Meanwhile, I met many, different people in my life. Many faces with associated names and typical features are in my memory. A rich pallet of character colours. Cooperative, confident, doubter, chaotic, (over) structured, fighter, loser, winner, dependent, autonomous, follower, leader, and so on.
Most people in my life have a number of logical combinations of character traits. Combinations that we are used to and that fit our image of the average kind of people we know. We like to attune our own behaviour to these logically combined characteristics of the people around us. It feels safe and we hardly have to make any effort to have nice meetings.
Yet we also see people who do not have such logical character colours. People with controversial point of views, which they often come up with unambiguously. We are inclined to find that undesirable.
We do not understand this and it often feels much easier to point out to someone the attitude we do not understand, than to open up to the deviant behaviour and try to understand why the other person exhibits that behaviour. We find these people recalcitrant and label them as difficult, stubborn, brutal, confrontational, and so on. We do not like controversial point of views.
Everyone knows this kind of people in their circle. We sometimes label these people as recalcitrant or as "Black sheep". People who have not managed to adapt to the general morality and do not adapt to what we are used to.
But what does this people inspire, what is the meaning of what they claim and how they behave?
What we do not always realize is that these types of people use variations in their behaviour to confront the others, to make them consider. They choose their behaviour in such a way that the others are forced to think. They are creative and can quickly oversee situations. They see a broader perspective in all kinds of areas. They have a rich pallet of behavioural variations and dare to deviate from the beaten track.
How remarkable that these colorful figures are often characterized as "Black sheep" People with not normal behaviour.
But what is normal behaviour and who determines what that normal behaviour is? In my opinion, it is about the fact that humanity constantly developing. That everything around us is in motion and therefore changes. And however much we would like to stick to our safe standards, we can not stop the developments. It goes slowly, with small steps, but it happens.
The Black sheep among us are - perhaps even without being aware of it - capable of initiating changes. We need people who dare to challenge our standards and, with their colorful characters and their stubbornness, make an important contribution to the inevitable developments that we as humanity are experiencing.
My motto is: "Be a black sheep and help mankind in its development".
Mark de Breet
© TrefMij / February 2018
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