Friday, February 26, 2010

Being Different

Many see themselves as completely unique.

Totally different from others, they say. They possess certain qualities that others do not, and they seem to be very proud and happy about it. Some may talk discreetly about these qualities they possess, and some might go entirely open about them, bragging at others of how different they are from the rest.

And by being different, they demand somewhat higher-in-value sorts of treatment. They demand many things - they demand to be treated better, served better; for they are different of others. And when they do not receive certain treatments they expect to receive from certain people, they run amok on it. They will lose their minds and start the social bombardment; the usual, expected response of course; and they will yell that out loud that for being different from others, they are better than everybody else, where this 'everybody else' are the group of people whom they refer to as 'commoners'.


* * *

Picture yourself as a drop of liquid.

It could simply be water; the most abundant liquid on earth. It could also be oil; mineral oil, cooking oil, engine oil, Johnson & Johnson baby oil, et cetera. It could also be organic compound - either acidic: aqua fortis, spirits of salt, spirits of vitriol; or alkaline: caustic soda, caustic potash, free lime et cetera. And the list goes on.

Now picture yourself, now a drop of liquid of your own choice, being put in the middle of an ocean.

Well at this point some of you miserably-happy people are already imagining a major illusion - one of the major illusions, for there are several - one of the major illusion is picturing you being floating by yourselves away from other mean, mean people who oftenly drive you completely upside down every little day; floating by yourselves in the clear blue, warm water of the Pacific, being hushed by the sweet breeze of the equator, around many colorful corals and sea creatures, near what appears to be a small uninhabited island with fine white sand beaches and tropical trees along them, and for some reasons there is somewhat a beach chair located next to a patio bar that serves neverending supply of punch and whatnots, with the bartender being your dream spouse, among other things and so on; I strongly suggest you to slap yourself twice on each cheek as hard as possible, for you are still sitting on your old chair in that old room surrounded with people you have known for an awful long time while leading your pointless old life, trying to spend of what is left of your, well, life.

Nothing changes.

But what do changes today, this I assure you - especially all you 'different' people - that today your views on this one particularly depressing and confusing matter of being 'different', might somehow change, unless of course if you are as stubborn as an overly-fed bulldog that refuses to move whenever you are vacuuming the floor regardless of whatever that you do, then I suggest you to stop reading and go ahead with your fashion mags and entertainment channel instead, for what is written here is almost, but not quite, entirely unlike philosophy.

Moving on now.

Now you, being somewhat different from others as you tell to yourself and sometimes/most of the times to others, now a drop of liquid of your own choice, in the middle of an ocean - do slap yourselves again should the imaginations occur for one time around, and concentrate - please tell me this; tell me, do you now make a difference?

In a small community of ten people, you might be some big shot. But in a community of 6.2 billion people on earth - this similar to you, a drop of liquid, in one kick ass colossal, elephantine ocean - you are not at all significant generally. In the end of the day, you are just like any of us whom you call the commoners.

So stop bragging about how different you are, for I can simply point out fifty other yous with my eyes covered with fifteen layers of melted plastics poured onto my face, from inside an underground bunker with ten-foot thick wall all around it, in precisely twenty-three seconds.

You're just no different at all.

Unless of course, on certain fortunate events, you happen to make a difference, despite the fact that you are still as ordinary as everybody else. This is already a totally different occurrence, out of question, out of context at all.

But sometimes people are wrong to think that they could now forget that the big, hard, oily, dirty, rainbow-hung selves on which they are is just a microscopic dot on a microscopic dot lost in the unimaginable infinity of the Universe. You can be different, of course, but do be different, differently than other different people do. Be something of novelty, something atypical, something avant-garde; so that people notice that you are indeed different, and start talking about it, instead of you doing the whole talking, which of course, definitely boring.

But there is a price to it - by being different, being out of the group, completely being an uncommon being outside the ring of common beings, you are vulnerable to threats. We have already a lot of different people who have been murdered for being one, among any other related but slightly less terrible treatments other different people did receive in the past. This is of course, despite the beauty of it, a work of nature.

Therefore in order to be someone well-known for being different, you have to first choose what kind of drop of liquid you want to be.

And then go from there.

* * *

I want to be a drop of mercury.

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