Moving Beyond Comfortably Numb

A closer look at the Conformist that we don't have to be.

Dec 04, 2023

When I was a child I caught a fleeting glimpse
Out of the corner of my eye
I turned to look but it was gone
I cannot put my finger on it now
The child is grown
The dream is gone
I have become comfortably numb
“Comfortably Numb,” Pink Floyd

We all grow up in a cultural milieu that casts a vision of the good life. Conformists embrace that vision, whether cast by society at large or a smaller subculture close to home. The result is adapting to the patterns and norms of those around you to fit in.

We can see it in groups of kids who all dress the same in an attempt to express their individuality, gang members who commit acts of violence to earn acceptance, and loyal churchgoers who conform their public life to a set of teachings and set their schedules around the congregational calendar. Even self-help groups that help to temper undesired behavior often work to draw you back into social conformity.

For many American men, this means getting a degree (often in business or marketing), landing a corporate job, finding a wife, and raising kids in your suburban home. Many in this mode embody a work-to-live mindset where the job is there to facilitate the rest of life. Little thought is put into whether your work is fulfilling or the company’s impact on broader society, rather you do what you are supposed to do.

In modern America, corporations count on us being conformists. They want us to put our heads down, go to work, do what we’re told, not challenge the system, and be grateful some benevolent overload decided to grace us with a job. Some of them are even willing to say it out loud.

The truth is, most of us are, which is why we should take a closer look at this specific wounded child.

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Comfortably Numb

For many, conformity leads to a comfortable or, perhaps more accurately, a comfortably numb life. That is part of the point. The conformist fears abandonment and will do anything to experience a sense of belonging, even if it is limited to public or social space.

But there is a dark side to conformity. The philosopher Socrates once said an unexamined life is not worth living, and the conformist’s life remains forever unexamined. This occurs at both a personal level and a social one.

Personal Conformity

Personal conformity means abandoning authenticity for the sake of belonging. In his book, The Myth of Normal (affiliate), Gabor Mate explores the tension between these two fundamental human needs. You have belonging on one side and authenticity on the other. The fear is that if you dare to reveal your true self, others will respond with rejection. However, if you never show up authentically, you will never know if others accept you or just the image you conform to.

But authenticity is not just about being true to yourself, it is also about loving others. In the second essay in his book, Intimacy (affiliate), Henri Nouwen writes about, "The Challenge to Love.” He explains that there are two ways to exist in the world, “the form of power and the form of love, or in other words, the taking form and the forgiving form.”

He writes:

We are judged, evaluated, tested, and graded, diagnosed and classified from the time our parents compare our first walk with the little neighbor’s. Gradually, as time goes on, we realize that our permanent record is building a life of its own, independent of ours. It is really not so amazing that we often feel caught, taken, and used for purposes not our own. The main concern then becomes not who I am but who I am considered to be, not what I think, but what others think of me. In this taking existence, we find ourselves operating in terms of power, motivated by fear.

The power comes into play in that we attempt to control each other's perceptions of us. Because we fear how they might perceive us, we seek to control their image to keep ourselves safe.

In contrast to this life, Nouwen celebrates those who dare to reveal their true selves:

When a man cries, when the walls of his self-composure break down and he is able to express his deepest despair, weakness, hate and jealousy, his meanness and inner division, he somewhere believes that we will not take and destroy him. As if a voice told him: “Don’t be afraid.”

How is that kind of honesty and vulnerability loving towards others? It simultaneously allows them to respond with compassion while inviting them to be vulnerable as well. This in turn allows you to offer a tender response, one where you authentically see them and you still belong.

But as long as we remain conformists, we will never experience authenticity or true belonging.

Social Conformity

The social consequences are easy to see in the violence committed by gang members seeking belonging. However, corporate exploitation of workers and the environment is responsible for far more direct and collateral damage. The idea that doing what is good for business is good for everyone has blinded us to the gutting of the middle class, Amazon workers quite literally dying on the job because of inhumane working conditions, and the broad abandonment of blue-collar work.

Moreover, the financialization of service industries like airlines has brought about a mass decrease in service quality to bolster the bottom line. Not sure what I mean? Watch this (note, it is a year old, but everything from 4:20 on might as well have been recorded yesterday):

The same is true in the medical system, where insurance agencies and Big Pharma realize that the most profitable humans are perpetually sick but not dead. While I’m hesitant to go full tinfoil hat, I can’t help but think that Big Ag is complicit as well, especially when pharmaceutical manufacturer Bayer owns food producer Monsanto.

In the end, our social conformity enables this, making life worse for all of us.

Beyond Conformity

What do we do in that uncomfortable moment when we look in the mirror and realize that we are conformists? There are three unhealthy and one healthy response.

We are unhealthy when we adopt the status of victims who are trapped in a system that leaves us with no choice but to conform, or rebels who just want to burn it all down rather than build something better, or find spaces where we function as princes in hopes to gain some sense of control.

Instead, we are healthy when we move to the North in Plotkin’s map and embody the nurturing generative adult. More on him in the next post.

Manhood Reimagined