What Makes a Maverick?

Mavericks don't fit in, and they don't lead the majority. They lead a few guys who look up to the boss.

If you're using the perception of being a maverick, and the majority follow you, and the conventional point of view is with you, that's phony.

A true maverick doesn't care what people think -- in the larger sense of thinking, not necessarily in particulars. Because mavericks can be decent human beings about it.

Sometimes you can be a maverick in your own mind, which still affects behavior, but fear holds you back from being fully engaged in it. A fantasizing maverick is a sad creature, postponing happiness for an imaginary future time.

Mavericks are loners, liking people in theory but not so much in practice.

There are milder cases, but these are only relative mavericks, somewhere just above or below conformity.

If you're using your maverick status to swing the conventional point of view to your own view you are one of these milder cases.

A true maverick can't be a conservative, because such limits are a contradiction. Someone who is a conservative and is mistaken for a maverick is actually a curmudgeon.

Also people who are simply hotheads are mistaken for mavericks. They pick fights for fun. A maverick doesn't care to fight. There's no use fighting because the world's a lost cause, and you know you're right.