Creative Rebellion Essays: Who are you?

Who am I? Photo by JC Caldwell

We can’t control how we are born: our gender, our race, the country of our birth. However, we are highly influenced by societal and family influences as we grow up. Our creation myths are provided to us – this is your religion, this is your nationality, this is your sexuality, this is how we think about things because, well,  it’s “always been that way.” Any supposed aberration from the established rules is considered a threat, which is why homophobia, xenophobia, racism, misogyny tend to flourish in closed environments. Different = bad. It’s probably a biological survival leftover from our ancestors, wherein conformity to the tribe and its needs superseded the needs of the individual. A nonconformist could, in fact, be a threat to the health of the group. Any kind of questioning of the status quo was dangerous. Rebels were dangerous. 

I think that the fear of questioning what is has continued down through the multiple millennia of human evolution. Technology and society have changed but we are still not that different, biologically and mentally, from our cave-dwelling ancestors. We accept authority pretty easily, whether it’s political, religious, societal or corporate. Fear of being banished (or in modern parlance, “fired”) keep us in line. 

The irony is, of course, that it’s the non-conformists, the rebels, who are the innovators. These creative rebels are at first feared and then, over time, venerated. Entrepreneurs are rebellious by nature – that’s why they started a company. Most entrepreneurs I know are pushed out of their own companies after a few years. The nonconformity of their thinking may have catalyzed the company into existence but it becomes an internal disruption over time to the stability of the corporation. It’s a conundrum. We need innovators but we don’t know how to direct their energies appropriately.

I’ve thought about this a lot. I wrote a book about it (The Art of  Creative Rebellion) as I believe that it is possible to be both creatively rebellious while being able to provide value to the company or group with which you are working. 

It comes down to the question of who you are. What choices did you make in regards to your identity? Did you choose your opinions or inherit them? 

The question of identity came up recently when I spoke about cross-cultural design with the energetic and ebullient Yiying Lu (“An award-winning artist, entrepreneur, educator, and bilingual speaker. She was named a ‘Fast Company's Most Creative People in Business,’ Microsoft’s ‘Top 10 Emerging Leader in Innovation,’, and a ‘Shorty Awards’ winner in Design.”) who  I was introduced to by Victoria Taylor, the brilliant Linkedin editor. Yiying was born in Shanghai but grew up in Australia and spent time in London and New York before settling in San Francisco. She’s a creative rebel for sure. She’s tying East and West creative collaboration together and connecting brilliant people together to create better designs for the world. One of the things we touched on was the issue of identity. She mentioned that she’s become a “global citizen” from all of her travels and that sparked a conversation about identity. I mentioned that I’m also half-Asian (Japanese) and am fluent in the language but I was born in New Orleans, grew up in Texas and moved around Europe and Japan a lot before settling in LA. My sense of who I am was initially inherited by my surroundings – I was a Texan initially and then I felt more kinship to Japan for a while so I decided to adopt both archetypes. But the point is, I consciously decided to choose to identify with those cultures. Of course, I was exposed to them at an early age and that made it easier to decide if I wanted to keep or reject them. However, I’ve also known many half-Asians who have completely disavowed either one side or the other. 

What I realized early on was that culture wasn’t dependent on skin color or where you happened to be born. Culture is much more dynamic, powerful and mutative than that. I’ve known a red-headed Irishman in Tokyo who could speak Japanese like a native. My wife’s cousin, Mark, is white but identifies heavily with Native American culture and speaks Lakota fluently. And I’ve known many Japanese-Americans who know very little about the history of their grandparents. And by the way, no one is under any obligation to learn anything about their genetic forebears just because they look the way they do. However, what I’ve found is that it’s less about being fluent in the language of our family’s native countries but more about the values and traditions. Take what’s good and keep that. Mixing doesn’t lead to dilution. It leads to magnification.

One of the common themes I’ve heard from many American friends of mine who come from migrant families is that they wish they knew the language of their ancestors: Italian, French, German, Chinese, Korean, et al. But the American dream is to become American, which means speaking  English. And many immigrant families dissuaded their children and grandchildren from speaking the mother tongue as they wanted their families to “fit in.” Again that need for conformity. Don’t stick out. It’s dangerous. Or so it was thought.

Nowadays the need for creative thinking, for creative rebels is needed more than ever. Respecting tradition is different than accepting everything at face value. Part of being American is the fact that we are a hybrid country of many colors and our strength comes from our diversity of thought, beliefs and free expression. In other words,  non-conformity. 

I often wondered who I would be if I truly stripped down all and discarded all my inherited beliefs and unexamined biases – what would be left? Would anything be left or am I simply the sum of all of my attachments to archetypes, roles, beliefs and prejudices? 

“You are never dedicated to something you have complete confidence in. No one is fanatically shouting that the sun is going to rise tomorrow. They know it's going to rise tomorrow. When people are fanatically dedicated to political or religious faiths or any other kinds of dogmas or goals, it's always because these dogmas or goals are in doubt.”

Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values (Phaedrus, #1)

I found the answer during meditation. When I meditate, the noise that swirls through my head calms down. All the noise and propaganda of inherited memes of semi-profound aphorisms, worries, and future scenarios of potential disasters all dissipate. And once I get through that gate of the “monkey mind” then I find the person I probably was when I was first born. The state of initial consciousness is still strongly there, flowing without needing to cling to notions of liberal or conservative, atheistic or religious, right or wrong. Beneath all identity of gender, sexuality,  religion, and political affiliation is you. 

The true you.

So, during this time of sheltering at home, perhaps take some to time to consider the “rules of life” you’ve been living by for most of your life. Are they true? If so, then keep them. Do they serve you? They do? Great, keep them. If not, consider, even for a day, dropping some hard-held perspective. And the easiest way to do this is to get centered, settle the mind, and allow all strongly clung-to ideologies to drop away. 

When we strip off the armor of inherited beliefs, we find ourselves nakedly human. And, ultimately, that is what unites us.

Stay healthy and kind.

John

What I’m reading:

1973 Rock at the Crossroads – by Andrew Grant Jackson. Evidently I’m not the only one who noticed that most “classic rock” radio stations play more songs from 1973 than from any other year (according to FiveThirtyEight). This was a peak year for David Bowie, Elton John, Led Zeppelin, Stevie Wonder, Steely Dan, the Allman Brothers and many others that you hear on heavy rotation. This book explores the societal changes the world was going through after the flower power revolution of the 60’s and the aftermath of the Vietnam war. If you love music, check it out.

What I’m watching:

Giri Haji – a limited series on Netflix that alternates locations between Japan and the UK and follows the story of a Tokyo detective who has to track down his yakuza (gangster) brother in London for murder. If you don’t have issues with reading subtitles or understanding the Queen’s English, then I recommend this for you. 

Killing  Eve – on Amazon Prime. I know I’m super-late to this series but I love the multiple city settings in Europe (a theme in common with Giri Haji) and Sandra Oh plays a detective on the trail of a female assassin in this black comedy by the brilliantly talented Phoebe Waller-Bridge of Fleabag fame (another show you should definitely watch). 

Please visit my website to sign up for my blog/newsletter as well as downloading the first chapter from my book, The Art of Creative Rebellion. 

If you like what you are reading, please order The Art of Creative Rebellion, in stores. On Audiobook and Kindle.