Who gives a fuck...? Unfortunately I do. Thoughts on the prevailing culture of conformity and being the anti Lady Gaga.

I am the anti Lady Gaga. Regardless of your thoughts on her music and pop culture persona, one thing I really admire about Lady Gaga is her 'Who give's a fuck, this is me' antiestablishment artistic leanings. In a recent conversation with a friend of mine we were discussing initial impressions of each other, which was both honest and refreshing. It began in me a series of annoying thoughts on how I am percieved as a person and more than that, what I would be willing to change to provide a better story to what people see.

I have then since discovered after much thinking that it takes an enourmous amount of courage to simply be who you are. We seem to live in a world that encourages progression and growth. Steps to be a better person, which all have merrit. But what if the one key step to being the best version of yourself is to simply accept that right now you are the best version of yourself. Or maybe that's the point, maybe you're trying to get to that 'best version'.

At any rate, for a period of three hours when I related to people I came accross (work collegues, service station dude, cute girl making my coffee) I engaged in my own social experiment annalysing my own thoughts, body language and ways that I related. I realised that a lot of my thoughts were based around hiding somes parts of who I am in an attempt to give a better impression of who I am. Trying to be what I thought others think I should be. Recently I heard a facinating interview with Lady Gaga who said

"You have to be unique, and diffrent, and shine in your own way." she continued and said
"And now, I'm just trying to change the world, one sequin at a time."

All of us I'm sure on some level give a fuck on what people think. I'm sure if we all lived a life on the 'i don't give a fuck' level of Lady Gaga the world would be one strange place, stranger than what it is now. But in listening to my friend's observation, I have come to discover that gaining the courage to actually be myself, all the time is the greatest challenge of my life. To live counter culturally against a world that says I should be a certain way, to live with a 'Lady Gaga courage' to be who it is I am, whether I have discovered that yet or not.

Imagine a world where people were how they are; a group of people determined to changing the world one sequin at at a time.

Hmmmm interesting. I'll be couragous if you will.

A.