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    The Willing Misfit
    The Willing Misfit
    The Willing Misfit
    Ebook131 pages1 hour

    The Willing Misfit

    By Derek Pearson

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    About this ebook

    If you've grown up experiencing the world through social values, your life, and everything in it, are products of somebody else's ideas. Laying aside the true expression of self has allowed you to fit in, but if your aim is to be honest with yourself, you cannot carry on in this direction.
    'The Willing Misfit' examines how you can find your own set of values through honesty, and through integrity of thought and action. It offers tools that help to discover what it is to think for yourself, rather than depending on social logic, and best of all, it prompts and encourages you along a path of your own choosing... to reveal your own true selfhood.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDerek Pearson
    Release dateFeb 28, 2012
    ISBN9781476279732
    The Willing Misfit
    Author

    Derek Pearson

    Filmmaker, digital artist and writer Derek Pearson grew up in small-town New Zealand. In recent times, his main focus is creating works that encourage the healthy, honest expression of each and every individual.

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      Book preview

      The Willing Misfit - Derek Pearson

      The Willing Misfit

      A Path to Healthy Selfhood

      By Derek Pearson

      Smashwords Edition, version 1.2

      Text and Art Copyright 2012 Derek Pearson

      License Notes: Distribution and non-commercial use of any material in this book is free and unlimited. For commercial use of original material or subsidiary properties, please contact the author for permission.

      Questions, comments: feel free to contact the author at willingmisfit@gmail.com and to visit the 'Willing Misfit' blog at: http://willingmisfit.blogspot.co.nz

      There are leaders, and there are followers. And then there are those who live their own lives.

      * * *

      Table of Contents

      Press/Click to navigate

      Introduction

      Chapter Zero: FULL CIRCLE

      Chapter 1: A MAN OF PARTS

      Chapter 2: INVESTING

      Chapter 3: HIDDEN LIGHT

      Chapter 4: PARTIAL PICTURE

      Chapter 5: OUT OF MIND

      Chapter 6: BRUISED TO BRUISING

      Chapter 7: OPEN SEASON

      Chapter 8: UNTRUE BELIEVER

      Chapter 9: THE PLUNGE

      Chapter 10: READY STEADY

      Chapter 11: THE BURDEN

      Chapter 12: HOLDING ON

      Chapter 13: FORK IN THE ROAD

      Chapter 14: DISTANCE

      Chapter 15: SHAKING THE BOX

      Chapter 16: DIGGING DEEP

      Chapter 17: BOLD BEGINNINGS

      Chapter 18: ROAD CLOSED

      Chapter 19: LABOR OF LOVE

      Chapter 20: SPREADING THIN

      Chapter 21: CENTERING

      Chapter 22: SPECULATION

      Chapter 23: HIGHER, WIDER, DEEPER

      Chapter 24: A WORK IN PROGRESS

      Chapter 25: A DESIGN

      Chapter 26: BEYOND

      Chapter 27: NOTES FROM THE AUTHOR

      Introduction

      Who says it's a negative thing to be a 'misfit'? I don't. With a reassuring pat on the arm, a well-meaning friend says 'I don't think of you as a misfit!' The assumption is that I’d want to fit in to someone else's framework. It might be a wonderful framework, but it's not mine, and I'm very pleased not to feel obliged to fit into it – I’m a willing misfit.

      But that wasn’t always the case. I’d wanted to be my natural self from way back, but my sense of obligation, the belief that I should fit in, was deeply-ingrained, and caused an inner conflict that took me some years to address.

      Many people at this point in time are focused on fitting into their society, and defining who they are through its values, because they believe it's the only way to survive. They have a substantial investment in fitting in, so it's unlikely they'll see a positive side to not fitting in.

      But to some, the daily struggle to fit is too much. Not necessarily because they're weak, inferior or stupid, but because they're more aware than others of their individuality.

      The issue I aim to address in this book is the growing number of people who find daily life intolerable, because the values they've learned put their own needs last, and they find themselves unable to operate through those values without feeling a crippling sense of self-betrayal.

      Rather than preaching yet another prescribed 'way' to be imitated and followed, this book examines how you can find your own set of values through honesty, and through integrity of thought and action. It offers tools that help to discover what it is to think for yourself, rather than depending on social logic, and best of all, it prompts and encourages you along a path of your own choosing… to ultimately reveal your own, true, selfhood.

      - Derek Pearson, March 2012

      Back to top

      Chapter ZERO: FULL CIRCLE

      I’m going to jump ahead to the conclusion of this book – give you a glimpse of the ending – so there’ll be a sense of where it’s all heading when you start in on chapter one.

      A concrete term seems necessary for the state that this book sets out to describe, so I’m initiating the term ‘Selfhood’ (at least I think I am – maybe someone else beat me to it!).

      So what is selfhood? What’s it like to live life in such a state? Mostly it’s an awareness of what choices you have, and a willingness to take responsibility for them.

      The conscious journey to selfhood begins with a deconstruction of the world you know; a total overhaul of the picture that has been presented to you as ‘normality’ since you were born.

      At first, it can seem like a battle, because the values that don’t suit you tend to fill your field of vision – but gradually as you define a whole new set of healthy values that work for you, the field becomes wider; the choices more varied, and more clearly defined.

      In selfhood, you’re consciously making choices in accord with your own idea of the world, rather than automatically operating through - and therefore subjecting yourself to - the values that society collectively defines.

      It might seem that a life of constant assessment and evaluation would be unnecessarily complex, but it’s not. By its nature, life in selfhood is very simple. As you gradually peel away the socially prescribed aspects of your life, you also dump most of the complexities that define the social aspect of your identity. Gradually your world settles into a state of peaceful clarity.

      Socially-defined choices carry a subtext that evokes fear: the benefits of acting in your own interests are always weighed against the consequences. But when you live through your own set of principles, you can consider your range of choices without fear or guilt, because they’re your principles. You make the choice instead of submitting to the scary ambiguity of someone else’s decisions.

      You no longer choose to make anyone else responsible for your life. This is a crucial point. Social values have you believe that someone else makes the choices that control your life – but they don’t, unless you grant them that responsibility: Also your choice.

      Often our choices are made by the way we live, rather than conscious decision, and the transformation from unconscious to conscious makes up the large part of a journey to selfhood; like the difference between sleeping and waking.

      With awareness of your choices comes the ability to do what you want every day. You feel a deep sense of fulfilment, and become more and more present to the now: You can appreciate what you have and where you are standing.

      It’s not an easy road to selfhood. It’s very likely that on the way you’ll become a fairly cold, isolated individual before you find your way back to a genuine desire to be social once more. Many of the aspects of social values that actually work and are important to a healthy life, get dumped along the way when you define your own set of values – like throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Often they’re simple human kindnesses and issues of compassion that social values have distorted by adding a subtext of obligation. Obligation is like a snaking vine that’s tangled almost inextricably through many aspects of ‘normal’ social life, and in the drive to neutralize it, healthy aspects of human interaction are temporarily wiped out by association.

      However, as you settle into selfhood, you stop blaming people for their values and begin to care about them again. When you’re truly free of obligation and duty, you come full circle back round to being a social being once more; relating through your own set of principles, from a genuine kindred feeling.

      Back to top

      Chapter 1: A MAN OF PARTS

      People all around the world are dissatisfied with some, or all of the major elements of their lives: work, education, relationships. But the way things are structured in their societies seems to dictate how they live their lives, and there’s no obvious alternative.

      Society’s changing fast. Very fast. We’re becoming more aware,

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