Don't Be Yourself

People say many stupid things, but “be yourself” has to be near the top of the list. Why would anyone say something so ridiculous and trite? Is it for some desire for authenticity in relationships, where authenticity is somehow regarded as noble? I’ll accept that answer as soon as someone nails down the meta-ethics that argues for the value of truth-telling. Or is it that the desire for authentic relationships supposedly allows us to discuss things deeply with one another, as if I couldn’t discuss the ramifications of assisted-suicide with a terminally ill patient I didn’t know well. Obviously then, the desire for authentic relationships is not the goal of anyone being themselves. I can have an authentic relationship with my employer without them ever knowing my deepest, darkest secrets (e.g. picking my nose and wiping it on other people). In actuality, when we tell someone to “be yourself,” usually we’re really telling them to calm down and STFU. Now, how that morphed into the phrase, “be yourself,” I do not know. But that’s not our point today. Anyone who in all sincerity tells someone else to “be yourself” probably hasn’t considered the ramifications.

While it may be all well and good to be ourselves when no one else is around, if there is any desire among people to live among others, then society as such needs some rules. Without such rules, whether they are written or unwritten, being ourselves has consequences. For example, if I am in a job interview and the potential employer asks me how I would handle a rude customer, I wouldn’t tell the potential employer how I would handle the rude customer in a manner fitting to who I really am if I would like to land the job. Moreover, if who I really am includes watching costumed midget porn, it would probably be in everyone’s best interest not to engage in that particular activity at work. There is the more obvious example in which I may be going on a first date, in which case I wouldn’t reveal parts of myself – lying by omission – if I would like to build a relationship with the other person since building a relationship can often only be built by easing the other person into your quirks. How many times how the following statement been uttered? “So I just found out he has a large collection of Princess Leia action figures. But, since I’ve already invested so much time in him, I’ll see if I can live with it.”

Probably the worst time to tell someone to be themselves is if the other person has homicidal tendencies. And since that is most people, it’s probably never a good idea to tell someone else to “be yourself.” Imagine this scenario: Two Muslims are in a cave talking and one say to the other, “Akeem, I’m thinking about bombing the maternity ward they just added to the local hospital. Only, I’m not sure the Koran says killing babies is acceptable.” Naturally, Akeem replies. “You shouldn’t worry so much, Omar. Just be yourself.”

You may have also noticed just how cranky people get when they reach a certain age and basically have said, “Fuck it.” Those senior citizens operating without a filter because they figure they’ve been around long enough to stop playing the game? They’re not exactly surrounded by friends and family, are they? In the words of Joss Whedon, “Always be yourself…unless you suck.” Well, we all suck a little bit. We’re human after all. But that doesn’t mean we have to be so damn human all the time. One good, long glance back upon history will show you the consequences of us being ourselves. Ain’t too pretty, now is it? 

You're Kidding Me

I do not understand many things, among them the onus a society places upon its denizens to bear children. Actually, I take that back; from an evolutionary standpoint, demands to bear children make complete sense. But with around 7 billion people on the planet now, you’d think people would cut others some slack for not having children or not having children by the proper age as dictated by a given culture. But the nagging persists: “When are you going to get married and have kids? You do want kids, right? How many? Time’s running out!” While I can’t help people whose biological clocks are ticking – their drive towards procreation is on them at least – I wish to help people with nagging relatives and friends. How? By nagging back. (What other solution did you think I was going to propose?)

Let’s face it; it’s 2013 in America and bullying is no longer accepted. Frankly, that’s what nagging someone to have kids is these days; bullying. So no one, when asked, “When are you having kids?” should shrink like a violet. I propose fighting back in the face of such interrogations. If someone asks you, “When are you having kids?” there are any number of clever or snarky replies, such as

* Why is it important to you?

* Yeah, um, whose life is my life?

* Never, seeing how well you raised kids.

* As soon as you stop asking me about it.

* Seven billion people isn’t enough for you?

* When there is such a thing as job security again.

* When you die and need to be replaced.

* When they’re 18.

Personally, I’d reply with “Why is it important to you?” because the person you respond to with it isn’t going to have anything close to a rational answer as to why it’s important to them. I can almost hear the irrational guilt trip answer, “Because I want to have grandchildren before I die,” already. Furthermore, the person wanting to know when you’re having children is probably religious, which opens the door to educate them on why they really think you having children is important – the compulsion of genes to replicate themselves as far into the future as possible.

I have never been for the viewpoint that the pinnacle event in life is to have and raise children, because if so, one is living an arguably pointless existence once a child is born, seeing how a biological parent is not currently necessary to a child’s survival. And if the point of having and raising children becomes the point in life of the children to have and raise children? This is descending into idiocy from a thinking standpoint. (Though, I guess we can’t expect a biologically based drive to be subject to reason.) Besides, after the childbearing years doesn’t a person become useless if having children is all there is to life? Maybe not; I guess someone’s gotta put a dollar in the birthday card.

Yes, families are great and we all love one another and our respective children, but no one should be made to feel they are less of a human being because they haven’t done their procreation duty. Coercion, guilt, shaming – we don’t do these things anymore in freedom-loving Western industrialized countries. That is so last century and two billion people ago. And that’s why I don’t have kids, ‘cause I’m a modern man who loves freedom and free is the last thing you are when you have kids.

[To be more exact, I don’t have children because I think of them mostly as demanding, noisy, germ-infested, stress-inducing, sleep-deprivation machines that never stop when you want them to. Besides, my cats are a pain in the ass and they’re only half the size of a baby. Why the hell would I double my trouble? And no, it wouldn’t be better just because they’re mine. I know me and I sure as hell wouldn’t want to raise even a half of me.]