No one teaches us that we can be different; we just are

I’m wrestling with something and need help.

Maybe you are, too.

Maybe you can help me.

Maybe we can all help each other.

Backstory

I didn’t know what I wanted to be when I went to college over 30 years ago. I didn’t want to go at all, but I was too ashamed to protest. I had no idea what to choose as a major; the closest thing I could identify with was philosophy.

Quickly, my dad, along with the universal voice of reason, talked me into choosing a major that had a better chance of getting me a job. Society wanted me to do something it understood. Something society needed me to be. It seemed no one knew who I was, least of all myself.

So I eventually became a biology professor. The irony is, I could have become a philosophy professor just as easily. And might have enjoyed that.

But being a biology professor wasn’t who I was, so I quit the job to be a stay-at-home parent. A profession much closer to ‘who I am’ than being an academic.

Hindsight

Now that my kids are older, I am older, and my life is comfortable enough, I find myself feeling like that eighteen-year-old kid, again. Who am I? What do I want to do?

It turns out I had the answer all along, but I don’t know how to talk about it. I’ve known who I am all my life, as many of us do. But there is no name. No words. No status quo. No way to talk about it. The best anyone has come up with — to my knowledge — is ‘creative’.

Creatives

Of course, the term ‘creative’ misses the mark. This term conjures images of twenty-somethings with YouTube channels, followers, and requests for likes. It triggers inauthenticity. Caulfieldian phoniness. The opposite of what I’m searching for. Is this the best we have? Has my purpose been hijacked?

Being Different

I always knew I was different, but what does that mean? It is a broad and ambiguous category of “other”. So we remain ‘othered’. Misidentified. Misunderstood. What “are” we? Who “are” we? Just “different”?

That’s like saying an ice cream is “not vanilla”.

During my newfound writing ‘career’ (endeavor, hobby, profession, silly pastime?) I have tried to figure out who my audience is. It’s hard. Coming up with descriptors is depressing. Who are we?

People who feel othered?

Different?

Marginalized folks?

Nerds?

Outcasts?

There’s no good language to talk about people outside the norms. It’s as if the status quo intentionally ignored language about who we are. Or the language we have been given feels negative. Intentional separatism. Suppression of diversity. Is this why I feel so out of place?

Have we been “othered”?

Belonging

How can we find a sense of belonging without the language to understand that to which we belong? How do we find unity in a shotgun-pattern world of isolated distances? How do we trust each other when the world has taught us not to trust each other?

The closest I have come to addressing these questions is neurodivergence. It seems we ND recognize each other at some level, like unrelated dogs that realize they don’t need to fight. There is strong potential for unity here. But neurodivergence itself is wonderfully complex and diverse. A step forward, at least.

Remembering

I like to believe there was a time in human evolution (likely the majority of it) when being different was valued. Evolution selects for diversity, so why would a diversity of people not be adaptive? How and when did we transition from embracing diversity to thinking we all need to be the same?

What happened?

If things used to be different (see what I did there?), they can be again. We can learn to re-embrace diversity. We can redefine or rediscover universal values like kindness, cooperation, and love. We can recognize that a few members of our species made selfish choices that can be unmade.

A Plea for Help

I wish I saw an easier path. This article is a plea for help if you know a different way to answer these questions:

Who are we?

Where do we fit in?

How do we unite?