My own friends and family are propagandized into blind obedience and cannot form an opinion (nor action) of right living that isn’t an obvious regurgitation of cable/network news and the bottom line of its advertisers.
This describes everyone in my family of origin, even those long gone. Do you not, then, feel the need to shake things up a bit? Would there be no one there to ask you a question about one of your paintings? I would ask. I might even speak only to you.
Yes, I always feel that need. If I didn’t have writing and painting to help organize my thoughts, dreams, decisions, personal history... I’d probably run amok:) I believe social pressure is the super glue that keeps us bound in a very poor model of the universe. It mused to work with saber-toothed tigers prowling around, but lost its worth when embarrassment was invented. Happily, I tell it how I see it, even to friends and family. With the latter it made me the black sheep, loved and tolerated at arm’s length. With the former, they take me for who I am, and stick around because I make an awesome cherry pie while giving Chicken Little a run for his cracked corn:)