The Final Question: Why You Must Say F*ck You To Conformity
The vital, risky act of living starts the moment you ask this question.
“It is only those who are in constant revolt that discover what is true, not the man who conforms, who follows some tradition. It is only when you are constantly inquiring, constantly observing, constantly learning, that you find truth, God, or love.”
—Jiddu Krishnamurti
We were all born as kids with an intense and sometimes borderline-annoying curiosity about the world around us. We wanted to know everything. Why rules were rules. Why birds flew. Why lightning always came first and thunder second. Why we shouldn’t put our hands in fire, collect candies from strangers, or go to bed by 9 pm (especially if you were like me, always sent to bed at 9 pm sharp).
Kids are the most difficult people to teach, not because their prefrontal cortex isn’t fully developed (which it isn’t). It is because for every fact or statement you give them, they fire back with a new why, and answering one why leads straight into another. The cycle spirals into an unending rabbit hole of questions.
It isn’t surprising that this is our natural default setting as humans. To question. To probe. To pull reality apart and see what is hidden beneath. Questioning is how we express the innate curiosity we were born with, and without curiosity, innovation and invention would simply not exist.
Think about it. If wanderers and explorers weren’t curious, would we have debunked the myth of a flat earth, or figured out that thunder wasn’t Thor beating his anvil like they portrayed in Vikings? In fact, if Ragnar Lothbrok wasn’t curious enough to ask what was on the other side of the sea, the Northmen would never have reached Paris, Wessex, Mercia, Northumbria, or York. (Watch Vikings.)
But this raw form of curiosity, the one we were born with, the one that precedes every form of innovation and fuels evolution, follows a strange curve. It peaks in childhood, then drops sharply through adolescence and adulthood. Studies even show that a child asks around 300 questions a day, while the average adult asks barely 20.
One may ask why? I think learned helplessness is the culprit here.
To understand learned helplessness, we need to take a look at Seligman’s dog experiment. In the experiment, dogs were exposed to electric shocks they could not escape, no matter what they tried. After a while, they stopped trying altogether. Later, when the researchers placed them in a new setup where escape was as simple as jumping over a small divider, the dogs didn’t move. They had learned that effort didn’t matter, so they stayed still, whining and taking the shocks even though freedom was literally right beside them.
Humans (you and I) experience the same thing not in the form of electric shocks but in society, which includes our parents, schools, teachers, and authorities. Society rewards us when we follow the standards it sets. And whenever our intrinsic curiosity rises to ask who created those standards or tries to bend them even slightly, we get corrected, scolded, or shut down. Over time, the brain makes a connection: curiosity or trying equals punishment and following equals safety.
So instead of pushing back, we stop trying altogether and follow the script, even when it no longer makes sense to us.
I remember growing up asking my parents a thousand questions. Why was it bad to whistle at night? Why couldn’t I play ball in the street with other kids? Why was it wrong to collect things with my left hand? Why did I have to go to bed by 9 pm or go to church every Sunday? Why couldn’t I keep my hair full? I would ask “why” endlessly, trying to push past the surface-level answers like “It is not good.” And when I pressed deeper, they either didn’t answer me anymore or just said, “That is just how things are.”
Every time I tried bending or breaking one of these rules, there was punishment. I was a stubborn kid, which means I broke a lot of rules and got punished just as often. Though the punishments took its toll and eventually, I caved. I followed the path of least resistance because it worked.
Charles Darwin wrote, “In the struggle for existence, those organisms better adapted to their environment tend to survive and transmit their characteristics to succeeding generations.” In order to survive, I also adapted. I learned almost instinctively that following the rules equaled safety, and questioning them equaled punishment.
Even in the moments where no punishment came, my brain already expected it, so I stopped trying. And this is exactly what happens to most of us. Learned helplessness drains every iota of curiosity we were born with, and we begin to follow blindly like sheep walking toward the slaughter.
There is a reason society functions this way. Conformity is not an accident. It is intentional. Society, in its holistic design, thrives on assigning predefined paths, roles, and functions. Each part has a fixed purpose, and together they keep the whole system running smoothly. Conformity is celebrated because it is efficient. It produces predictable results. It keeps the machine intact.
But that is the flaw. Humans are not machines. We are not animals meant to obey without questioning. Every breakthrough in science, philosophy, reasoning, medicine, art, and literature was born from someone daring to question the rules, beliefs, laws, and authorities society worships.
A classic example is Newton and the falling apple. Apples had been falling forever. Generations of people watched fruit hit the ground and never thought twice. For thousands of years, people farmed, hunted, prayed, fought, married, died, and it took Newton to say, “Hold on! Why does this always happen? Why does it fall down and not sideways or up?”
