Perhaps we have been attaching terms that are far too grandiose to geniuses who defied their eras or to those who stood against the mainstream. Words like great crusader, lonely pioneer, or martyr of the age. It feels as though we must plaster them with such heroic modifiers just to bridge the gap between their wretched realities and the praise of posterity.
Yet, the truth is much simpler, and therefore, more poignant.
They were not particularly great crusaders. Nor did they fight the mainstream with a grand sense of historical mission. They just lived their own lives.
A Way of Being, Not a Struggle
When Machiavelli changed into his courtly robes every night to write The Prince, it was not a crusade to topple the Medici family or to become a great political scientist for posterity. Stranded in a rural corner feeding chickens after losing his public office, he felt as though his entire existence might evaporate. He took up the pen simply to maintain his life as "Machiavelli the politician" by any means necessary. For him, writing was not a struggle; it was breathing, and it was survival.
The same is true for those around us today who walk a path opposed by the modern mainstream. They are not crusaders harboring massive ambitions to change the world.
They simply chose a different path to avoid the dissonance—because they could not stomach the internal fractures and disillusionment that would occur if they lived by the commands of the mainstream and the correct answers set by authority. When the majority goes right and a single person stands alone on the left, it is not because the left is inherently more righteous, but because they are merely following their own nature, which utterly refuses to take a step to the right.
The Clever Frame of the "Hero"
The moment we label them as "crusaders," a massive wall paradoxically rises between them and us. We grant ourselves an exemption for conforming to the mainstream, thinking, "They endured such a grueling path because they were great crusaders; an ordinary individual like me could never handle that."
However, when we begin to see them not as crusaders but as "individuals who simply lived their own lives," our true contemplation begins. We come to realize that they, too, were weak human beings who wavered every single night just like us, felt a sorrowful futility in the face of the mainstream’s neglect, and fretted over their bank balances and real-world disadvantages.
They did not stand against the mainstream because they possessed extraordinary courage; they simply found it more horrifying to lose "their true life" by being swayed by the evaluations of others.
Concluding the Essay
Therefore, looking at yourself walking a path different from the mainstream, there is no need to reproach yourself or feel a sense of futility, thinking, "It’s not like I’m fighting a war for independence, so why am I doing this?"
You do not need to be a crusader. You do not need to shoulder the weight of historical significance. A single streak of stubbornness is more than enough—the refusal to let your precious daily life and convictions be swallowed whole by the yardsticks wielded by a fickle modern authority and mainstream.
Machiavelli did not survive because he was a grand statesman; we can still feel his breath 500 years later because he lived a life that was thoroughly and authentically Machiavellian. What you quietly do on the opposite side of the mainstream is not a struggle, but simply the most honest way for you to live as yourself. Though it may look like the stubbornness of a misfit in the eyes of the world, to you, it is the most modest yet solemn declaration of your right to fully live your own life.
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