“I am different!”, screams the meaningless speck at the foot of a great abyss spanning all space and time.
“Oh, really?”, questions the cocky narrator in an attempt to sound clever. “I hadn’t noticed”
In all honesty though, what does it really mean to be different in a society becoming more and more obsessed with individualism? Being different seems to have entered the mainstream. Hardly a generation ago, it seems that to be different was to be a pariah of sorts. Now the word “mainstream” is synonymous with any drab or uniform pieces of culture. Now, being different requires a premium to be paid. It’s a look. It’s a style. Counter-Culture has become corporate culture. Now it’s all very easy to blame 80’s films and Zoey Deschanel for the acceptance of lovable, quirky outcasts in society, but there has to be something more to it. Everyone is, of course, different in some way or another. Nobody has ever denied this, as much as communist despising McCarthyists would like to allege. I would love to blame Capitalism for ruining everything, but even that’s not quite it. Although it is quite apparent that Boho Chic is an expansive clique and that the antisocial nerd is part of a massive herd(please ignore the Ray Ban glasses wearing mod with button down pyjamas who is currently commentating on societal constructs from the remarkably comfortable ivory tower the Internet provides). Sure fashion designers and technology companies are to blame for exorbitant prices for an elite, indie style, but there is more. If it’s not Capitalism’s fault, it must be Society’s. Society itself is afraid. Petrified even. From Romantics of the 1800’s to New Romantics of the 1980’s to now,we are all afraid of being insignificant, of being a speck of nothing. Of being forgotten. So we apply the eyeliner, wear leather trousers, and shout obscenities at passersby, so to speak. The issue is of course lies where being different is more about having fringe(bangs, curse you Ms. Deschanel!!!!),massive glasses, bow ties, vests, general hipster apparel, etcetera than actually being substantially different. We can all drone on about the poetry inherent in our fingerprints and DNA, but that overlooks the significance. Being different is, to me, being able to think differently. To look at something and see something new, something that it’s creator didn’t even see. To be able to look at everyone and see how all the different people are acting the same that’s what being different is.Or to look at a collection of words or pictures and find meaning or truth. To stand up in a sea of grey, don a multicolour paisley shirt, and shout at the injustice. To challenge convention, to look at something differently, to rebel with a cause, to fight oppression because it’s right, not because it’s fashionable. To be different is to be truly beautiful. To be unique is to be daring. It, sure as hell, is not easy, but it’s worth it and it looks good on you. We should, therefore, accept the differences in others, while remaining true to the differences within ourselves. It is then that the blood-soaked martyrs of the past can truly be repaid for their sacrificial lives, which until then have been wasted; bringing about meaningless Capitalistic toil under the guise of specialty and individualism. It, is after all, a group of different, contrasting individuals that make up society and that is never to be forgotten.
A Well Organised Asylum 