If you read his blog regularly, you'll realize he is an advocate of a variety controversial ideas: open borders, natalism, the educational signalling theory, the idea that how you raise your children (within normal non-abusive bounds) is irrelevant.
This guy sounds less like a non-conformist and more like a really self-centred sociopath. I don't necessarily say that in a derogatory way though, and most of his advice, if pragmatic, sounds unsurprising. I think it boils down to "don't be a tool to other people's faces".
I mean wow, this quote: "Treat your family fairly, but remember that relatives - especially older relatives - are the lords of empty threats. Despite all their criticism, they probably love you too much to do more than nag you." One would think he's doing a hostile takeover of a company!
I've come to exactly that conclusion about my family. I love them but frankly their concern for me translates into very little benefit for anyone. Also their criticisms were largely born of themselves and served primarily to limit me.
I have never had an actual _conversation_ with my own mother (single parent home) who is now in her 70s. Every attempt at a discussion has always ended up without her actually trying to listen and heaping on (berating) criticism that is either coming from her own shortcomings/fears (and she's a very fearful person) or she'll interrupt me and heap on criticism based on what she thinks I'm going to say. At least that's how it's been since I was too big for her to continue to beat me.
There hasn't been a shred of concern for my own interests and goals and in my 30s I don't expect that to change from her. She's been trying to break up my older brother's marriage for near 20 years (after successfully driving his previous partner away and a few of mine). She wasn't invited to my brother's wedding and if I ever meet someone that I care about again, she will not get to meet them. Ever.
If I were more cynical, I would say that every time our goals aren't lock-step with her goals for us, she makes a concerted effort for us to fail, but I imagine that she really thinks she has the best of intentions. She is just crazy.
So sure, love your family, but that doesn't mean your family is good for you. If your family isn't good for you, limit their ability to do damage in your life. If you can't do that, cut them off.
Good call, this is an excelent community with some hearthbreaking stories. There is also a whole network of subreddits on the topic, some very active (lower right sidebar).
But in all seriousness, it looks like it's a book by "venture capitalist, PayPal co-founder, and early Facebook investor Peter Thiel along with Blake Masters". If it's an article, it isn't on the first page of DDG or google.
Responses like this are why the overwhelming majority of social skills advice is either useless bullshit or actively harmful. Someone thinks hard after reflecting on the low lessons he's learned and the response is some form of accusation of mental illness or abnormality.
All useful social skills advice makes the writer sound like an asshole because being nice all the time, to everybody is for saints/idiots and plenty of social games are zero or negative sum.
> being nice all the time, to everybody is for saints/idiots and plenty of social games are zero or negative sum.
Sure, but that's only because the rest of us are being nice frequently enough that your statement is true. If everyone decided to start “gaming” social interactions, i'm not sure we'd be left with a society i would want to live in... Part of the social contract, i think, involves not emphasising what chumps everyone is for following it. For pragmatic reasons.
> Sure, but that's only because the rest of us are being nice frequently enough that your statement is true.
No, playing cooperate bot and being nice to everybody all the time really is a losing strategy and many social games really are zero or negative sum. This has absolutely nothing to do with how often other people are nice. They are facts about the world not moral judgments.
> If everyone decided to start “gaming” social interactions, i'm not sure we'd be left with a society i would want to live in...
Probably not but it would at least have the virtue of honesty. Your preferences are a fact about you, not deep statements about reality. The universe does not care and your descendants 200 years hence will be as different from you as you are from your ancestors in 1815. If we're around that long, we'll all be monsters to some. Morality is mostly, perhaps entirely fashion and economics.
> Part of the social contract, i think, involves not emphasising what chumps everyone is for following it. For pragmatic reasons.
The social contract is a very, very misleading metaphor. The world of zero and negative sum social games is the one we actually live in. All human progress has come from expanding the domain of the positive sum games but the other kinds will never go away. The universe is limited and our desires are not.
If you want a treatment of what a world based on this very cynical truth would look like I recommend beginning here.
tl;dr: choose your battles; work hard; kiss ass. Doesn't feel very non-conformist to me. However i do like his appreciation of the role of luck, although even that was cursory. All a bit self-congratulatory, and not much to surprise.
