Differentness and Humanity

   I had a talk with a friend today, and one of the topics that came up in this conversation was differentness. Differentness in regards to human beings and human behavior to be more specific.

      I've seen a lot of different tropes in media and cinema about differentness and conformity. Many of them are moral arguments, like the quasimodos or the nightcrawlers of X-men that try to reinforce the point of appearances not conveying the nature of someone's spirit or personality. "People can't see what's beyond their own two eyes" as nightcrawler put it in one of the x-men movies.

      It's amazing how that point still needs reinforcing. No matter how advanced we may become technologically or socially, humanity will always retain a degree of its animal lineage. Many of us still fear and even hate what we don't understand. Many people still can't see beyond face value.

       Even today, differentness is punished, mocked, ridiculed, and the distinguishing factor or trait of a person is often taken as weakness and preyed upon as such.  

      Even in fields like medicine, differentness is looked at as a negative when it doesn't meet a standard of acceptibility, social or otherwise. 

       When someone deviates from a standard, it is seen as problematic in many cultures, including our own, and even seen as a sickness or an illness on many occasions. The comfortability of the group or majority almost always takes precedent over the well-being and acceptance of the individual who is different. 

     Differentness makes many people uncomfortable, and humans like to label or diagnose things they don't understand in order to alleviate their uncomfortability. You almost always fear what you don't understand.

    Humans are like any other animal when they encounter something they don't understand. They think in terms of threat and utility. "Can I kill it, run from it, or neutralize it if it is scary or  dangerous?" Or "can I make use of it or harness it somehow if it can benefit me?"

       Differentness is feared and often punished or attacked because of the fear. Unless of course the differentness is useful. Utility equates to value, especially in America, whether that be an entertainment utility, an aesthetic quality, or another economic use.

      I think it's obvious by now, I don't fit a lot of stereotypes or pass as a typical standard male young adult by any means. Not by a long shot. Since I'm pretty atypical, to many people I'm peculiar, something of an anomaly of sorts. I'm different, and I know this. I'm proud of it to an extent. God made all of us unique in some way. 

     I've also suffered immensely because of my differentness. I've been diagnosed with a lot of stuff. Pretty much turned into a lab rat or guinea pig at points in my life. I've always felt like I've been studied or put under a microscope for most of my life. When you are different, you stand out in humanity, and humans retain that threat/utility approach to things they don't understand, even the highly educated ones. 

      You become a subject, a testing board, and often forced to conform to a standard that even the standard-setters themselves don't understand. This more often than not leads to a lot of suffering. Sometimes it even leads to death.

      I must confess, even in this country, its quite terrifying to be different. Even dangerous in places. I had to spend my entire childhood and adolescence keeping certain things about me a secret to survive and I still suffered. I still got drugged and bullied. 

       I try to be useful now, because life's a little more pleasant when you are useful instead of a threat in the eyes of society. It doesn't make it a cakewalk though. I'm different, yes. I don't think you'd find many people who can write like I can or are willing to think as deeply about  things as I am. I'm still human though. I bleed the same color as everyone else. Put my pants on just like everyone else. Even so, I still feel like a labrat sometimes, and I wasn't exactly treated like a movie star at many points in my life. 

     If I was treated as bad as I was at points in my life, I have heartfelt sorrow for any alien intelligent life-form who gets caught by my species and its scientists. Seriously, the poor thing should've probably stayed home, rather than almost inevitably become an experiment by a curious, albeit blinded and morally inconsistent creature like humanity.