THE NONLINEAR PATH 09: The Isolation Of Being Yourself
Having The Courage And Audacity To Stand Out And Be Different
Artists are misfits. Punk rockers, metal heads, nerds, outcasts, social phobics.
While I believe everyone is creative, I have also come to believe that those born with an artistic mindset are cut from a different cloth. There is scientific proof that artists' brains are structurally different. There is also proof that these differences stem from both birth and training, building on the growing knowledge of neuroplasticity and how the brain changes and develops over time.
One absolutely true thing: among all the artists I have ever met is a commonly shared feeling of being different than everyone else. All creatives I have connected with have shared a story of feeling odd, outcast, or rejected.
Do you wear black outside because you feel black on the inside?
I used to hear this often in my punk rock high school days. I have also had this said to me in my adult life.
No. I wear black because I am an artist.
Actually, I wear black because I like it. I like the way I feel when I wear it. Black is easy to keep clean, looks sharp and professional, is appropriate for most daily situations I find myself in, and I do not have to think much about how to put it all together in the morning. It is efficient and allows me to focus on things that are more important to me.
Wearing black is a strong identity of mine, but I still find myself targeted for silly comments and judgments. I have learned to weather it, to not take it personally. I have learned that people say it because they feel threatened.
Personally, I cannot understand why more people don’t wear black. Everyone looks great in it… and, quite frankly, I think most people walk around looking quite silly in the outfits our culture deems normal.
Obviously, I feel this way. I am an apparel designer. I have had this innate feeling about clothing and what people wear since I can remember. I am always observing, judging, and visualizing. I constantly imagine how everyone can look better.
My eyes are starving for beauty!
...said the late fashion icon and editor André Leon Talley.
Instead, my eyes are constantly offended. This is how I am different as an artist. I see things differently, not correctly, just in my way. This is just who I am. It is what makes me a great designer with a point of view. Take it or leave it.
Not that I want to make everything else black. This is what a new boss once said to me...
Don’t turn my brand all black!
Ironically I had just finished making my mark by giving a strong and fresh color focus to the outdoor brand The North Face, previously known as the black brand.
Artists and designers are frequently misunderstood…because we are different.
Talley was different and an outcast at some point in his life, but he found a way to be himself. He found his place to exist and contribute his gifts.
That is what this article is about.
Just Be Yourself: Why Is It So Hard?
What does it mean to be yourself? Artists or not, we are often told this while simultaneously being urged to conform to societal norms. We are shown images and told stories of how we should be, how we should act, what our lives should be like, where we should live, who we should love, and so forth.
As artists, musicians, creatives, and oddities, we are often ridiculed for our unusual choices of hairstyle or color, makeup ideas, outfits, musical preferences, drawing and writing topics, and the list goes on and on as we all well know.
In other words, be yourself as long as it looks like a, b, and c. If you are x, y, or z, you are sh*t out of luck. You’re just weird. You’re a reject. The choice is between being rejected or living a lie. The result is a society filled with unhappiness, of people feeling unfulfilled, and a world full of anger and frustration.
We have been seeing that come to a tipping point. Now, post-pandemic, we have to change.
We are in an era of human existence in which acceptance of (or the lack thereof) people's differences is top of mind. Never before have we been so tolerant of different lifestyles and ways of being than we are now. The stage is ripe for looking inward to discover who we really are, how we want to live, who we want to be, and what we want to contribute.
It is exciting. And terrifying because being yourself can feel very isolating. However, now that we have all faced collective and prolonged isolation, we are more resilient and willing to take risks to find fulfillment.
Being yourself means being true to yourself. It means digging deep through all the chatter of life and figuring out who you are, and what you are meant to do. It is a lonely and personal journey. A journey that artists, musicians, and writers know well.
Martial artists know it, too. Sure, we sometimes spar with others, but the training of a martial artist is the same lonely path as any artist. The focus is on personal growth and self-knowledge more than anything else.
I found martial arts somewhat isolating later in life when I realized it was not something many people in western culture do. My coworkers and bosses bonded over early morning runs, lunchtime bike rides, or weekend bouldering. My training was solo. I liked it that way.
Sure, Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, and Michelle Yeoh have lifted the profile of the fighting arts, but kung fu is still seen as either exotic or heavily sportified through the MAA filter. Neither is a very accessible image to the general population.
Whenever I tell people I train in martial arts, their response (after the question are you a black belt?) usually is one of two:
Show me something.
Or… I better watch out for you!
...as if I was about to grab their arm and flip them over my shoulder.
Clearly misunderstood, even after over 30 years of training.
Artists, musicians, writers, dancers, actors and the like are romanticized and seen as exotic, too. They are also seen as very competitive and challenging ways to make a living, and we often find ourselves being steered away from them by well-meaning family and friends.
All of these are misunderstandings. We take on these beliefs as a way to deny ourselves hard work. It indeed takes a lot of hard work to be successful as an artist, but it is also some of the most rewarding work around. And we are now in an a new and rich era of human history where we have the gift of time to do deep creative work.