As a serious non-conformist, those were actually the hardest lessons to learn. I changed the clothing I wear (which doesn't matter much to me), how I communicate, and stopped alienating people over things which don't matter. That me non-conform on the things which do matter a lot more and a lot more successfully.
Ironic that every author pic on that site seems to show at least a dress shirt, and commonly a suit. (I'm sure it looks nice, but such clothing undeniably is used to signal conformity, and these authors conform to a dress code.)
Then, "Most workplaces are not democracies. This is very good news..." advising: "make yourself invaluable to key superiors, who will in turn protect and promote you" and "Spend the first year of any job convincing your employer he was right to hire you..."
(He's right, workplaces are unusually totalitarian: top-down dominance structures. Hence advice to pleasure your boss.)
These right-wing "libertarians" are conformists. To recruit, they clumsily imitate social justice movements (like anarchism) where people actually do challenge the status quo. Their arguments against democracy rely on misconceptions like "US is a democracy"; or "democracy=voting", instead of say consensus.
Yes, I saw the stock photo with the suit/tie. But then the text does mention shorts/pumps. So I imagine that the stock photo is an example of conforming in small details.
Quote from item 12: "Modern societies are huge, anonymous, and forgetful.". Perhaps not so much in the future?
Item 15 was lovely. I'm off out now on a nice autumn day in the UK to find some awesomeness. There is Rugby, and the trees are turning colour.
>Ironic that every author pic on that site seems to show at least a dress shirt, and commonly a suit. (I'm sure it looks nice, but such clothing undeniably is used to signal conformity, and these authors conform to a dress code.)
In this day and age you're actually a non-conformist in most situations if you wear a suit.
Especially as everyone else, even the President often, wears some casual clothes to look non-conformist.
Americans believe in myths about their non-conformist culture. Fact is that all cultures are highly conformist. And Americans are highly conformist in their highly consumerist culture that expresses non-conformity as a key aspect of the culture as a way to stimulate thought and creative destruction. However, at the same time there are huge barriers to taking full advantage of the non-conformist culture which is mainly money. To get money you have to conform, and to get more money you have to conform even more... while at the same time being individualistic and non-conformist in your thinking.
I couldn't tell if this was real or satire until the last sentence. I mean, it reads like not very subtle satire - like a 14 year old snowflake on tumblr wrote it. But people in the comments there and here are taking it seriously. And it's really not that much of a stretch to believe someone in Academia would actually think this way and publish it.
The importance of non-conformity is basically zero.
If you enjoy something, does it matter how many or how few feel the same?
Sure, it's nice when you have shared interests with others, but it's doesn't matter if they're not. Your interests do not have to define who you are, do not have to define how you interact with others. Preconceived notions of worth based on popularity will only cloud your view of what's enjoyable to you.
Non conformity is not something you choose as a tool (if you're a thinking adult of course). It's a consequence of your beliefs and reasoning, which you will not give up no matter the benefits.
Everyone is likely to have a mix of niche and mainstream interests, when they stop concerning themselves with fitting into a narrow vision of who they are.
Can you still be a non-conformist if you have similar interests to the mainstream?
A person who isn't concerned with confirming isn't s noon-conformist, someone who is actively concerned with not conforming is.
You can be a non-conformist and have mainstream interests, but just as a conformist will neglect non-mainstream interests for the sake of conformity, a non-conformist will do the reverse.
Now people will get labeled by others as conformist or non-conformist based on outward signs, and this will often be overly inclusive since someone who is neutral to conformity cannot, in some cases, easily be distinguished outwardly from a conformist, if their interests are mainstream, or a non-conformist, if they are not.
When people attach the label of non-conformist to themselves, what must they do to maintain that label?
To me, most labels we attach to ourselves requires a certain level of maintenance. If I call myself a geek I have attached that label to certain interests I have, if those interests change does the label lose its meaning?
What I'm really saying is that a self-identified non-conformist has influenced their tastes in the future, whether they admit it or not. If that label is applied by others then it need not have the same effect.
>If you enjoy something, does it matter how many or how few feel the same?
