being “conventional”

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This is part 1 of “being an American (with conceptual issues)”

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I guess that one’s first take on the meaning of ‘conventional’ is like “being conformative” or customary—and passive irt a convention.
(My use of ‘irt’= “in relating to” has become so customary for me in writing that I no longer define ‘irt’; I just use it.)

But the first meaning of ‘convention’ stood for something active: “1 : a: an agreement between persons or parties” (M-W. Unabridged). Being conventional, beginning for English in the 15thC, was something “1 : a: based on, settled by, or formed by agreement or compact.”

The agreement can be with/to oneself: resolved, self-realization, appreciating who “I” am, truly, to-and-for myself.

A convention is an action-orienting value that makes one’s action worthwhile.