I tend to go against my own convictions when others start sharing them. Then i find something else to believe in. And so on.

Hi Derek, awesome, brief and to the point, i loved it so much i quickly translated it, first thing in the morning.

Feel free to remove it if you don't want have your content translated.
A hug.

Anti-camaleonte
Non so perché ho questa natura ribelle. Mi comporto all’opposto di ciò che mi circonda.
Ad un evento formale, dentro di me, non riesco a trattenere le risate. Ad una festa, mi viene voglia di nascondermi a leggere un libro.
I miei amici ambiziosi tirano fuori il mio lato pigro. I miei amici letargici mi fanno sentire pieno di superpoteri.
Quando mi sono trasferito a Boston, da ragazzo, mentre tutti si vestivano di nero, io mi vestivo solo di bianco. Mi ricordavo i tizi new age del metodo scientifico.
E’ un desiderio di equilibrio? Un tentativo di rappresentare ciò che è sottorappresentato in una determinata situazione? È il mio amore per vedere l’altra faccia delle cose?
Lo so che non ci si aspetta questo da me. Che mi dovrei omologare, qualsiasi sia il contesto.
Ma io stesso cambio ogni giorno, anche quando sono da solo. Sono ribelle anche nei miei confronti. Se mi ritrovo a pensarla o ad agire allo stesso modo per troppo tempo, provo in un'altra maniera.
Per ora ha sempre funzionato abbastanza bene. In particolare sono super motivato quando vedo l’opposto di quello che voglio.
-Vedere qualcuno sprecare il suo talento mi spinge a esercitami e creare
-Vedere qualcuno in un pessimo stato di salute mi spinge a restare in forma
-Vedere qualcuno andare fuori di testa mi spinge a restare calmo
-Vedere qualcuno comportarsi da egoista mi spinge a essere più generoso
La lista continua. Con un bilancio positivo. Per cui, non combatto la mia natura, per ora.
(PS Non avrò nessuna reazione contraria vedendo qualcuno che protegge la natura)

It has been the same for me and i think i can track it back all the way down to the origin points.

It all goes back to childhood..
Could have been started by living in a society, country, city, even a neighborhood / study in a school you didn't like etc and you start to act differently / do thing differently to be counted out or could be parents/ppl around you saying you're different or expecting you to be different or treating you differently and over time you develop a what you call "Anti-chameleon" system for yourself from the neural circuits you build in your brain.

Yea, better not fight it i guess, way too many upsides. and the downsides can be managed long as we know how it works so we can hack it.

I agree 110% on preserving nature.

Maybe you are just middle of the road and the extremes highlight in a way that only feels opposite?

Hmmm... All seems perfectly normal to me, for someone who thinks.

Earl Nightingale spoke of those followers who follow the followers, each further distorting the original idea, which may have had no validity to begin with. That group seldom contains a contributor.

By the way, preserving nature IS rebellious to our consumeristic society.

It’s me too. I’ve noticed in personality test this type is described as “debater” (I love to argue against my own convictions, even if no one challenges them). It’s seeking, its striving to grow.

If we see ourselves as part of nature, we won’t necessarily “try to preserve it”, we would celebrate life in every breath and naturally (pun intended) wouldn’t even think of self-destruction by abuse of nature.

What we can do now is stop participating in nature's genocide by understanding correctly which of our actions cause and which don’t cause harm.

However, on the other hand, arguing against my own point, nature is not going to die from our abuse. We will.

Nature will continue indefinitely, it will rebuild itself. It will filter the poisoned waters, create new species, while us —we will die from the poisoned waters and lack of suitable food.

Thus, by first understanding and then obeying the law of nature, what we’ll get in return is love.

And if we break the law, the law will break us.

Easy. You are an anti- chameleon because you are a show-off.

That's a running theme for you right? You idolize people who stand out and buy things that makes people notice you and you do things so you will be admired.

And you are quite successful at doing that. So no mystery there. :)

I feel the same way a lot of the times. I think this comes from a non conforming mentality. It is so easy to get caught up in the herd mentality. I feel like a walking paradox at times and want to break out of it. However I have come to the conclusion this is a way of truly finding oneself and what it is we are meant to do in this life. I have been reading about Willian S. Burroughs that has confirmed for me that all of our experiences are meant to be and that it is up to us to find meaning in them. My 2 cents.

That's interesting. If you are the average of the 5 people you surround yourself with. I wonder what happens to you if you surround yourself with only negative people? Will your Anti-chameleon powers make you better?
I don't agree with that “you are the average…” thing. — Derek

Some thoughts:

Being different (or opposite) for the sake of being different is of no use.

"Being different" isn't a good approach, because it comes down to "being different then others", meaning you define yourself over the things other people do.

"Fully being yourself" would be the better metric, right?

That said, there are of course a lot of things we are probably doing wrong as society where "being different" can be the right choice.