It can be a sign of how original your thoughts are and whether you were just conditioned to enjoy that something, plus whether there's a huge universe of other things there (even more enjoyful and/or benefitional) that you were not told about as you just go with the flow of other people/fashion/etc.
"It can be a sign of how original your thoughts are"
I'm not trying to be intentionally difficult, but what does it matter how original an idea is, why measure it in that way? Is the idea satisfying, that's more interesting.
And it's important if you believe that living your life as a non-questioning-anything person that automatically follows what everybody else does and doesn't explore other avenues is not the optimal way to live it.
If you don't believe that, then it doesn't matter how original an idea is. Heck, in that case, as long as you're OK with it, then doesn't even matter if you're living in some religious sect, conditioned by some BS-artist leader to do whatever he wants.
Originallity is something for us people who believe that finding the "real you" etc is worth it to worry about. If this sounds circular it's because it is. Ultimately lifestyle choices come to a value judgement not dependent upon other things.
"Originallity is something for us people who believe that finding the "real you" etc is worth it to worry about."
Worth worrying about? Nothing is worth worrying about.
I think we both agree that it's good to have an open mind, but we disagree on the importance of originality. I don't care if an idea is mine or yours or anyone else's, I don't care if it's the first time anyone has thought about it or whether it has been thought of a million times before, the only question for me is is the idea satisfying, is it an idea I enjoy.
There's a difference between a compelling idea and the source of that idea. If I've come up with compelling ideas before I don't see that as 'me' or part of me. Genius can come from anywhere and from anyone, it's not a measure of your worth as a human being. The best you can do to encourage it is to be open to it, to prepare yourself for ideas that are new to you.
>Worth worrying about? Nothing is worth worrying about.
If we start from that premise, death, life being meaningless etc, maybe. But in that case replying to my comment is not worth it either, and me replying to yours even more so.
So clearly we either take this conversation as people who think there is stuff worth worrying about, or we don't have it at all, and go either have fun or kill ourselves.
>the only question for me is is the idea satisfying, is it an idea I enjoy.
Would you be OK to be confined for the rest on your life in a hospital bed, being fed a drug that would make you enjoy your every moment tremendously? From your perspective you'd be totally happy. You might not enjoy some part of the idea now, but you'd totally enjoy it when given that drug. Would you go with that?
If not, then you agree with me that enjoyment is not the be all end all in life, so whether an idea is "satisfying" is not "the only question".
>There's a difference between a compelling idea and the source of that idea. If I've come up with compelling ideas before I don't see that as 'me' or part of me. Genius can come from anywhere and from anyone, it's not a measure of your worth as a human being.
Again, I'm not talking about original as in "unique"/genius or whatever, but in original as in "autentic" (yours).
The distinction between taking your own decisions or merely and with little resistance and pause following fashion or what your father told you or what the official at the church of scientology or the cool kid at school told you to do...
"If we start from that premise, death, life being meaningless etc, maybe."
I believe life is what you make it, the value you get from it is directly related to what you put into it. So in some sense, life can be meaningless if you choose to make it so, and life can be meaningful if you choose to make it so. Some people don't like that view, which is fine, variety is the spice of life.
"But in that case replying to my comment is not worth it either, and me replying to yours even more so."
I'm not debating with you because I'm worried, I'm debating because it's fun.
"So clearly we either take this conversation as people who think there is stuff worth worrying about, or we don't have it at all, and go either have fun or kill ourselves."
So the alternatives to worry are to either have fun or kill yourself? I think you're a little confused about what self-reflection is, self-reflection and worry are not the same thing. For example, it's possible to self-reflect and laugh at the absurdity of your own views, it's possible to self-reflect without passing strong judgement, etc... .
"Would you be OK to be confined for the rest on your life in a hospital bed, being fed a drug that would make you enjoy your every moment tremendously? From your perspective you'd be totally happy. You might not enjoy some part of the idea now, but you'd totally enjoy it when given that drug. Would you go with that?
If not, then you agree with me that enjoyment is not the be all end all in life, so whether an idea is "satisfying" is not "the only question"."
