Standing Out and Fitting In

To fit in, you must do everything you can not to stand out. At school, peer pressure works very hard to achieve this. Just keep your head down and don’t do anything that makes you stick out from the crowd. If you do, you may receive special treatment, bullying, ridicule and alienation.

Unfortunately, people do not grow out of this. They carry it with them. Avoiding social isolation in favour of the social approval of those who are equally afraid to stick their head out.

You can't grow as a performer if you are too cool for school. If you are more concerned with how you look to others, you will never stand out.

If you want to act, you will stand out. If you want to write, or play music, or dance, or write film, or draw, you cannot stand out by trying to fit in.

You see artists and creative people do not need to stand out. They are who they are, precisely BECAUSE they stand out. They have chosen to stand outside of traditional social structures, and they have refused to keep their head down.

And what you will notice is all the other people out there, refusing to fit in.

Don’t try to fit in, your place in the world is to stand out.