The whole concept of society is to bind a group of people with a certain code of living and rules. The purpose is that everyone is on the same page and things work in a certain way. Then only will it work as a well oiled machine. Here everyone has a certain role to play. It is like a team game. We have been brought up this way. But still we find there are certain outliers in the society who do not want to be a part of this play. While in a society everyone is expected to be serious and responsible about his role, an outlier will not take any of these things seriously. He will just watch the drama.
A sane society will always have an outlet for these outliers as these people are beyond the rules set by the society. They can be free thinkers, different thinkers, monks, saints who do not view the world the same way we see. They can have a different perspective about everything that the society wants to impose. A sane society will not banish these people but these people will like to stay on the fringes of the societal structure. For them everything that is happening in the society is a play and a Maya where we have our individual roles to play. They do not want to identify themselves with the persona and the ego of the society.
An insane society will not allow the outliers to stay beyond the rules of the society. It will force everyone to live by the rules of the society and anyone not willing to do so will be punished. In that case the society becomes a prison and freedom is snatched. But every society will have some people who are just not tailored to play by these rules. These societies make us believe that this prison is the freedom that all we need.
But here starts the beginning of all that is bad. Now it becomes our town, our city and your town and your city, our rules versus your rules; our country versus your country; our belief versus your belief. These things are taken so seriously that it becomes a cause of conflict.
Sometimes when we think deeply we also think like an outlier. An outlier is just watching the game from the sideline and generally you will find these people to be happy and carefree about the things happening around. Because they know it is part of the script by which a society plays and plays seriously. They know that rather than playing the role as per someone else’s script, it is better to play by my script. They believe that everything that is fundamental to our life and nature is playing its own game and we are no one to say that you cannot play your own game.
What if everyone wants to be an outlier? That is not going to happen because we are so programmed that we enjoy being part of the societal mindset, we feel comfortable within it. It is not that one is inferior and the other superior because both have their respective importance in the whole play. Just as no one can say soccer is better than hockey because it is all a matter of individual choice. Most of us are so fascinated by the being involved that we are not made to be an outlier. It is also difficult to withdraw from the society. It is not easy to leave the dance of the society and be part of the divine dance.
With the world getting more and more materialistic, now we see a lot more people feeling the urge to be an outlier but only a few will be so. It is not easy to be a free thinker.