The same thing happened with atoms. The entire idea began with a question that seemed unnecessary. “What is the smallest thing that can ever exist?” At the time, no one cared. People were too busy surviving. Paying rent. Raising children. Wrestling with life. But that question, the one nobody thought mattered, became one of the most transformative questions in human thought.
From that curiosity, John Dalton eventually put forward his modern atomic theory where he said, “An atom is the smallest indivisible particle.” Then along came Ernest Rutherford, who looked at that statement and said, “Indivisible? Hell no. Why don’t we fire alpha particles through a thin sheet of gold and see what happens?” And that simple act of not believing the accepted truth led to the discovery that atoms are far from indivisible.
None of them said these exact words, but if they did, I imagine the conversation sounding exactly like that.
The point is: every major breakthrough humanity has ever celebrated came from someone who refused to accept the rules as they were. Someone who questioned what everyone else treated as normal. The innovators, the thinkers, the rebels, the misfits. They heard society say “This is how it is done” and replied “Says who?”
So if the greatest people who ever lived relied on curiosity, why do we abandon ours? Why do we trade it in for the boring comfort of conformity? Why do we silence the same instinct that built everything we admire? Should we not follow the same path instead of continuing on the default conveyor belt of mediocrity?
To do that, the only way out is to return to our childhood curiosity. To question things again. To explore. To challenge. To think for ourselves. And yes, to say a warm, heartfelt f*ck you to conformity so we can finally step into who we were meant to be.
Why Unconformity Is the Best Shot You Have at Living a Fulfilled Life
“The most dangerous thing you can do is to follow the crowd. The crowd is usually wrong.”
— Naval Ravikant
Observe nature, and you will notice that rewards concentrate around the few who take real risks. The biggest gains never go to the person choosing comfort. They go to the one who voluntarily walks into resistance, the one who risks failure, ridicule, uncertainty.
Nature seems biased toward those willing to bet their own skin, and evolution favors the person who moves toward difficulty because difficulty is where adaptation happens. Everything good in life compounds from that principle.
Unconformity is not about rebellion for rebellion’s sake. It is simply the refusal to outsource your thinking. It is the engine of innovation. Innovation increases adaptability, and adaptability drives evolution.
Evolution, which is the constant movement toward better fit, better ideas, better ways of being, is the deepest force in the universe, and understanding this should change how we move through the world.
The people we admire, the scientists, entrepreneurs, visionaries, and philosophers, are remembered long after ordinary people fade into history because they asked the questions everyone avoided.
They refused to outsource their thinking rather than follow the hive. By doing so, they pushed the entire species forward. That is the true reward of unconformity: you become a participant in evolution rather than a passenger.
To be an unconformist, you must reverse a lifetime of conditioning. You have to think for yourself. It sounds simple. It is not. In fact, it is far harder than it sounds.
Independent thought requires examining your deepest assumptions: belief, identity, culture. It requires accepting that mistakes, embarrassment, and backlash are part of the transaction. It means letting go of the safety of certainty.
It means walking through life with more questions than answers, and most of all, being misunderstood. Few people will choose this and even fewer will follow through. But if you are part of the few, then the path ahead becomes clear, not easy.
Be a Generalist in a Specialist’s World
Enjoy Mistakes, Risks, and Looking Dumb
Embarrassment is an under-explored emotion. Learn to make a fool of yourself.
Be A Generalist In A Specialist’s World
“Specialization is for insects. I don’t believe in this model of trying to focus your life down one thing. You’ve got one life just do everything you want.”
— Naval Ravikant
While everyone tells us to specialize, to dominate a niche and be part of the top 1 percent, the truth is the opposite. All the truly great people are generalists. They know a lot of things, and because they can connect ideas across disciplines, they can solve problems most specialists cannot.
Most problems are never one-dimensional. That is the advantage of a generalist. Many will disagree and quote Shakespeare: “Jack of all trades, master of none.” Yet they are unaware that it is a misquote and ends with: “But oftentimes better than a master of one.”
Shakespeare himself was a generalist—playwright, actor, businessman, student of war, philosophy, psychology, politics, classical literature, religion, military tactics, music, navigation, and more. Play-writing was merely a vessel. He synthesized all his knowledge into what he produced.
Leonardo da Vinci followed the same pattern. Famous as a painter for the Mona Lisa, he was also an inventor, mathematician, architect, anatomist, and cartographer. The same is true for modern innovators: Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Steve Jobs. Having a niche or a vessel is not the same as being a specialist.