I find it interesting that you mix satisfaction with falsehood. However, if you change the question to... Would you want to live a life where you regularly encountered moments that were genuinely satisfying/fascinating, then the answer would be yes, I would want that, I believe that'd be fun.
"Again, I'm not talking about original as in "unique"/genius or whatever, but in original as in "autentic" (yours).
The distinction between taking your own decisions or merely and with little resistance and pause following fashion or what your father told you or what the official at the church of scientology or the cool kid at school told you to do..."
Let me put it to you like this, can an idea that started from someone else be just as good for you as one that started from you?
Those would be fake non-conformists, then, if they are conditioned and go with the flow.
(And no, this is not a "no true scotchman" fallacy. This is going with an a priori definition of non-conformism -- in fact, the standard dictionary/common language one--, and judging whether people fit that criterion or not, whereas the "no true scotchman" fallacy is based on changing the criteria).
Besides, even buying "pre-packaged lifestyle goods" could still qualify you as a non-conformist, if you buy it from small providers that not many people use.
Being a non-conformist is not about creating your lifestyle totally yourself (that you be the extreme version), it's about not going with the majoirity lifestyle choices (whether they are considered typically "conformist" (like a Hugo Boss suite) or "non-conformist" (like some hipster beard or a tatoo).
Going with the flow only makes sense for a large flow -- not some small niche of a current that's alien to 99% of the population.
- Do you wear your pants on your chest and shirts on your legs?
- Do you actively proclaim that pedophilia is perfectly acceptable?
In my opinion, non-conformist is just another label, which sounds awfully conformist when you think about it.
Some people conform for stupid reasons (e.g. a need to feel accepted), but sometimes you find a group of like-minded individuals with similar interests. What then? Do you conform or not? What if you earnestly have the same interests?
Simple solution: How about just do/like whatever you like, and don't try to make everyone think you're a special snowflake? Because the majority of people in the world frankly don't give a shit.
You like 70's music? You like trashy horror flicks? You like furry art? Good for you. Continue to like it and stop trying to cast it as a radical act.
"How about just do/like whatever you like, and don't try to make everyone think you're a special snowflake"
So... be a non-conformist? A non-conformist maintains a notion of themselves as such not because they're trying to be a special snow-flake. They need a concept with which to analyze their problems. It's actually really hard to just do what you like and get away with it. Like you said, "the majority of people in the world frankly don't give a shit." No one out there is trying to figure out how to reward you for something they don't understand. Even if it's insanely valuable. There will always be rewards for simply adapting yourself to an existing concept. Anyone not doing that pays a significant penalty for which the conformist world is entirely ignorant. They won't care and they won't help you deal with it. Hence, non-conformists converge-on but don't necessarily conform-to this stereotype. The one in the corner complaining about the conformists.
I quite dislike when people think of themselves this much.
I'm a non-conformist / I'm a conformist / I'm an introvert/ I'm an extrovert / I'm a xyz / I'm an xzy...
No one fucking cares. There's self-reflection, and then there's self-absorbed blowing your own trumpet. The latter is decidedly repulsive. Coming from an Asian culture, I notice that Americans are particularly inclined to be this self-absorbed, wonder why.
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[ 5.3 ms ] story [ 109 ms ] threadMost of us just congratulate ourselves on our nonconformist privately though, not publically, like this guy.
At least, not from his non-conformist perspective.
I don't watch TV so in Germany I'm a minority. But of I only consider people my age (30) I'm probably normal.
I share a flat with my friend despite the fact that I Marke enough money to rent this whole thing alone.
Do these facts already make me non-conforming?
Most people here would probably say "no"
To convince most of them, I would have to add, that I work remotely and don't do monogamy anymore.
Also what is non-conformism an way? I'm not vegan, so in sense of eating I'm pretty conforming....
I was under the impression the opposite was the controversial idea.
I mean wow, this quote: "Treat your family fairly, but remember that relatives - especially older relatives - are the lords of empty threats. Despite all their criticism, they probably love you too much to do more than nag you." One would think he's doing a hostile takeover of a company!
