Just a little different
by Heather
If you are always trying to be normal, you will never know how amazing you can be. –Maya Angelou
Here’s a SoulCollage card I made this week to represent being just a little different, something I’m being reminded lately that not everyone appreciates.
When I came across the full-page image of a streetful of sheep awhile ago, I knew I’d hit SoulCollage gold, and have just been waiting for the right image to put with it. When a new O Magazine with a portrait of a wide-eyed baby zebra arrived, I knew I’d found it.
Growing up fundamentalist, I was provided with lots of opportunities to be different. No TV, so no idea what the Dukes of Hazzard or Starsky & Hutch got up to last night. The ever-present skirts and Little House on the Prairie long braided hair certainly stood out as well. I minded perhaps as little as anyone could; my younger sister deeply resented having her ability to conform taken away from her. It would be very fair to say that my elementary and junior high school classmates tended not to appreciate differences. I wasn’t sure why–other than, you know, survival value–one would want to blend in.
When I majored in English in college, I took a survey of Victorian literature, and came across another view of being different. I think it was John Stuart Mill’s. The idea was that simply being different was a public service, lighting the way for others by demonstrating that it’s perfectly possible to strike out on your own, rather than follow the crowd.
Wow–I wasn’t just an oddball, I was performing a public service! I latched onto this view and have never let it go.
If you are, like me, just a little different, John and I raise our glasses to you, and thank you for your public service.
About what matters 
The urge to blend in is such a human response…we’re social animals that want to be part of the group. However, there comes a time for everyone when they must be different because it is our differences that make us who we are. We can’t be true to ourselves and and always be in tune with the group. Everybody eventually has to make a choice between denying their inner truth or standing alone. Thinking of this as a public service definitely helps.
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Thanks, Dana, I’m glad that helps.
To me, being able to stand up for what’s right even when no one else seems to be, is so important. The success of the Third Reich, for example, completely depended on the majority caving to authority, even when they knew it was wrong (at least that’s how I see it š )
And who knows, maybe having the guts to say, ‘I disagree with that–I believe that’s wrong’ all starts with having the nerve to wear a loud shirt when no one else does.
I didn’t acknowledge in my original short post that I do think comfort with being different varies with personality type (I’m a Myers-Briggs INTJ). ISTJs (my sister’s type) tend to be much more committed to fitting in. Confidence probably comes into play a bit as well.
What can I say, mine has been a life filled with public service š
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“A life filled with public service…” Good one.
I’m more like your sister, dedicated to fitting in, but have found that is a road that leads to smallness, and finally, rage. It is fortunate that you feel more free to be different.
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I know what you mean … so much I encounter in the mainstream feels small and often a bit strange, like finding something outgrown in the back of a drawer and not being able to imagine what possessed me to buy it in the first place.
There’s something sacred about rage–I’m glad it’s pushed you to be more of yourself š
I remember being a little kid, and whichever grade it was, there was always a boy who sat in the back of the class, never saying anything, with a vague smile on his face. No one reacting to him at all, no one thinking anything about him. I wanted to be that kid, and sometimes I’d try. (My attempts never lasted long.) Finally I realized that I had no option but to be myself, and I might as well work on making it the best version of me I could be, and just forget about being the kid in the back of the class. Talk about something that was never gonna happen š
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Your reply has brought my grade school classroom springing freshly into my mind. I sat in the front of the class where the teacher could easily see what a smart, good girl I was, and turned resolutely away from those barely present boys in the rear. One day there was a test. I misunderstood the instructions and got a score as low as Emil, the slowest of the back row boys. I was mortified to be compared with him. Now I picture poor Emil and feel sad… for him and what must have been a degrading school experience, and for me and the brittle, other-oriented sense of self that never saw him, but only his reflection on me. Fitting in is actually hugely selfish sometimes.
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Beautiful Heather I happen to like different, even amongst my family and friends I am considered eccentric. I liked hearing about your life it has really peeked my curiosity
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I happen to like it too š
Although I couldn’t be in a more different place philosophically now than the environment I knew as a child, inevitably influences still linger. I’ve gone back to not watching TV, for different reasons, and to this day I feel quite comfortable in a skirt & dislike blue jeans. Feel free to ask questions if you like š
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I am just curious about your everyday life as a child. I didn’t watch television as a teenager but it was a personal choice.
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We got a TV when I was 12 so my father could watch political news, but there were some limits around what we could watch.
My childhood was a complete escape into books. I typically read at least a book a day, sometimes more. (I can’t even remember not being able to read … apparently I taught myself at age 2 after my mother taught me the alphabet.) I knew the school librarian very well … I felt sorry for the books on the top shelves that no one was reading, so I would ask her to get them down for me so I could check them out. I found some very interesting and amusing pre-space program science fiction that way š
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Oh wow I couldn’t read a book day well a children’s book but not a full on novel haha I read at the same pace that I speak and tend to meditate over what I read. I read a lot when I was a teenager to I also spend a lot of time doing yoga and walking in the forest. Did you have close friends? Were you allowed to date? Did you have interests?
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I read both children’s books (YA I guess) and adult ones too, like Sherlock Holmes, Dickens, Agatha Christie … but some of it was beyond me. I remember picking up Pride & Prejudice when I was maybe 7 or so, reading that famous first line, and slamming it shut. I think the irony must’ve gone right over my head.
I had friends, but close friends … that’s debatable. I remember riding my bike a lot–I’d saved up my money & bought a 10-speed. I did have some interests besides reading … I have always been a collector, and I remember collecting miniature things. We did a rock collection in I think 5th grade, and mine was quite extensive. I was always outside with a hammer trying to find something new & interesting while inflicting hopefully only minimal injuries on myself. I could wear some makeup as a teenager & loved that. I was interested in fashion. I was allowed to date as my mother was clear that I had a lot of common sense, but of course I had not the least idea what I should be looking for.
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I read Oscar Wilde, Sylvia Plath, Arthur Rimbaud, Herman Hesse. Mary Shelley and quite a lot of classical literature I could never wrap my head around Shakespeare the style of writing never made sense to me, ironically sometimes I write a poem and people compare it to Shakespeare lol My mom mostly had romance novels at home so I had to raid the libraries.
I collected My little ponies I still have them actually or my daughter does haha
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That’s one advantage of unlimited exposure to the King James Bible–archaic language becomes second nature š I was fortunate that my parents had thousands of books for me to choose from.
It must be lovely to see your daughter playing with some of your favorite things from childhood š
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[…] message associated with this process. Sure enough–and perhaps to be expected, given that I am just a little different–no sooner did I have the card in my hands than it did exactly what it wasn’t […]
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Wonderful post, and a great thread as well! Being who you are, warts and all, is a public service… I LOVE that. Also, I agree that conforming is quite selfish and is not to be confused with cooperating.
I better sign off now before I get lost in your archives. Great blog.
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Thanks, Laura … you’re welcome to get lost in my archives any time š
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