Most of the rules we live by—who made those up? I am dead serious. Arbitrary decisions? Random policies? Unwritten codes that somehow became gospel?

Estimated reading time: 9 minutes

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Somebody said, “This is how it’s done.” Did everyone just nod like it came down from Moses on the mountaintop? Sure seems like it.

But it didn’t. It came from people winging it, self-protecting their positions, chasing profit, or just doing what felt safe.

Arbitrary deadlines and expectations. Arbitrary ideas about what’s “too late,” “too weird,” or “not good enough.”

And here we are, bending ourselves into shapes we were never meant to fit.

Here’s the truth: the world isn’t built on logic. It’s built on precedent. And precedent is just yesterday’s guesswork dressed up in a suit.

So what do we do?

You stop asking for permission and start taking advantage of the arbitrary.

Because if the game is made up, we can make our own moves.

Is The Game Rigged?

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Yes.

You can feel it. You have thought about it for years.

Industry norms?

They box you in, tell you what you can play, where you can play it, and what it should sound like.

Too loud, too soft. Why is it so weird? Refine it; it is too raw.

A booker says you don’t fit the lineup.

A platform buries your track.

Some guy behind a desk tells you to find your lane. That lane was never made for you.

Societal standards?

They say to get a job. Keep it safe. Be grateful.

Clock in, pay taxes and die quietly.

They reward the numb and punish the bold.

If you haven’t “made it” by 30, they act like it’s over.

It is not.

Creative “shoulds?”

That’s the voice of fear disguised as advice.

You should sound like this and post more. You should simplify.

All it really means is:

“Do not scare people, be sure not stand out, and especially do not risk being misunderstood.”

If you never take risks, you might not make anything real.

As I write this, it sounds like whining, but is it really?

As I see it, the rules were never built to help you win.

But reality is plain: if you want to matter, you’ll have to break what seems like arbitrary rules.

The Sex Pistols

I have never liked them, and I will never do so. They are the antithesis of my core beliefs, yet their motivation can not be denied. 

The Sex Pistols didn’t try to fix the game; they decided to burn the board.

The Pistols did not care if you liked them; they were not evangelizing comfort. Praise or criticism was registered as nothing more than background static.

It was about offense and chaos and the things they were sickened by. 

Britain was unraveling at the seams. Unemployment was soaring, especially among the youth. Inflation was brutal, and the working class felt abandoned. Everything that used to make sense, empire, monarchy, and progress, was rusting in real-time.

Enter four punks with cheap guitars snarling into the mic:

“God save the Queen; she ain’t no human being.”

That wasn’t a lyric; it was a threat.

Their clothes were torn, and their playing was loud and negligent.

The Pistols wore their flaws like armor, daring you to look away. The goal was not polish; it was power.  

The point was exposing the lie that you had to behave.

The lie was that you needed permission, and the ones in charge knew better.

Society And The Arbitrary

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They knew it was all arbitrary, including the institutions, the politeness, and the commercial gloss.

And they tore it down in under three minutes per track.

Critics hated them. The government feared what the Sex Pistols represented: cultural insurrection. 

But the youth? The ones choking on rules and expectations? They finally heard the truth, loud, ugly, and free.

As for you and me? We don’t have to be clean or liked. We need to be authentic. 

“I have no time for lies and fantasy, and neither should you.”

— John Lydon (Johnny Rotten), from his autobiography

Rotten: No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs (1994, Picador, p. 9)

What Does Arbitrary Really Mean?

There is no window dressing. Arbitrary means something was decided on a whim or realized by chance. There is no logic, reason, or truth behind it. It is just someone making a call or a circumstance that occurs out of the blue.

Humans make arbitrary decisions. Life creates arbitrary challenges. Chaos and chance reign. 

Those with power manifest a rule in a boardroom, a deadline slapped on a calendar.

A gatekeeper saying “no” just because they can, for the simple reason that they fear loss.

Is not this arbitrary noise? 

And the scary part? We follow the arbitrary, shape our lives around it, bow to it like it’s truth written in stone.

