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Rebel yell

The rebel myth:
The myth asks us to admire the "authentic life". Notice what authentic life is not: it isn't moral life, it isn't a life of self-denial out of love, it isn't even an examined life. Far from ever having to examine his life, the rebel always seems to have everything worked out from the the beginning, as though he were Christ questioning the teachers in the Temple. The rebel never has to experience the essentially moral drama of figuring out that "the greatest griefs are those we cause ourselves", for the rebel -as the story goes- only experiences grief at the hands of others, extrinsically, because he is oppressed and misunderstood. Because the rebel never experiences anything in his soul that he sees the need to correct or master (except perhaps, his own self- repression), the rebel is unable to have any moral development. In truth, the moral life begins when we accept that there are things in us that need to be perfected with outside help (family structure, churches, prayer) but the rebel sees his life as essentially perfect and ready to perfect the world around him.
Taken from Vomit the Lukewarm. Rebels are either the biggest poseurs of them all, or they're oversized children, IMHO.

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