In the end, as so often, it comes down to the "how" and "why". If people around me are doing things in the right way for the right reasons, there is no need to be different for me. If not, yes, then it's propably wise to start going in a different direction.

A lot of times we only want to be different because it is "cool", because we get attention.

Always question the need to "be different".

This is my life story! Good to know I'm not the only one. Thanks Derek :)

PS: I'd love to get these in my inbox. Is that a possibility?

I‘m the opposite.

I can still remember being, well, anti-chameleon or something decades ago while having one of these typical college meaning of life discussions. Luckily I caught myself, and said so to the lady I was talking to, telling her that to get my honest thoughts we would need to bring over another person. It has stayed in my mind because I don't know why I was doing that.

Derek, as for your "seeing someone..." I am still laughing at the time I was sitting in the company kitchen with my Chief Executive Officer right beside me and the senior VP across the table. I still felt like a "new" junior manager, as it takes about a year for the stress to go down. I demanded with a touch of outrage, "Do you know what's humbling about this position, really humbling? Seeing less mature staff and wondering, 'Did I used to be like that?'"

The CEO laughed so hard she fell against me. The VP looked steadily at me. He said, "I still check myself against the staff."

I'm the same way, we are similar in this way. I think it makes things more interesting if there is at least ONE person being different or thinking different, it matters somehow in the cosmos. There's something innately satisfying about waving your "freak flag" high although there are risks and potential backlash in some cases. The key is not to let anyone bring you down, which is no small task in the big city. Stay up, stay strong. Having your invisibility cloak handy does help and offers safety while the neon sign attracts everything including insects that may need swatting away. That's all I got right now, just wanted to chime in. It's really fun being yourself right? Isn't that always going to be the bottom line? The most fun will be had while being yourself truly.

Thanks for the insightful post Derek. I've felt the same way throughout my life, mostly because I never really felt like I belonged anywhere -- I just didn't fit in. It might be because of my upbringing, growing up as a small, shy immigrant kid in a remote country relying on my chameleon game to conform/fit in/survive. The older I get, the more I find my self reverting back to old habits - maybe I should just embrace being an introverted contrarian.

Wow. This really got my attention. I thought I was the only one who felt like that. I have always admired people who just do their own thing, no matter what others are doing around them, or regardless of whether it's considered 'cool' or not. Maybe that's why I always quietly rebel a little all the time. And like you, I always change my mind all the time about things I do myself and want to try different things. Perhaps it's a sign of intelligence. :)

Hi Derek,
Are you familiar with Gretchen Rubin's Four tendency framework? https://quiz.gretchenrubin.com/

Are you a Rebel? Rebels are creative but they love spontaneity, and you are a judger... Maybe Rebel is your secondary tendency? If that's the case, what would be your primary tendency? A Questioner?

Holy cannoli. I love love love this and resonate with it to my core. I embody this on a small scale in my daily life, and I have recently realized that one of my grand life themes is to reject my parent's "no really, all of this is fine" mentality about everything in their lives.

Kia Ora - Came here to mention Rubin’s 4 tendencies framework but Jade beat me to it. Maybe the only valuable ‘quiz’ I remember ever taking, and this episode screamed like a fellow Rebel to me. Cheers for sharing as always

Nothing more boring than someone who is exactly like you!

(And since you seem to be a very multi-faceted person, you just use one of your more opposing sides, depneding on the situation.)
It sounds very common to me, since I often take a similar approach.

Mr. Sivers Your articles are interesting , I would like to Read more articles

Same here. I don't consider myself a rebel, but I feel the rebellious reactions in me.

This is amazing, almost everything in here resonates with me.
It's so weird, if there's anything that drives me to do something so impulsively and fast -like if I changed drastically my personality- it's if they wanted to influence me on something that I didn't like to hear.
If someone wants a favor from me, I'll happily help. But if instead someone tries to give me advice in something, e.g. an actual good advice, I'll acknowledge them my gratitude for their concern, but I wasn't like that before, now I know that I have to fight this awful desire to do the opposite, I don't want to be this destructive to myself

When I read this I felt so deeply heard I shut my eyes and appreciated the strength of the feeling. Thank you.

Always wanting to explore the opposite of something – whether a mood, a statement, a perspective, a power relation, a quality – seems to be a healthy and intellectually productive state of mind, if it isn't carried into needless conflict (internal or external), i.e. if it's combined with a sense of humour, a relaxed ego and an appreciation of the absurd.

It's the power of the contrarian, the skeptic, the person who roots for the underdog, the compassionate.

Your post reminds of something Peter Thiel mentioned in an interview:
"Maybe I do always have this background program running where I'm trying to think of, 'Okay, what's the opposite of what you're saying?' and then I'll try that."
(from https://theweek.com/articles/672833/peter-thiel-trolling-media)