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I am never going to be part of the crowd. In my youth, I had twenty years of training, preparing me to walk alone.

A denunciation which once rang in my ears — “You must be joking!” — when a stranger attempted to push me towards another seemed to encapsulate the situation.

I was and could never be part of the crowd, forever pushed out to the far periphery, ignored.

So it was that in adulthood, I chose to chart my own course, wandering on far from any crowd.

Perhaps that explains why I am not much taken by claims of orthodoxy or moved by the demands of communitarianism.

I reside, as I always have, on the periphery. I have had no stake in the collective, so feel no compulsion to respond to the cries of dominant voices.

In the years since that mostly lonely youth, I have accepted that it is okay to walk alone. It’s okay to forge your own onwards path.

You don’t have to do as society or your community demands. You just have to be true to yourself, attempting to live a good life.

To attempt to be honest, courageous and just in your dealings with others. To be fair and true, kind and generous, striving to do what’s right.

If the crowd helps you to achieve all that, then good, stay with the crowd. If not, then be prepared to walk alone. Whichever way works for you.

In the end, you will stand alone before your Lord, called to account for how you lived your life.