I’ve never understood the thought process of “hating something just because it’s different”. For me when I see something different, I’m immediately intrigued and curious. I want to know more, who or what is this? what makes this person who they are? how does it work? My first instinct is to understand. But I’ve come to realize that it’s not the same for everyone. For some, once they’re presented with something different or unfamiliar, their first instinct is to ostracize, make them know and feel that they’re different.
I don’t know what it is that people fear exactly, but I feel like as a society we let fear get the best of us. We let It sip into our judgements, our decisions, how we carry ourselves, interact with people and suddenly, fear turns to hate and prejudice, against things we know literally nothing about. We fail to ask questions because for some reason, we as a people, have decided that it is blasphemous to ask questions, “Why are you asking questions? This is always how things have been done”. “Because I said so” “Because so and so said so”, all of which are non-answers. The better answer being an explanation or a simple “I don’t know” because for me, it’s normal to not know everything, but I feel like nowadays people bask and take pride in their ignorance and/or misinformation, choosing to remain ignorant and hurting people in the process. The kind of behaviour that has perpetuated things like bullying, racism and other harmful biases that lead to people getting hurt, injured or even killed.
Having turned my own share of heads, because of who and how I am, I think it’s safe to say I’ve had the full spectrum of reactions from people. For some it’s easy, that’s just who she is, for others, they’ve grown to understand me and for the unfortunate most, they continue to tell me the different ways I’m not like everyone else, like it’s suppose to be a bad thing, even though it’s taken a long time to understand that it wasn’t.
I feel like more people need to open up their heart to the fact and idea that, we are all different in how we do things, how we express ourselves and how we interact with the world and that all these differences don’t translate to people being bad or dangerous or inadequate or stupid, it just makes them different, and the sooner we embrace our differences, the sooner we can grow and move forward as a society.
Different ≠Bad
Saturday 17th September, 2022.
12:49pm.
In the Quiet of My Mind 
This is very insightful… I’ve never been singled out as different, but I’ve been favoured over seemingly different people. looking back, I see why some things might tilt just because people didn’t try to understand other perspectives. Great one here, