I think trying to remain unique and having my own identity is becoming a neverending battle of uselessness.
That was my Facebook status yesterday evening and my stepbrother CJ made a brilliant comment on it. He said that it is sometimes pointless because when you are trying not to conform, you are really conforming to anti-conformity, which is conforming in and of itself, just in the opposite direction than the usual. On the surface, that sentiment is confusing as all hell, but he is right. And to take it a step further, if every time you do something in an effort to be unique and someone immediately copies it,… you are no longer unique anyway.
I think creativity is a big part of uniqueness and personal identity. In my mind, being creative is taking something and seeing it in a new light or making it into something new. It’s doing something or being something that is different from those around you. Creativity can take so many forms: art, hobbies, how you do your hair, clothes that you wear or make, etc. When you copy someone else, you aren’t being creative; you are being a clone. It’s one thing to use another person’s creative output as inspiration to find your own niche. It’s another to use it as a exact template for your own.
In a world where it isn’t always socially acceptable to be different, I embrace my creativity, my non-conformity. I don’t want to look like or be anything other than who and what I am. I don’t care if people don’t understand or accept it. It’s not about them. It’s about me. I don’t want to be a cookie cutter copy of someone else. I find myself having to constantly find new things to differentiate myself, and that drives me nuts. If I stay true to my own thing, I become a carbon copy. If I change, I lose things that mean something to me. When I can’t do anything without it being snaked away from me, I find it stifling and frustrating as hell. There is an entire world of creatively expressive possibilities out there. Find your own thing and make it your own.
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