I have never had an actual _conversation_ with my own mother (single parent home) who is now in her 70s. Every attempt at a discussion has always ended up without her actually trying to listen and heaping on (berating) criticism that is either coming from her own shortcomings/fears (and she's a very fearful person) or she'll interrupt me and heap on criticism based on what she thinks I'm going to say. At least that's how it's been since I was too big for her to continue to beat me.
There hasn't been a shred of concern for my own interests and goals and in my 30s I don't expect that to change from her. She's been trying to break up my older brother's marriage for near 20 years (after successfully driving his previous partner away and a few of mine). She wasn't invited to my brother's wedding and if I ever meet someone that I care about again, she will not get to meet them. Ever.
If I were more cynical, I would say that every time our goals aren't lock-step with her goals for us, she makes a concerted effort for us to fail, but I imagine that she really thinks she has the best of intentions. She is just crazy.
So sure, love your family, but that doesn't mean your family is good for you. If your family isn't good for you, limit their ability to do damage in your life. If you can't do that, cut them off.
https://www.reddit.com/r/raisedbynarcissists
a community of (and for) people dealing with similar problems.
(Not diagnosing your mother, but, let's say, a lot of actions look familiar)
My mother isn't entirely like busterarm's, but I recognize plenty of similarities, maybe mine has more self-discipline.
The world rewards non-conformists deeply if you do it right.
Doing it right is mostly finding something that contributes value to the world. A non-conformist collecting toothpicks? Not so much.
Zero-to-one is a great guide for non-conformists. This, not so much.
Is that a book or an article? Never heard of it. Care to give a pointer?
https://xkcd.com/138/
But in all seriousness, it looks like it's a book by "venture capitalist, PayPal co-founder, and early Facebook investor Peter Thiel along with Blake Masters". If it's an article, it isn't on the first page of DDG or google.
All useful social skills advice makes the writer sound like an asshole because being nice all the time, to everybody is for saints/idiots and plenty of social games are zero or negative sum.
Sure, but that's only because the rest of us are being nice frequently enough that your statement is true. If everyone decided to start “gaming” social interactions, i'm not sure we'd be left with a society i would want to live in... Part of the social contract, i think, involves not emphasising what chumps everyone is for following it. For pragmatic reasons.
No, playing cooperate bot and being nice to everybody all the time really is a losing strategy and many social games really are zero or negative sum. This has absolutely nothing to do with how often other people are nice. They are facts about the world not moral judgments.
> If everyone decided to start “gaming” social interactions, i'm not sure we'd be left with a society i would want to live in...
Probably not but it would at least have the virtue of honesty. Your preferences are a fact about you, not deep statements about reality. The universe does not care and your descendants 200 years hence will be as different from you as you are from your ancestors in 1815. If we're around that long, we'll all be monsters to some. Morality is mostly, perhaps entirely fashion and economics.
> Part of the social contract, i think, involves not emphasising what chumps everyone is for following it. For pragmatic reasons.
The social contract is a very, very misleading metaphor. The world of zero and negative sum social games is the one we actually live in. All human progress has come from expanding the domain of the positive sum games but the other kinds will never go away. The universe is limited and our desires are not.
If you want a treatment of what a world based on this very cynical truth would look like I recommend beginning here.
http://bactra.org/reviews/cassini-division/true-knowledge.ht...
http://crookedtimber.org/2015/05/19/ken-macleod-seminar-2/
http://crookedtimber.org/2015/05/15/rationalism-and-the-true...
Gaming a system involves manipulation.
Most forms of human manipulation involve deceit, which is the absence of honesty.
It's the Horatio Alger school of non-conformism...
Then, "Most workplaces are not democracies. This is very good news..." advising: "make yourself invaluable to key superiors, who will in turn protect and promote you" and "Spend the first year of any job convincing your employer he was right to hire you..."
(He's right, workplaces are unusually totalitarian: top-down dominance structures. Hence advice to pleasure your boss.)
These right-wing "libertarians" are conformists. To recruit, they clumsily imitate social justice movements (like anarchism) where people actually do challenge the status quo. Their arguments against democracy rely on misconceptions like "US is a democracy"; or "democracy=voting", instead of say consensus.
