“The most subversive thing you can do is be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to turn you into something else."
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
I was never a big fan of Game Of Thrones. I realize how out of touch that must have made me. That’s okay. I was in touch with a lot of other things. Sometimes deeply. Sometimes not. I’ve been told by my family I should try out for Jeopardy, on account of my vast trove of meaningless and who-gives-a-shit knowledge. I’ve decided to take a pass for now.
So, no. Not a Game Of Thrones groupie.
But I was, and remain, an enormous fan of Peter Dinklage.
If you were to ask Peter, I think he would tell you that in some far away parallel reality, Tyrion Lannister might never have existed. Not Peter’s Tyrion Lannister anyway. That’s because parallel reality Peter would have made the dumb mistake of listening to that voice in his head. “What are you thinking, for God’s sake? Actor? Dude, you’re 4 foot 6. What are you going to play? Gnomes? Leprechauns? Give it up. Save yourself the heartbreak.”
Fortunately, the Peter Dinklage in this reality said to hell with that. For years, he struggled. Couldn’t pay the rent. Turned down job after job that would’ve at least paid the bills. But he wasn’t interested in being a punchline. He wanted to be taken seriously. As an actor, not a gimmick. Defined by his talent, not a measuring tape.
And then came The Station Agent, a small, strangely beautiful film where Peter played a quiet man who just wanted to be left alone. No jokes about height. No makeup. No magical realism. Just humanity. It changed everything.
Later, Game of Thrones made him a global icon. What made Peter unforgettable wasn’t just his performance. It was the gravity that he brought to every scene. And something else. A willingness to spit in the eye of conformity. If he was to fall on his face, so be it. At least it would be because of his shortcomings as an actor and nothing else.
Peter Dinklage didn’t just overcome his different.
He weaponized it.
In creative work, we hear the word relatable a lot. Relatable. That’s code for familiar. It’s what makes content scrollable, digestible, algorithm-safe. But when’s the last time you were moved by something just because it reminded you of everything else?
It doesn’t work that way. We don’t remember the things that fit the mold.
We remember the things that obliterate it, that make us feel something new.
I once worked with a creative who had this thing about using classical music in totally discordant places. Gritty skateboard videos. Slapstick comedy. War footage, soldiers dropping everywhere. Editors told him it didn’t work. That it broke the rhythm. That is was disorienting. At times, distasteful.
He did it anyway. It gave his work a kind of strange elegance. A poetic friction. It made people stop and feel something they never felt before. Eventually, clients didn’t just accept it. They asked for it.
This is what I believe. That the best stuff comes from the part of you that’s on the edges. That for some reason keeps drawing birds. That can’t seem to write about anything but Africa. That cries over weird things like trash barrels or dead leaves or the way the moon comes up over the horizon.
Stop trying to sand down the edges. The odd, aching, off-kilter parts of you that never quite fit. The parts that feel too much, that dream too big or too strange. The world will keep trying to talk you out of it. Stay in your lane, they will say. Tell the world to shut the hell up. Make the thing only you can make. Because nothing is more dangerous to a world that worships sameness than talent that dares to be different.