Individualism is Cool
The most radical thing you can do in the midst of all the noise is know yourself.
Over the weekend I had a hair appointment, and my hairdresser was itching to hear all about my wedding from the second I walked in the door. He heard all about the planning in the months leading up to it, but now he was bursting at the seams to look at the photos and see how it all came to life. I wasn’t really seeking any validation, but it was nice to hear the oohs and ahhs as he looked through it.
We took a break from the wedding post-mortem while he cut and styled another client’s hair. About 30 minutes later, he came back to finish my cut looking almost emotional, and that was when I received the best type of compliment I could ever wish for. A compliment on my sense of self.
He went on about how in the few moments following his sneak peak of my wedding photos, brief as they were, he felt inspired by how true my wedding felt to me. He talked about how the photos reflected so much of my personality and the things that my husband and I value, and how powerful it was to see that on display. He reflected on himself and how he finds himself falling into the traps of materialism and how he doesn’t feel like he has fully found himself or understands how he would put his personality on display if given the opportunity. These are all things he felt inspired to work on more now.
I’m not sharing this to boast about how great my wedding was, because I’m sure many of you wouldn’t agree. But it was great to us, and that’s because it was true to us. My hairdresser isn’t the first to compliment our ability to create an event that felt so true to us, but he’s the first to really make me think about it. I’m really proud of this. I’m proud of how confident I feel in who I am. I feel lucky to have such a sense of individualism but it didn’t come without work.
Individualism is cool. It is the most valuable thing we have, yet the world we live in can really test our sense of self. It is human nature to conform, seriously. Nonconformity literally causes us pain which was proven in studies done by neuroscientist, Gregory Berns. In situations when humans make decisions that deviate from a group, there is significant activity in the brain’s fear and pain center, the Amygdala.
It makes sense. Conformity is the path of least resistance, but that really only applies short term. In the long run, a lack of individualism results in a world of dissatisfaction. In some cases conformity is viewed as the only option though, because many people don’t even know who they truly are, where they stand on certain matters, or what their preferences are. Knowing that is the hard part, and it is only getting harder.
The boom of social media platforms made conformity even easier. Trends will always come and go, but their impacts were amplified once social media became so mainstream. Take the “clean girl” aesthetic that swept the feeds of Gen Z and Millennial women over the past couple years. This look is, in and of itself, the antithesis of individualism. Neutral colors, safe silhouettes, basics. It doesn’t leave any room for experimentation in the look. From the start, I personally didn’t resonate with this aesthetic, but the more I kept seeing slick backs, dainty jewelry, and minimal attire on my feed, I definitely did become more and more interested. However I pretty quickly remembered that I love sparkles and color and patterns and that was the end of my short lived clean girl moment. This trend REALLY blew up though, so plenty of other women were influenced by it too, whether it actually suited them or not.
Beyond social media, now we are living through the AI boom which has amplified all of this x1000. We are thinking for ourselves less and less and are looking to AI chat bots for instant gratification rather than working through our own, unique thoughts. We are skipping over the step where we question ourselves and our own opinions, only to be given a genericized response from our AI tool of choice. These AI chat bots are trained on the aggregate of everything humanity has published. Essentially, they are giving us “averaged” responses, which only further homogenizes us and pulls us farther away from the things that make us, us.
For what it’s worth, I use AI all the time. Everyday, and I don’t plan to stop. I do think I need to evaluate how and when I use it though (as we all should), so that I still challenge myself to live in the discomfort of not having an immediate answer and instead take the time to use my brain, because after all I am the ONLY person who has the opportunity to do that.
Think about the writing outputs from AI tools. Boring. Boring. Boringggggg. The AI nerds out there will probably roll their eyes at me saying it all sounds the same, but it does. It’s not fun or unique. AI hasn’t lived personal experiences. It is, once again, writing based on averaged material which is not worth my time to read. Because of this, I have found a lot of joy in starting my Substack journey because I have come across so many writers with charismatic, interesting, and engaging writing styles. Individualized content is so refreshing in a world where things are starting to all blend.
That’s the point. Individualism is our super power and it will shine now more than ever. Going back to what I said earlier though, I know you can’t just decide to “be yourself” at the snap of your fingers. When I started writing this, I did a decent amount of research on how to lean in on individualism and finding a sense of self. Not to be a bummer, but I didn’t feel so enlightened by what I found. So, while I’m no psychologist, I’ll tell you what I think has helped me.
Experimentation:
My life has been anything but a linear progression. I have made career moves that nobody understood except for me, simply because I felt pulled to try something completely new, and I have done that more than once. I have gone through almost every style phase you can imagine and I cringe looking back at most of them, but they helped me finally land in a place where I know my personal style inside and out. I have lived in several different cities, trying to figure out where the right place to land actually is. You get the point. You really cannot know what you like until you have tried enough things to find out.
Seeking Inspiration:
I am always looking for inspiration wherever I can find it. This one is tricky, because a lot of inspiration does come from media, which as I mentioned is a slippery slope to conformity. For me, a lot of style inspiration comes from watching red carpets and runway shows. That might sound silly since you will never catch me walking around in millions of dollars worth of glamorous attire, but I have a genuine appreciation for the creativity that goes into those looks. I can usually find ways to relate to them or pull small elements into my own personal style.
I also spend a lot of time on Pinterest. I use it for everything from apartment interiors to wedding decor to nail art to dinner recipes. I find it much easier to discover inspiration that actually resonates with my own preferences on Pinterest than on Instagram or TikTok. Pinterest is a visual search engine built for discovery. Instagram and TikTok are true social media platforms where people share lifestyle content, which can be strongly influential but is not always the same thing as inspirational. That distinction is hugely impactful.
While I am happy with where I am right now, I will continue to work on these two things every day. After all, I am going to keep evolving as a person with every new experience I have, just like everyone else.
The world is not going to slow down. The trends will keep coming and the AI tools will keep getting better until the next big technological advancement comes around. The most radical thing you can do in the midst of all the noise is know yourself well… because Individualism is cool.
Completely agree