Belonging vs. individuality

You know, I think we all struggle with maintaining a balance between being unique individuals and also fitting in with the "norm".

In my recent trip home, Mom and I went through a bunch of childhood stuff. Some of it was my brother's. Kurt had Down Syndrome and from all accounts, was an awesome person. I say this because he died when I was several months old, so I don't know myself. One of the items we came across was his baseball uniform. He didn't play, but he had a red and white uniform that he apparently wore when the Cardinals were playing. It made me think that, even though he had what most people would consider "diminished" or "different" mental capacities, he still wanted to belong to a group. He still wanted to show his support, to be a member of the team. I can't say at all whether he wanted to be considered "normal" or if he even had any realization that he was different. I'm hoping he didn't, but, knowing humanity, I bet he did.

I remember desperately wanting to be like everyone else in jr. high and high school. My first day of high school I wore shorts with high tube socks. One very mean (and also dumb-ass) girl laughed at me, made fun of me and just ridiculed me. That very night I made my parents take me to get white lower-rise socks like everyone else wore. I was so embarrassed and upset that I was almost (or maybe was) in tears. Just because some stupid bitch made fun of my socks. Hell, I dressed more progressively and better than most of the people in our school, even though we did shop mostly at places like Venture, Walmart, etc.

I spent those years mostly in hiding. I didn't want to be different or unique. I wanted to belong to band. But though I wanted to excel, I didn't want to be singled out or anything. I guess as you get older you want to be more unique. Or maybe it's that you want to be noticed more. Certainly when you start dating you want to stand out from the crowd, right? But most people don't want to in a negative way. I've certainly seen some of that. Some people are very unique and different and they take pride in that. Some people even get their identity from it. I find it funny that those who struggle so much to be DIFFERENT are really no different than those who struggle to be the SAME. Conversely, disliking something because it is popular is no more "cool" than liking it because it IS popular.

Back to my point. We all want to belong. We want to have friends. Many want to belong to groups. Go to church. Have similar faiths or religions. Root for the same team. Work at the same company. We get our identity from this. But, we also strive to be different and unique. We want to have the best ideas. We want to be the winner. The conqueror. The discoverer. But most of us would act very similarly to how I did with the sock incident.

The older I get, the more confident I am with my style. I like things for certain reasons, not just because they are popular. I like my Adidas shoes because they work for me. If people think they look silly or stupid, I don't really care. At the same time, no matter how much I like an article of clothing, I wouldn't wear it if the general consensus was it makes me look stupid or weird.

I believe we're experiencing a similar identity crisis with our country, both as individuals and globally. Many have long associated themselves as a Republican or Democrat. But, the way both of those parties are being run, that label might no longer fit for us. And I think many choose one of the parties simply because of their greater dislike for the other. It's like that bumper sticker: "I root for two teams, The Cubs and whomever is playing the Cardinals".

I think many struggle daily with an identity involving religion. But what does it mean to be a Christian? Muslim? Jewish? For thousands of years people have killed each other because they think the other has a wrong idea on this. It's still happening. And "religion" can really be defined as more than just what god(s) you worship. It's about where you live, what you do, who you root for, what music you like.

As a country, we're the upstarts. People forget how incredibly young our country is. We take pride in the "old west" mentality of the cowboy. Killing indians. Building a home. Living off the land. Breaking wild horses. And that has helped us to be very successful very quickly. But now what do we do? Do we keep looking around for a fight? Or can we now look at ourselves as a country and re-define our global civility? We need to realize that we're not simply the smartest, strongest or "best" by default. Just because you were born in the U S of A doesn't make you better than anyone else. It's taking advantage of your opportunities (of which there are numerous) which you're afforded by living here. It's YOUR job to make the world (locally and globally) a better place.

In order to do that, you're going to have to be an individual. But, you'll have to figure out how to belong, too. And that involves not only forming opinions on things and sticking to them, but in changing them as well. Because those ideals, groups and political parties have changed and so have you. We (individuals and our country) need to re-evaluate where we belong, so we can lead.