Specialists, by contrast, are tethered to one skill or domain. They struggle outside their comfort zone. And as technology advances, they become increasingly vulnerable. Traditional artists who mastered canvas painting had to adapt to Photoshop or digital media or risk obsolescence.
Today, AI generators are replacing specialized design work faster than ever. Specialists who cannot pivot will fall behind. Generalists, however, focus on the goal, not the tool, and they adapt. They can thrive anywhere.
Humans are tool builders. We survive and create in almost any environment. Put a lion in Alaska or a polar bear on the savannah—they die. Put a human in either, and they will build shelter, make clothing, hunt for food, and adapt. That is the essence of being a generalist.
And it is simple to start. Learn what interests you. Follow your curiosity.
Growing up, the human body intrigued me, so I read about biology. My priorities shifted, and I realized I loved abstract thinking and problem-solving, so I chose to study engineering in university.
In secondary school, I developed a flair for writing love letters to crushes. I became reasonably good at it, and now I can write about things beyond love. Photography caught my interest, so I started taking and editing pictures. Technology interested me also, so I learned to code.
Today, I explore entrepreneurship, philosophy, and history. None of these had to be exclusive. I can pursue them all.
The path to becoming a generalist is simple: try a lot of things. Nobody fully understands life, and that is okay. Explore. Almost everything is interesting if you go deep enough.
Do not settle for superficial knowledge. Dive into controversies, read widely, study relentlessly, irreverently, and without worrying what others think. Most of what people call intelligence is really just curiosity.
Enjoy Mistakes, Risks, and Looking Dumb
“So I learned that the people who make the most of the process of encountering reality, especially the painful obstacles, learn the most and get what they want faster than people who do not”
—Ray Dalio
Fear of making mistakes is hardwired into us. I still feel it. Society trains us to avoid failure. Much of this comes from school, which overemphasizes having the right answer and punishes being wrong.
School is supposed to prepare us for life, but it fails at the one thing life actually demands: dealing with uncertainty. In reality, you almost never get handed the right answers. Making mistakes is essential. Those who embrace them, who fully engage with reality as it is, learn faster and get what they want sooner than those who avoid the risk of being wrong.
At first, you will make mistakes. It is inevitable. Everyone does. The difference is in how early you judge yourself. You are not bad at something because you failed; you are simply early in the process.
If you give up, then truly you have failed. My first Substack newsletter was far from perfect. Grammar errors, repetition, misuse of words, plenty of flaws. This also is not perfect, but I have come to accept that it has to be imperfect to improve.
You cannot rush mastery. You have to put in the work every day and be willing to stumble along the way. Errors are not the enemy; they are the guideposts. Embrace looking foolish. Ask questions, even insensible ones. Take risks. Fail, and fail fast.
Each misstep teaches you how not to do it. Failure is paradoxically more valuable than getting things right. Success gives answers; mistakes lead to questions, which later lead to more answers.
There is incredible beauty in being wrong. Each mistake contains a puzzle, a lesson, a gem waiting to be discovered. The people who thrive are not those who avoid failure; they are the ones who see every misstep as an opportunity to learn, to adapt, and to move closer to what is truly possible.
Embarrassment Is An Under-Explored Emotion. Learn To Make A Fool Of Yourself.
Embarrassment is a social illusion. We overvalue the opinions of others and undervalue our own experience. You are not the center of anyone’s universe. You are not on the center stage. You are not the main event. Most of the time, your mistakes, your awkwardness, your blunders, nobody even remembers.
“The best gift you can give yourself is getting over the fear of embarrassment because then you’re completely free to try anything.” ~ Jesse Itzler
Stop asking what people think, how they will react, or what they will say. They are caught up in their own lives, problems, and insecurities, just as much as you are. You are free the moment you accept that nobody is watching as closely as you imagine.
So go ahead. Do the things that scare you. Look foolish. Fail. Ask the stupid questions. In embracing embarrassment, you step into a zone of radical freedom. You stop being a passenger in your own life and start steering toward what actually matters.
The people who achieve, the ones who innovate, the ones who shape reality, do it because they are indifferent to the judgment of the crowd. They do it because they are willing to be awkward, clumsy, misunderstood, and human.
Embarrassment is the price of living fully. Pay it willingly, and you will be free.
Thank you for reading.
I hope you found value in it.
– Àbímbọ́lá
Hi Reader, I’m not a motivational speaker, not even close. I’m just obsessed with living an unconventional life and inspiring people to aim higher.
I send this email every week . If you want to be part of this small tribe of 60+ people who refuse to live the conventional script, you can join us too.
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