Quote from item 12: "Modern societies are huge, anonymous, and forgetful.". Perhaps not so much in the future?
Item 15 was lovely. I'm off out now on a nice autumn day in the UK to find some awesomeness. There is Rugby, and the trees are turning colour.
In this day and age you're actually a non-conformist in most situations if you wear a suit.
Especially as everyone else, even the President often, wears some casual clothes to look non-conformist.
I'm dedicated, but not /that/ dedicated.
If you enjoy something, does it matter how many or how few feel the same?
Sure, it's nice when you have shared interests with others, but it's doesn't matter if they're not. Your interests do not have to define who you are, do not have to define how you interact with others. Preconceived notions of worth based on popularity will only cloud your view of what's enjoyable to you.
Everyone is likely to have a mix of niche and mainstream interests, when they stop concerning themselves with fitting into a narrow vision of who they are.
Can you still be a non-conformist if you have similar interests to the mainstream?
You can be a non-conformist and have mainstream interests, but just as a conformist will neglect non-mainstream interests for the sake of conformity, a non-conformist will do the reverse.
Now people will get labeled by others as conformist or non-conformist based on outward signs, and this will often be overly inclusive since someone who is neutral to conformity cannot, in some cases, easily be distinguished outwardly from a conformist, if their interests are mainstream, or a non-conformist, if they are not.
To me, most labels we attach to ourselves requires a certain level of maintenance. If I call myself a geek I have attached that label to certain interests I have, if those interests change does the label lose its meaning?
What I'm really saying is that a self-identified non-conformist has influenced their tastes in the future, whether they admit it or not. If that label is applied by others then it need not have the same effect.
It can be a sign of how original your thoughts are and whether you were just conditioned to enjoy that something, plus whether there's a huge universe of other things there (even more enjoyful and/or benefitional) that you were not told about as you just go with the flow of other people/fashion/etc.
I'm not trying to be intentionally difficult, but what does it matter how original an idea is, why measure it in that way? Is the idea satisfying, that's more interesting.
And it's important if you believe that living your life as a non-questioning-anything person that automatically follows what everybody else does and doesn't explore other avenues is not the optimal way to live it.
If you don't believe that, then it doesn't matter how original an idea is. Heck, in that case, as long as you're OK with it, then doesn't even matter if you're living in some religious sect, conditioned by some BS-artist leader to do whatever he wants.
Originallity is something for us people who believe that finding the "real you" etc is worth it to worry about. If this sounds circular it's because it is. Ultimately lifestyle choices come to a value judgement not dependent upon other things.
Worth worrying about? Nothing is worth worrying about.
I think we both agree that it's good to have an open mind, but we disagree on the importance of originality. I don't care if an idea is mine or yours or anyone else's, I don't care if it's the first time anyone has thought about it or whether it has been thought of a million times before, the only question for me is is the idea satisfying, is it an idea I enjoy.
There's a difference between a compelling idea and the source of that idea. If I've come up with compelling ideas before I don't see that as 'me' or part of me. Genius can come from anywhere and from anyone, it's not a measure of your worth as a human being. The best you can do to encourage it is to be open to it, to prepare yourself for ideas that are new to you.
If we start from that premise, death, life being meaningless etc, maybe. But in that case replying to my comment is not worth it either, and me replying to yours even more so.
So clearly we either take this conversation as people who think there is stuff worth worrying about, or we don't have it at all, and go either have fun or kill ourselves.
>the only question for me is is the idea satisfying, is it an idea I enjoy.
Would you be OK to be confined for the rest on your life in a hospital bed, being fed a drug that would make you enjoy your every moment tremendously? From your perspective you'd be totally happy. You might not enjoy some part of the idea now, but you'd totally enjoy it when given that drug. Would you go with that?
If not, then you agree with me that enjoyment is not the be all end all in life, so whether an idea is "satisfying" is not "the only question".
>There's a difference between a compelling idea and the source of that idea. If I've come up with compelling ideas before I don't see that as 'me' or part of me. Genius can come from anywhere and from anyone, it's not a measure of your worth as a human being.
Again, I'm not talking about original as in "unique"/genius or whatever, but in original as in "autentic" (yours).
