the same rules and regulations.

Speaking of conformity, it still mystifies me when I see people who believe they are unique when all they are really doing is finding a cliché that best fits them and conforming to that cliché. I’m thinking of groups like goths because every young person within those groups that I’ve encountered has stated that they are just expressing themselves and they don’t want to be like anybody else. But they are just acting like every other goth.

Finding your way by trying out different roles is one thing; but finding it on someone else’s path is detrimental to your well being. I know we’re still going to pretend for others for the most part, but I would like to believe that people are more willing to be who they truly are, not who they think others believe they are.