How Different....

For the longest time I thought that to be different, one needed to demonstrate a difference, to make it obvious for all to see. I thought one had to act crazy, look really weird, or have something noticeably off about ones' self to set one apart and make others aware of it. It's crap, it is just a way to justify needing attention, craving to be noticed. I was younger, and I didn't really know the rationalisation behind why I thought that was the way to individuality. What was happening is that I was fooling myself into thinking that, in order to cover the truth from myself. I didn't want to accept or admit that I was looking for someone to accept me. It was a way to test people, to see if they would see me through all the "difference" and still want to know me. Once I saw this, I was highly amused at the irony: I wanted people to see me, even though I was disguising myself. I wanted them to decode who I actually was, and like me even though I couldn't just be me and let them know me.

In fact, being "different" has become mainstream, something that everyone is trying to do, because it's "in". I think in part this is because there are so many of us now, we are so crowded together and homogenized. Being different truly only means that you are so, not that anyone else needs to know; there is no badge that one wears, and being seen as so does not make it any more valid. The only true way to be different-to have that actual uniqueness-is to be ones' self. There is no one else in the world who can do that, and that is truly different.