Followers

We are a world of followers.

A few leaders are among us, to be sure, but necessarily they are the exception; we are the norm.

We who follow do so for many reasons, but the biggest is the simplest: our lives have more meaning and substance when they have purpose, and purpose is found in living and working with others. To that end, we curb the aimlessness of wandering by setting our sights on worthy destinations, and following those who know the way.

We are followers because we’re heading somewhere. There are many destinations, and most of them reside in the future. Some are just around the corner, some are a long way off. Whatever the case, we follow with purpose, and there is emotional comfort and even, often, exhilaration to be found in such choices.

But it’s important to note that we don’t always follow the same way.

Some among us do not follow other people. Instead, we follow an idea. We adopt a belief in something that gives us direction and inspires us to move in that direction. We cultivate it, nurture it, embrace it, and commit to it. We join in community with others who have done likewise, and follow that idea together.

Oh, there will be people at the head of our merry band, and we will walk in their footsteps, but they will come and go; we are not really following them, we are following the idea. We believe in it; it sustains us. It leads us to the place where we long to be.

Others among us do not follow ideas; they must follow a man. There must be a human face on their objectives and aspirations; they draw inspiration from a voice, rather than a thought. They want a human leader who will comfort them, reassure them, and lead them to that place they long to be. In such people, the interchangeable part is the idea, not the man; the man who leads cannot be swapped out for another – it is the ideas that come and go.

We do not choose which kind of follower we are. The satisfactions of the mind are chemical in nature, and it is a clinical reality that the brains of some are satiated with abstract thoughts, while others are stirred by social interactions. Put another way, neither style of followership is good nor bad; we are born with them. And we need both.

What unites all of us followers is this: whatever we tell ourselves, whatever we might say to or about each other, the fact is that we not only have little choice in how we follow, but we do so for reasons beyond reason; the star that guides us may be an idea, it may be a man, but either way, we didn’t make an intellectual choice. We follow because the act of following, whatever we’re following, gives us peace and security and an emotional balm. We follow an idea, we follow a man because of how that idea or man makes us feel.

Without that feeling, we really are left wandering, aimless and without purpose. And that’s a feeling much, much worse.