"To know yourself as the Being underneath the thinker, the stillness underneath the mental noise, the love and joy underneath the pain, is freedom..." -- Eckhart Tolle

Do you ever find yourself pondering what makes a person individually unique and weird? It is such an interesting concept, that each human on Earth has the capacity to make themselves completely and utterly independent from the things around them. I often think about those I am close to and admire the ways they have developed their own personalities. This often leads me to analyze myself and think about what exactly makes me an individual human. While I always come to the conclusion that I have a long way to go before I can accurately label myself as completely independent from fickle societal norms, I never stop contemplating and chasing this independence. I believe one of the most important aspects of life is our journey toward securing our own weirdness and independence from this world, something that can only be started by analyzing ourselves.

In order for people to embrace their own weirdness and idiosyncrasy, they must first discover that they are capable of being independent. The idea that people have to "find" themselves is fundamentally wrong. To say that you must find yourself is to suppose that you are lost. I assert that people are not lost, but merely distracted by the empty truths and pressures that society puts on them from birth.

People are born with innate passions and abilities which can never be taken away from them, only suppressed. The more we indulge in the shallow happiness that society promises us, the more we suppress our fundamental being. It is not society's job to give you any part of yourself that you may think you have lost, it is society's job to allow you the freedom to express that with which you were born.

Relying on society to give you your own definition of yourself is not only irresponsible, it is extremely unhealthy. Being that most of society is composed of shallow aestheticism perpetuated by people's yearning to belong, it would seem that basing your sense of individuality on it would eventually prove to be illogical. While society does have some vague truth to it, we should not aim to imitate it, for it is literally composed of the opinions of other people, which we know are fickle and impermanent.

To blindly accept that which you have been told to be true is to assume that you are not capable of finding truth by yourself. To blindly reject that which you have been told is false is to accept truth without thought, which is inherently illogical. To let society mandate what type of person you are destined to be is to falsely admit that you are not capable of attaining any sense of individuality yourself.

I find it to be disheartening that lots of young people are told to reject all types of philosophy and spirituality which is not that of their parents. To prohibit a person's ability to experience life is to falsely teach, by example, that humans are incapable of living individually, which is untrue. To restrict the knowledge of any human will ultimately lead to the restriction of their own free will. While lots of people think they are making conscious choices when experiencing life, they are only making choices that fit the narrative of life they have been taught to follow. Realize that giving someone a sense of direction in life is always commendable when done in a productive, loving way, but when people are forced to believe in something they aren't allowed to question, they begin to lose a part of themselves given to them by God.

It is imperative that every human recognize that they are not made to be put into a societal box and that they have the capacity to free themselves from this molding. You are uniquely special and more that capable of expressing your own being. To ignore this for the entirety of your life is to strangle the already-suppressed weirdness that you were given.

The most effective method I have found that allows me to acknowledge my weirdness is embracing my own spirituality. The more I pray, read (the Bible being one of many sources of spiritual information I rely on), and write, the more I discover about myself. I also find a huge sense of spirituality in my studies of astronomy; the more I research the stars, the more connected I feel to God and the universe that is so beautifully and wonderfully made.

People find it weird that I find so much of my spirituality in the study of space, and that is okay. Romans 12:6-8 says, "In his grace, God has given us different gifts for doing certain things well. So if God has given you the ability to prophesy, speak out with as much faith as God has given you. If your gift is serving others, serve them well..." Many people will have many different ways of being spiritually connected, and that is exactly how he created us to be. The more we are forced to worship in a certain manner, the less we truly embrace God and ourselves. Being weird spiritually is one of the most important aspects of life, and this is underrated in society.

I believe spirituality is one of the most overlooked aspects of life. The more I connect spiritually, the more I realize the spiritual oppression promoted by the materialistic society we live in. The moment you realize that social norms can't give you a spiritual connection is the moment you begin to set yourself free from the world, which I hold to be a beautiful experience. Once you unshackle yourself from the chains of society, you can begin to truly connect with God and with yourself.

At this point in the ever so entangled world we live in, it is universally necessary for every human being to unbind themselves from societal norms. While lots of people find momentary happiness in the empty materialism of the world, it is not what we are made to strive for. Every human has the capacity to recognize the prison that they let society put them in. The moment you acknowledge the weakness of this shallow nomos, you begin your journey to true spiritual and individual freedom. We are meant to be crazy and foreign and weird, so why do we force ourselves to deny this? Know your own self and embrace it, for one man's norm is another man's weird.