Some people like to try new things. Other people prefer to keep doing things they are familiar with

Popular writer Yuval Noah Harari in his book "Sapiens. A Brief History of Humankind" tells that since ancient times, people have been divided into hunter-collector and farmers. This means that from the very beginning of human history there were those who preferred cultivating one piece of land, “putting down roots”, and those who were looking for new territories and food. So now we can divide people into those who prefer a familiar environment and those who are always in search of new experiences. In my opinion, this question is much broader - in society, people can also be divided into conformists and nonconformists: those who prefer the existing world order, conservative views, who are wary of technological progress, and those who openly accept new knowledge, a new experience, who is curious about new technologies and scientific discoveries and experiments. All these people have a great influence on the current state of human civilization.

Nonconformists are the engines of progress. If there were no legends about Icarus, maybe the Wright brothers would not have assembled their first plane and now we would not be able to fly freely from Australia to Alaska. If the ancient Greeks had not looked at the stars and observed the movement of the planets, maybe Yuri Gagarin would not have been the first man in space, and Neil Armstrong would not have set foot on the surface of the Moon. If the ancient people of Pangea had not gone on a long journey, would we now live in different parts of the planet? So many things that are now ordinary for us were once invented by great romantics who could not sit in one place and always wanted something new for themselves. In my family, I am a nonconformist - while many generations of my family live in the paradigm "where I was born, I came in handy" I feel like a seeker of a new experiences: move from place to place, to different cities and countries, thereby accumulating new knowledge, new habits, new traditions.

On the other hand, there are people who are conformists - they prefer familiar things, and familiar places, and they don't like to leave their comfort zone. But by doing so, it is these people who preserve the traditions of ethnic groups, the history of civilization, and cultural heritage. If they did not exist, then who would collect the great collections of the Louvre, the Hermitage, and MoMA? This type of people cultivates gardens, parks, and even schools - everything that grows for a long time, and years of patience are needed to get the result. At my university, one of the additional subjects was "Traditional Russian women's costume": for many years, many groups of scientists collected bit by bit the almost lost patterns of different regions of Russia, weaving and embroidery methods, as well as legends and folk beliefs that were reflected in women's jewelry - amulets, of course, these people can be called conformists, traditionalists - it is thanks to them that Russian culture has not been lost despite many historical events.

Returning to Yuval Noah Harari, in his opinion, a sedentary lifestyle and the habit of farming, and conformity, played a bad joke on humanity - climate change on the planet and the habit of one food source made people prone to hunger and disease, now it could be called a "habit to food luxury" when people are not ready to infringe on their habits for the sake of new experience and some kind of personal improvement. Certainly, I consider myself a “nonconformist collector”, but the fact that the human race is not homogeneous, it has a place for both: experimenters and museum curators - makes our common life on the planet more intense and interesting.