One’s eyes are what one is, one’s mouth is what one becomes.
That and the stomach.
— [easyazon_link identifier=”1517388740″ locale=”US” tag=”wells01-20″]John Galsworthy, The Forsyte Saga[/easyazon_link]
Tag: identity
Your face and clothing signal your identity. Your DNA is one thing, your outer-design another; fashion is the only element you can control.
A winsome smile can be deceiving. Inside could be a sufferer undressing the mind’s eye.
There is no need to prejudge one’s possibilities, even our own. Wearing a hoodie masks a coder, not the thief.
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In terms of experience
You can study, analyze, and download all the information in the world but it means nothing without action.
The only true hack is the experience. The courage of your convictions, of choosing yourself, helps put the bones in the goose that stockpile many lives.
When you negotiate with your surroundings, it’s easier to treat setbacks as passing clouds. The longer one can reinvent and adapts themselves, the more exciting life’s experiment becomes.
Think different or be the different one? Express yourself or be the one that you are?
There are countless ways to practice standing out. However, it is impossible to separate ourselves from the crowds without first identifying what are the popular objects people lust.
We imitate others so we can fit in more quickly. Conformity is a shortcut in the beginning. But in the long run, it is the outsiders that are the only people history remembers.
It is easy to be like everybody else: you just follow the herd around the race track and jump through hoops.
Meanwhile, it takes more courage to step back and intensify what makes us unique. Do what makes sense, even if runs opposite of the status quo.
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A clash of sameness
Now when the phone rings on the train, everyone instinctively checks their pockets. People used to personalize their ringtones so that their incoming calls were unique. Ringtones were a badge of individuality, demonstrating your music tastes and personality. The passengers with the Ghostbusters ringtone anthem always made seatmates chuckle.
The standardization of sound is one indication that the fascination with mobile phones has petered out. Instead, it’s the apps that live on our screens that determine what type of person we are.
LinkedIn, SnapChat, Instagram, Tumblr– these ‘places‘ allude to where we like to live, work, and play. We are uniform on the outside but raging in our little worlds, filter bubbles, or echo chambers on the inside.
It’s only when we chat with a stranger or go the polls do we realize that the digital and physical realities don’t match up. The world is not as it seems.
There is no such thing as a virtual utopia, a second life. If you’re not acting as the person online and off, you’ll inevitably run into frustration and subjugation. The real world runs on tribes until the creative minority once again breaks it back into pieces to retain their originality.
Identities are social. We don’t know who we are until we see how to fit in or stand out from others.
Before people owned mirrors, they saw themselves as extensions of their tribe and God. It wasn’t until the fifteenth century did the mirror introduce people to their individuality. Mirror owners then went on to have their portraits done to reinforce the importance of their self-worth.
Unless you’re a Narcissist, the mirror today is for making edits: to your hair, face, and to brush your teeth. The modern-day mirror is the selfie, the results of having a mobile camera. We use our phones to project our identity onto the world.
Likes and comments are a validation of our uniqueness. Like portraits of past, Facebook and Instagram invite the viewer to “Look at me!” We all become quasi-celebrities. It’s hard to be a true individual, a purple cow, in an age of Internet ubiquity.
So how do you stand out? You don’t. You disconnect. The more unplugged you are, the more mysterious and different you seem to appear. The new individualism is again offline and mirrorless.