They are victims of their own conformity -- their passive acquiescence to others' ideas and values. It is conformity, therefore, that one must defeat if he or she wishes to be free -- and ultimately wishes to really live.
Most people go through life having never really lived. They surrender their individuality, step by step, day after day -- until eventually, it dies.
The process begins in the earliest days of childhood and becomes thoroughly ingrained by adultoood.
As teenagers, they mindlessly mask the beliefs and attitudes of others because they want to be "popular."
As adults, they fulfill unchosen family and social obligations out of a sense of "duty." They submit to and support government restrictions on their freedom because they believe that doing so is "responsible."
They are victims of their own conformity -- their passive acquiescence to others' ideas and values. It is conformity, therefore, that one must defeat if he or she wishes to be free -- and ultimately wishes to really live.
Living life to its fullest is theessence of self-liberation. A self-liberated person is completelyfree from social pressures. He guides his life by his own chosenvalues, not the accepted ways of others. He views himself as an independent entity posessing a unique, distinctive shape that he hascarefully crafted, not as a piece of clay to be molded by society.
Self-liberation does not (necessarily) mean cutting oneself off fromsociety completely. It means dealing with others on one's own terms. In that regard, self-liberated individuals reverse the common relationshipbetween individuals and society. Instead of seeing other people asprimary and adjusting themselves to "fit in" with the crowd, self-liberated individuals viewtheir self-identity as primary and, on that basis, determine which (if any) people to interact with based on what values they have to offer.