The distinction between taking your own decisions or merely and with little resistance and pause following fashion or what your father told you or what the official at the church of scientology or the cool kid at school told you to do...
I believe life is what you make it, the value you get from it is directly related to what you put into it. So in some sense, life can be meaningless if you choose to make it so, and life can be meaningful if you choose to make it so. Some people don't like that view, which is fine, variety is the spice of life.
"But in that case replying to my comment is not worth it either, and me replying to yours even more so."
I'm not debating with you because I'm worried, I'm debating because it's fun.
"So clearly we either take this conversation as people who think there is stuff worth worrying about, or we don't have it at all, and go either have fun or kill ourselves."
So the alternatives to worry are to either have fun or kill yourself? I think you're a little confused about what self-reflection is, self-reflection and worry are not the same thing. For example, it's possible to self-reflect and laugh at the absurdity of your own views, it's possible to self-reflect without passing strong judgement, etc... .
"Would you be OK to be confined for the rest on your life in a hospital bed, being fed a drug that would make you enjoy your every moment tremendously? From your perspective you'd be totally happy. You might not enjoy some part of the idea now, but you'd totally enjoy it when given that drug. Would you go with that?
If not, then you agree with me that enjoyment is not the be all end all in life, so whether an idea is "satisfying" is not "the only question"."
I find it interesting that you mix satisfaction with falsehood. However, if you change the question to... Would you want to live a life where you regularly encountered moments that were genuinely satisfying/fascinating, then the answer would be yes, I would want that, I believe that'd be fun.
"Again, I'm not talking about original as in "unique"/genius or whatever, but in original as in "autentic" (yours).
The distinction between taking your own decisions or merely and with little resistance and pause following fashion or what your father told you or what the official at the church of scientology or the cool kid at school told you to do..."
Let me put it to you like this, can an idea that started from someone else be just as good for you as one that started from you?
(And no, this is not a "no true scotchman" fallacy. This is going with an a priori definition of non-conformism -- in fact, the standard dictionary/common language one--, and judging whether people fit that criterion or not, whereas the "no true scotchman" fallacy is based on changing the criteria).
Besides, even buying "pre-packaged lifestyle goods" could still qualify you as a non-conformist, if you buy it from small providers that not many people use.
Being a non-conformist is not about creating your lifestyle totally yourself (that you be the extreme version), it's about not going with the majoirity lifestyle choices (whether they are considered typically "conformist" (like a Hugo Boss suite) or "non-conformist" (like some hipster beard or a tatoo).
Going with the flow only makes sense for a large flow -- not some small niche of a current that's alien to 99% of the population.
Some people conform for stupid reasons (e.g. a need to feel accepted), but sometimes you find a group of like-minded individuals with similar interests. What then? Do you conform or not? What if you earnestly have the same interests?
Simple solution: How about just do/like whatever you like, and don't try to make everyone think you're a special snowflake? Because the majority of people in the world frankly don't give a shit.
You like 70's music? You like trashy horror flicks? You like furry art? Good for you. Continue to like it and stop trying to cast it as a radical act.
So... be a non-conformist? A non-conformist maintains a notion of themselves as such not because they're trying to be a special snow-flake. They need a concept with which to analyze their problems. It's actually really hard to just do what you like and get away with it. Like you said, "the majority of people in the world frankly don't give a shit." No one out there is trying to figure out how to reward you for something they don't understand. Even if it's insanely valuable. There will always be rewards for simply adapting yourself to an existing concept. Anyone not doing that pays a significant penalty for which the conformist world is entirely ignorant. They won't care and they won't help you deal with it. Hence, non-conformists converge-on but don't necessarily conform-to this stereotype. The one in the corner complaining about the conformists.
I'm a non-conformist / I'm a conformist / I'm an introvert/ I'm an extrovert / I'm a xyz / I'm an xzy...
No one fucking cares. There's self-reflection, and then there's self-absorbed blowing your own trumpet. The latter is decidedly repulsive. Coming from an Asian culture, I notice that Americans are particularly inclined to be this self-absorbed, wonder why.
[1] http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0742516857/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=...