Number 12 Looks Just Like You

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away. - Henry David Thoreau

I woke up very early this morning and, after some quiet time, I turned on the television and happened upon an episode of "Twilight Zone" entitled, "Number 12 Looks Just Like You". I am not a science fiction fan, so the ScyFy channel would not be a typical choice, and I didn't even know what I was watching when I landed on this channel and felt drawn to it. At first, my interest was because of the cheesy dramatic dialogue and accompanying music that the old films often had. It was for the humor factor that I watched, but the message ended up being very powerful and deep.

The episode was about a world where science could transform individuals from ordinary to beautiful, each person able to choose their new look from a set of slides showing numbered examples of what their new look would be. This transformation also gave them immunity to disease and created a "perfect" society. After transformation, each individual looked identical to many others...number 12's looked identical to each other...number 13's looked identical to each other. One leader alluded to the year 2000 when science would be able to change the whole world to look perfect, but noted that they were lucky because it was available in the Twilight Zone already.

The conflict of the story was a young girl named Marilyn, age 18, who was about to reach the age where transformations took place. It was assumed that this "plain Jane" would pick a model, then be tranformed to look like that example; but this girl did not want the transformation, wanting instead to be herself even if considered ugly or lacking in beauty. She saw her own beauty in being different and feared losing herself if she received the transformation. She had learned from reading her deceased father's diaries and collection of books (which had banned in their society because of their free-thinking ideas) that he had been very unhappy after his tranformation, and had committed suicide because of it. Those around her could not understand her reasons for not wanting the change, thinking that she must have psychological problems for not wanting to be perfect. Her mother was distraught at the rebellion of her child, consulting experts and trusted friends as to what to do about this problem. A doctor assured her that "improvements" had been made in the process to help people be happier with it...alluding to methods of controlling the mind to make people more content with giving up their own identity in order to meet society's idea of what is best or most desirable.

In the end, the girl was pressured and forced to have the tranformation. As she looked in the mirror, she seemed happy, but it was evident that she had conceded and lost her true self. She had become a cookie-cutter version of everyone else, a numbed personality that smiled on the outside, but was nothingness on the inside. It was no accident that I landed on this channel, not entirely because of the physical conformity issues that most of us struggle with from time to time, but because of the difficulty of choosing to be different in other ways. It was such a parallel to my own life and what I see in so many people. Our lives, in our need to conform to society, have become programmed. We attempt to live a certain way to get on a track that the world has decided is successful or desirable. In that process, we lose ourselves and our individuality, forgetting who we are or what we really came here to do. We do it to our children, expecting them to conform to meet our own needs for fitting in.

The really interesting thing is that this episode came after I had woken up with some momentary anxiety about my own children. They have chosen to go about their lives a little differently in going through school more slowly, while working at other things that they love, not making a lot of money doing it, but enjoying it in the process. Generally, I have celebrated this because I know how important it is to release from conformity and I can see their true and glowing selves emerging again, but I have had brief moments of worrying that they were not on the usual path of finishing school in a certain amount of time, getting a "normal" job, getting on the career track...I have had moments of succumbing to old conditioning. It holds an unbelievable power over us, and takes consistent effort to overcome.

I am grateful that I woke up at 4:44 and turned on the television just after 5am to see this Twilight Zone episode (and that was no accident). It reminded me that conformity is not the answer and that we must be true to who we are, and that those who feel pressured to conform are simply led by Ego - thoughts which want to hold us back from our greatness or our more meaningful purpose - thoughts that confuse us into thinking that we need to be more like everyone else or measure our worth by their standards. When we lose our individuality and fall into the need to be like others, we begin to lose the essence of our souls, which is why we slowly age and die inside. Yet, just like on the Twilight Zone, we don't even realize what we have lost, don't even know that original person, that original soul any longer. It is not through "sin" that we disconnect from God, it is through this conformity. If we lose ourselves, we have lost our connection God.

Think about your life and how you have conformed. Is it through the need to live in a certain kind of house or drive a certain kind of car?...Is it from needing your children to compete with others in their achievement in order to validate you?...Is it by being validated by a certain profession or by outward financial success?...Is it by giving up an individual God for a cookie-cutter version as dictated by religion or the accepted norms?

Get back to yourself by letting go of the attachment to every outward thing that you use to define you. It may take time, as we are so very conditioned and pressured otherwise, but it will be your saving grace.

In This World, But Not Of It

What does it mean to be "in this world but not of it"? That is a phrase that we have heard time and time again, and yet we seem to go in the other direction, letting our lives get more and more complicated with our jobs, ever burdening community obligations, bigger homes, more elaborate furnishings, the newest version of whatever technology is available, whatever new trend, more stuff, more debt...more, more, more...bigger, bigger, bigger. It has become the acceptable way of the world, where we actually look at those who are not so outwardly achievement oriented as "unmotivated" or beneath us. Our economy is now stressed by a false prosperity that was propelled by people buying more than they could afford, getting into more debt than they could keep up with, working just to pay bills, living to buy the next gadget or appliance that would make their lives complete.

We have become accustomed to getting our satisfaction from worldly things, worldly achievements, possessions, and accolades. We work hard to "get ahead" (ahead of what?, I must ask...the train that is about to run us over?!). On a spiritual level, we often seek usual and ordinary remedies to our emptiness, believing that going to church and following the rules will get us fulfillment, not asking for a real and un-worldly experience that has nothing to do with groups, buildings, organization, or conformity, but which is more about our higher self and greater purpose - that which is beyond the ordinary, beyond the patterns of the world.

Romans 12:2 tells us,
Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is--his good, pleasing and perfect will.
(New International Version)

It does not take much observation to realize that most of us have seriously conformed to the patterns of this world, whether it be the patterns that our parents gave us, the patterns we adopted by looking around and trying to fit in and be successful, or the patterns of trying to be "good". In our society, it is almost impossible not to conform to these patterns. This Biblical passage tell us to instead, "be transformed by the renewing of your mind", but we don't really renew our mind with new thoughts, and chose instead to stick with our patterns for achieving happiness...work hard, go to school, go to church, volunteer. We don't realize, or perhaps we choose to ignore, that the worldly patterns will not lead us to true and deep happiness.

It is not until we seek to renew our minds that we can truly transform. The choice is always ours as to whether we CONform or TRANSform, but we cannot do both. When we are ready to transform, we must give up conformity. We must open our minds to things outside of the norms and be willing to risk being different, to step outside of ordinary to be extraordinary.

If we are indeed made by God, do you think he made us to be ordinary or extraordinary? I think he made each and every one of us to be perfect, fabulous, joyous, and beautiful beings. It is simply our choice to conform that keeps us from transforming into our extraordinary existence. The steps to transformation are as simple as looking at things differently - sometimes even opposite of what you have been taught or programmed to believe. It may sound difficult, but if you really want a transformation, you will be given opportunities to make it, and they will not be as hard as you might imagine, because each step will reward you with moments of pure and perfect peace. Just ask, and be willing to make changes to be in this world, but not of it. Your transformation will begin when your conformity ends.