EVERYONE’S AN OUTLAW ‘TIL IT’S TIME TO DO OUTLAW SHIT
There seems to be a million different versions.
You got the Wild West outlaws. Biker clubs. Music entertainers. Hollywood anti-heroes with cigarettes hanging out of their mouths pretending danger is an accessory you can buy at a clothing store.
Everybody’s got a little outlaw in them.
A little voice that wants to tell authority to go straight to hell.
Being an outlaw seems cool.
Reality, however, is a different animal altogether.
Entertainment turned it into a cartoon. Six-shooters. Drug dealing. Gang wars. Fast money. Fast women. Loud personalities trying to convince everybody they’re dangerous while standing in VIP sections holding phones like teenage girls at a Taylor Swift concert.
Outlaws are something else entirely.
Pop culture warped the meaning because confusion sells better than truth. Easier to market chaos than character.
Real outlaws usually don’t seek crowds.
They don’t wake up needing attention.
They don’t need matching jackets and a social media slogan every twelve minutes.
Most of them actually want peace.
A quiet existence away from systems designed to turn human beings into obedient livestock with direct deposit.
But the outlaw appears the moment peace gets threatened by corruption pretending to be normal.
An outlaw stands up when the world starts forcing wrong down people’s throats and demanding everybody call it right.
There’s no applause in it either.
Hell, depending on the era, you can lose your freedom entirely.
Most people won’t risk that.
And honestly, I understand why.
People build entire lives around avoiding discomfort. Safe opinions. Safe conversations. Safe little cages decorated to look like freedom.
I’ve stood for people too afraid to stand for themselves because they had mortgages, jobs, families, fear. Fear changes people. Makes them negotiate with things they know are wrong just to keep life comfortable.
That’s why real outlaws usually end up isolated.
Not because they hate people.
Because eventually they realize most people fold the second pressure enters the room.
My own family probably thought I was the mailman’s kid half the time because I never learned how to bend the knee properly. But having a founding union man as a grandfather suddenly made a lot more sense as I got older.
Stand when everybody else sits down.
See clearly while the world performs confusion like actors reading from the same script.
And let me tell you firsthand:
Everybody wants to be an outlaw until it’s time to do outlaw shit.
Everybody loves rebellion when it’s aesthetic.
When it’s leather jackets and quotes under black-and-white photos.
Different story when standing up actually costs something.
That’s where the room empties.
Because real rebellion isn’t image-based.
The world right now wants the last line of resistance gone. Wants obedient people addicted to distraction, terrified of being disliked, too exhausted to question anything while media outlets, corporations, politicians, influencers, and every other salesman on Earth keep squeezing regular people dry.
Most people don’t even notice it happening anymore.
But I’ll warn you about something.
Getting rid of people willing to stand up for truth because they make society uncomfortable is like getting rid of penicillin because newer designer drugs exist.
Funny thing about penicillin —
It still saved people from the plague.
And no matter how modern the world becomes, eventually somebody still has to be willing to stand in the fire when everybody else runs from it.
The last free man in the room
tangentwithtanner
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