Self-expression

Who we are is not necessarily the same with who we appear to be. Often people hide their true nature just because
they feel they would not fit in the society, or that they would not be understood by it. Unfortunately, most of these worries
are legitimate since society is perhaps the most cruel and intransigent judge of all. Indeed, once society assumed something
was wrong it is very hard to turn around this opinion and make it better again. Thus, there is no wonder why many choose
to lead a double existence, an inner life hidden away from prying eyes and another one, developed especially for the
survival in our world.
Convention and stereotypes are the true causes for which we do not express ourselves as we really are. Even from
childhood, our parents and the school teach us the values of life, what is right and what is wrong, what we should like and
what not, what kind of behavior to accept as suitable and what to reject, with whom to make friends and so on. And then, as
we reach the border line between adolescence and maturity, they finally tell us we should think on our own and always
keep an open mind! But how can one do so, since society has already taught him its values and conceptions, which one
must subject to in order to live properly? It is this “properly” that kills self-expression, because we do not learn to be
ourselves but to be an individual in the society. That is why, the common suggestion is “be yourself, but never forget you
are part of a higher “institution” that controls you, the society!”
Our world is slowly turning into a world of patterns, which are thought to make life easier and more comfortable
for as many people as possible. But creating all this standards, one must look up to, we actually infringe the true nature of
man, which is to be unique, different from the others, complex and marvelous in its own way. We invented standard
uniforms, standard houses, standard jobs, standard vacations, forms which everyone has to mould on. Everything is known
in advanced, almost like we wouldn’t care for any spontaneity in our lives. For all these reasons, if a person is somehow
atypical, we immediately push him out from our world and what’s more, we consider even this “the right thing to do.”
Let’s not forget completely that people were created different, each have their special needs which cannot be
fulfilled in the same way. Rejecting the new, means only a step back to the Dark Ages, when everything out of the ordinary
was instantly regarded as a heresy. Modern society considers itself open-minded and ready to assimilate everything, but
prejudice and stereotypes have not yet disappeared and it seems they never will. As long as we continue to preach the
“right” values, the “proper” behavior, the “respectable” man, we actually “develop” the common man, the man who does
everything by the book, but who is actually no one.