I haven't run into that so much. I see the set of circumstances, but my sheer pig stubbornness seems to have often insulated me from outside influence. This, mind you, has hurt me in that I do not adapt to others well. But if I do, it's generally because I decided to, not because their utterly worthless sheep's mentality meant anything to me or to the known universe, really. Everybody does, they say? You should, you have to, you must, you can't not do it, it's done, it's not done, or else. Fine for you, I say to them. Have fun with that. Everybody does? Well, then everybody's a mindless robot. I drive everyday in a teeming morass of what everybody does. It's called California Driving. You can tell that the people there are not thinking out what they do.
Mind you, what I've had to learn is that sometimes a thing is the right thing to do in spite of everyone else doing it. What I object to is people who don't think it out first, from how they pronounce words all the way down to major moral decisions. If the only reason they've got is that everyone does it, they're being boneheads.
Mind you, there are possible exceptions... I mean, there's usually one right way to pronounce words, not often more. I mean, common sense conformity is a different matter. Although I have been willfully mispronouncing "Nevada" (based upon what the natives say), on account of once being publicly humiliated by one of them for pronouncing a single letter wrong. Like I care.
Good luck with the humans.
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"Pack up my head, I'm goin' to Paris!" - P.W.
The world loves diversity... as long as it's pretty, makes them look smart and doesn't put them out in any way.
There's the road, and the road less traveled, and then there's MY road.