We often hold artists (especially visibly successful ones) up and out at arm's length as other than us, adding to the exoticism and out-of-reach-ness. They are another breed. They know something we do not, had some break we did not have.
In truth, they are the same as us. They have just tapped into something we have yet to do. In martial arts training, we call this something alignment.
You can see it in a stance or a set of moves. When the body is aligned and energy, ilmu, or chi, starts to flow you become more powerful….like water. When a body is aligned, you see it and feel it. it emanates energy, almost glows.
When you are aligned in your life, things tend to happen with ease and fall into place with seemingly no effort. When you get aligned with yourself, you become unstoppable.
audacity / noun: courage or confidence of a kind that other people find shocking or rude - Cambridge Dictionary
To do so, you must be willing to walk the path alone, risk judgment, to be unpopular and different. It takes courage and audacity.
Being willing to stand out is a lot like public speaking. Social phobia is one of the top ten greatest phobias, and public speaking is the most common social phobia. It exposes, draws attention, and makes people notice.
Ultimately it makes you strong within. You no longer care what others think. You only care what you think. And that’s when others start to notice what you do…and the real work of balancing the ego begins.
The Responsibility of Being Yourself
We, artists, have a big responsibility to develop our gifts. It is your job to stand out from the crowd, be yourself, listen to your heart, and do your unique work. It is really the only path to fulfillment. If you deny your creative calling, you deny your dreams and gifts.
Defining one’s true self is not so simple. It may be impossible. - Rick Rubin
Being yourself is not so much defining your true self. Being yourself is knowing yourself and what you want from your life. To know yourself, you must understand where you came from and that you are constantly changing.
Well-known music producer Rick Rubin talks about the ever-changing self in his new book The Creative Act: A Way Of Being:
“We inhabit many different versions of the changing self. The suggestion to be yourself may be too general to be of much use. There’s being yourself as an artist, being yourself with family, being yourself at work, being yourself with friends, being yourself in times of crisis or in times of peace, and being yourself for yourself, when by yourself.”
I love how Rubin’s statement allows for the myriad ways we exist in the world. If we look back in depth at our foundation, at our start in life, we can see the tools we were (and weren’t) given to work with.
We can better understand the filter or prism through which we process life and our place in the universe. We begin to understand our unique perspective as the foundation of the unique visions and gifts we can offer.
”In a prism, a single beam of light enters and is broken into an array of colors. The self, too, is a prism. Neutral events enter, and are transformed into a spectrum of feelings, thoughts, and sensations. All this information is processed distinctively by each aspect of the self, refracting life’s light in its own way, and emitting different shades of art.” -Rick Rubin
Your unique perspective is needed by your community, by society. You are part of a greater vision.
I train an Indonesian style of martial arts called Poekoelan (pu ku lan). It is a Broken Mirror System, meaning this:
If you take a rock and throw it into a mirror, it will shatter into many pieces. Each piece will be a unique shape. No two will ever be identical, but all the broken pieces together make up the whole mirror.
This also means that each Poekoelan practitioner is unique, moves differently, and has their own strengths, but you will always be able to tell they are a Poekoelan practitioner. Each one is a piece of the bigger picture, each has a role to play in the overall story.
Being an artist is exactly the same.
The Most Selfless Thing You Can Do
Finding alignment with oneself is a constant, like driving. You can never find just the right place to hold the steering wheel to direct the car and simply hold it there. You are constantly adjusting and turning the wheel.
What may have been alignment in a career, relationship, or path for many years may suddenly or gradually no longer feel right. Sometimes being yourself may require you to do things that feel selfish. They may go against the wishes of your family, friends, boss, or coworkers. They may cause unsolicited changes for others. In seeking to align with yourself, you may risk judgment, isolation, and abandonment.
In fact, you will. It is crucial to realize that being yourself and aligning with your purpose in life is the most selfless thing you can do, precisely because of what you risk. It is selfless because you risk losing comfort and ease for something that will ultimately serve in a greater capacity.
Being yourself is not about ego. It is about egolessness and what it provides for others. It’s about sharing yourself. It’s counterintuitive. Withholding yourself is selfish. Sharing yourself is a form of selfless service.
“One of the first things I share with my public speaking graduates is that speaking is about selfless service. It is not about the ‘ego’ at all.” -Kul Mahay, Public Speaking is in the Top Ten Phobias in the World
Selfless service is an important component of the black belt test in any style. It may be cleaning and repairing the dojo, teaching something new, or doing community service. It is done by the person testing to teach humility and to put positive energy into the community by example. The only personal gain is the joy of doing what needs to be done and doing it well. It is powerful and beautiful.
The most successful creative work is done in the same way.
The Journey Is The Destination
Becoming yourself is a journey, not a destination. It is the project of a lifetime. It will never be finished, so find joy in the journey and realize that everyone else is traveling alongside you, working on their own journey.
No one is special. There is no pedestal, no hierarchy. These are things we create, places we put ourselves or others onto (or knock-off of) to avoid looking at and becoming ourselves.
Becoming yourself and allowing yourself to be different can be lonely. However, if you have the courage, it will be the most important thing you will ever do.
Volumes Spoken! And volumes heard.....