It’s a mask, a guess, and a bluff.

The hope is once you see it, you stop being controlled by it.

You start pushing back.

Because when the rules are not built on truth, you don’t break them, you walk right through them.

Arbitrary Up Close

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Today, a car hit my bike.

I was crossing an intersection with the light in my favor. Doing everything right as a law abiding citizen would. I ride often and know how to be seen. I know how to be careful.

It didn’t matter.

The car missed my body by one foot.

One second sooner, and I might not be writing this.

I might have been in a hospital bed.

I might have been dead.

Instead?

The rear tire took the hit. Bent like a pretzel.

I didn’t even fall.

When you ride as much as I do, it is not a matter if you will be hit; it is when and how badly. 

I have been hit by a car four times. That is arbitrary. Not fate. Not fairness. Just raw, unfiltered randomness.

One flick of chance, a shift in timing, one inch of reality bending a different way, and everything changes

Chaos and chance reign.

Today, the electrons aligned in my favor. The luck of the Irish. Today, I live. But by the grace of God go I.

That’s the truth most people don’t want to accept. We are not in control.

The calendar, the gatekeepers, and the “rules” are illusions in life. Underneath them, all is pure unpredictability.

So why are we waiting for permission? Why are we trying to follow someone else’s plan? If randomness governs the outcome, we owe it to ourselves to take the wheel while we can.

I Am Arbitrary: Walt Whitman

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“Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself. I am large, I contain multitudes.”

Walt Whitman – Leaves of Grass, Song of Myself, Section 51

Whitman’s “I contain multitudes” isn’t just about personal complexity.

It’s a middle finger to the idea that identity should be clean, logical, or fixed.

But guess what?

That expectation that we should be consistent, linear, and marketable is arbitrary. 

I am arbitrary.

Somewhere along the way, someone decided we should be one thing.

One voice, a genre, and a direction. The algorithm.

I am arbitrary.

Why?

Because that is who I am. I don’t know the rules of packaging and selling, and I barely understand how to market myself.

Furthermore, I don’t understand me.

Life is not tidy, and neither is truth. Real people are inconsistent, and sometimes authentic art contradicts itself.

That is not a flaw; it’s the signal that something of value is happening.

Whitman understood that contradiction is not failure; it is freedom.

Freedom from fake structure and fabricated rules is the idea that we can choose whether to live or die on our chosen path. 

How does it connect?

Contradiction is your proof of whether the game is made up or not.

When you refuse to obey the algorithm, people get uncomfortable, not because you are wrong, but because they’re clinging to made-up rules you stopped believing in.

And once you stop believing in those rules? You are free to be everything. To contain multitudes. To evolve without apology.

That’s what makes people who live static lives uncomfortable. Because they have bought into the lie and you have not.

Do you think things are new in this day and age? There is nothing new. Nothing is new in all of humanity’s history.

The Real Skill? Navigating The Arbitrary

Most people waste their energy trying to control what can’t be controlled. They fight chaos. They try to outsmart randomness. If you plan, behave, and follow the rules long enough, the universe will reward you.

But the universe doesn’t deal with fairness; it deals with arbitrary outcomes.

You can do everything right and still get wrecked.

You can stumble sideways and hit something genius.

That’s not failure or luck, it’s the game.

So, the real skill?

It’s not rigidity, or playing by the book. It’s knowing how to move through a world where the rules change mid-sentence.

I am still trying to grasp that reality.

I am trying to steer my ship in the storm instead of waiting for clear skies.

The skill is to take advantage of the arbitrary, not by pretending it’s not there, but by learning to move through it without losing yourself.

Can We Help You?

What’s one risk you know you need to take—but haven’t?

Appreciate you being here.

If this hit home, let me know.
Drop a comment—tell me what rules you’ve broken lately.
Share it with someone still stuck in the box.
And if you want more of this—truth, fire, and the real fight—
subscribe.

You, me, us, we are the frontline.

Stay sharp. Stay real.
Take advantage of the arbitrary.

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