My personal experience was mixed. By nature, I was very trusting and open. When I was small, this openness was in excess: I was smiling and speaking to strangers, sharing everything with everybody. Part of my family was loving and part of my family was very dysfunctional. So I was faced with the need to differentiate who I trust and who I don't. I ended up practicing my skills of a healer and psychiatrist in communicating to and healing the dysfunctional part of my family.
I grew up in the society which was in a state of decay, it was the end of Soviet Empire. Much was distorted to obvious absurdity. For example, enormous waiting lines for buying goods were a symbol of sickness of the society. The educational institutions were also much distorted. I was surprised and confused by unfairness and deception. I saw how children, who were compliant and deceptive, were fitting better in the unfair system. They were liked by the teachers and I was clearly an outsider to peers. I wanted to love and to be loved and this wasn't the case. I remember trying to join groups of children and being always rejected. The children were led by nasty, aggressive and offensive kids. They played aggressive games typically fighting each other. I didn't want any of this fighting, I wanted creativity and compassion. I remember a case, when a boy on a playground in a daycare who was harmed by kids which he didn't notice. I came to help him, he blamed me for harming him and I was punished by the teachers. This felt very unfair.
As far, as I can tell, I had little help in dealing with these issues. My mother was as confused as I was. She was always in a hurry and although loved me, she didn't know how to communicate with me. My grandfather was my best friend and teacher, but his world was of science and he didn't advise me on relationships. I am pretty sure that until I educated myself through books, I was at loss about relationships. As I read and learned, the life on Earth started making more sense to me and I gradually progressed to developing my own style which came up to be an alternative style. I picked my teachers and authorities among alternative book and song writers. My learning was typically one-sided, my teachers typically were remote if alive, and I didn't dialogue with them.
Another kind of teachers were my friends and loved women. Of course they helped me much. Especially, the girls who I loved, mutually or not, taught me much. I am thankful to all.
I am pretty sure that a certain percentage of people have similar problems adjusting to the general negativity of the environment as I do. Some learn to integrate into the society and others don't. Some develop alternative thinking, others comply and become standardized. We are very diverse. It is not necessary to be an outcast to develop alternative thinking. For example many of alternative writers I admire came out of people who were well fit socially. It was their ability to think independently, that brought them to alternative thinking and to becoming leaders of the alternative thought. Such were Galich and Vysotsky. Both were extremely popular to the extent that they were not worrying about the money. They always had enough for decent living and elements of luxury of the time. Their talent and thinking made both to choose the alternative way. The popularity of Vysotsky was so high, that his voice was everywhere (except mainstream radio): in cars, at homes and at work: people played his tapes and for the first time in history were choosing what to listen to. The tape recorders and players just appeared at the time and Vysotsky was the choice of people. Even people in KGB (the heart of Russian branch of MIC) were fond of Vysotsky. Due to his popularity he had access to information others didn't have. He was aware of reincarnation and the aliens. He was free to go in and out of the country. That knowledge which was extremely rare in Soviet Union, in artistic form, leaked into his songs and imprinted on Russian people. I remember admiring Vysotsky and Nikitin's songs when I was about 3 years old. We learned them by heart (which is not trivial with our minds) and these comprise the basis of our consciousness.
My affection with Galich came late. My peers in alternative movement brought me to his songs. We recited them late at night in forests by a camp fire. We knew these were prohibited and that our peers were persecuted for singing those. We were trusting each other, but would silence when strangers would come to our fire. The answers were becoming obvious, but it took guts to move on the path of truth.
Galich paid dear price for choosing the alternative path. He was deprived of sources of living and forced to leave the country. This was especially bad for him since he was losing his audience and his mission. Miraculously he regained his ability to speak and sing to the audience via Radio Liberty. He started to broadcast his teachings and songs remotely from abroad. This didn't last long and he was assassinated soon.
John Lennon, on other hand, wasn't born popular. I believe, he had a mind of an alternative thinker from the beginning and his traumatic early development only strengthened independence of his mind. Lennon was assassinated by MIC at the time he set his path on the politics of peace and could make a big difference.
Bulgakov was trying to comply very much and was popular before going alternative path, but it was his brilliance and education that lifted him above the crowd and finally forced him to become one of the leaders of alternative thought, which happened long after his death.
MIC killed openly or secretly Mandelstam, Babel, Bulgakov, Vysotsky, Galich, Visbor, John Lennon and other alternative thinkers. Galich and Trotsky were assassinated remotely, in the emigration.
MIC = military-industrial complex