[sukothefox]

Hello, i had a discussion with a cousin of mine regarding social norms. It all started with a discussion ofnhow in my karate school, I succeeded in momorizing the whole kata (a series of techniques) and finished before all my classmates. I complained about how my teacher made me stop at the last movement as a punishment for "not being in harmony with my classmates". I said how that so called harmony only retarded progress of the people who did better, and that those ideals were just mental masturbation. Dont get me wrong, i believe in people and i dont do this to boast or to make myself feel superior. I want my classmates to go at their own pace and learn as they can, but it bothered me how the teacher, instead of rewarding me for success and making me go to something new, punished me for being successful. My cousin started criticizing how i felt and that it was just because i dont respect social norms. I then argued that social norms are really subjective and that you dont need to follow them all to get along, and that while some norms help, others are unnecessary, or at worst, harmful to humanity. He asked me for examples of norms that were useless, and i told him about how it was a norm for women to not work, and that it was harmful and unnecessary. He then told me about how saying badwords in front of women was wrong and that it wasnt a behavior fit for a gentleman. And whenever i hear things like that my blood starts to boil because it is so sexist and so unnecessary when we have a lot of women also saying badwords. I hate how women are treated as if they are dolls, when they should be treated just with humanity as any other person, and that includes listening to badwords.
Of course, there are places where you shouldnt say them because you can get kicked out, like a important conference or if you are a president and are giving a speech, but with your friends its alright. ****! Even some of my professors say them in class!
I just hate how my family is so sexist, judgemental, and oldfashioned. They judge you if you dont follow some arbitrary rules and automatically label you as bad, unneducated, and even dumb. I am a person of no pretensions, i talk to my friends and other people as i would talk to a employee, or a bagabound, or just anyone.Everyone deserves equal treatment, and if someone wants to know me for real, they will have to sratch beyond my outer behavior to see how i am. I try my best to not judge, while recognizing that i am also human. Judging helps sometimes, but it can get in the way towards true acceptance lf humans with difference and all.
He said how the consequences of not following norms would cause others to exclude you, and that it was the reason i have no friends. So you now see? He immediately judged my social life based on my thoughts, and he couldnt be farther from the truth: i have many good friends, and all accept me even if we sometimes dont agree. I am starting to hate my family, they really annoy me and i wish i wasnt born in this family. They judge people based on how they dress and they dont even think about them for a moment to see if they really fit their preconceived notions. He even had the testicles to call me intolerant. I was just like wow, are you serious? After you judge people based on their language and dress you call me intolerant?!
As I said before, i was born into the wrong family, they dont know anything about me, and dont care to, because for them, outer appearances are everything. They dont try to see how i, despite being irritated and hateful of their way of thinking, i want to love them and that i accept people and treat them with care and worry about their well being to the point of anxiety(well, not like THAT). I am always willing to listen to people, and as i have said in this forum before, i am feminine in some ways.
In the end, appearances deceive, and a person's worth isnt measured by how they follow social norms: but by the size of their hearts. My family might be judgemental, but i am not going to follow that vicious cycle. I want to make a difference in this messy world.

[cool09]

Absolutely. That's why it's good to be an artist or musician. They're free spirits. They follow their hearts and try to stay clear of judgemental comments which isn't easy to do.

I fantasize about heading into the wilderness and living there the rest of my life with nature. That would be wonderful on one hand. The other hand I would miss some of the things we have that make life a little easier like electricity, heat, packaged food, dentists, etc.

[Hellion]

I would have to agree, I've gotten a lot of negative treatment from other people because I don't really get social norms and thus don't exactly follow them. So public school was terrible because it's all about fitting in and I didn't.

I just think its sucks because if people would have got to know me rather than being jerks because I was 'weird' maybe they wouldn't have had such a problem. I feel like people just get so caught up in that crap and it annoys me to.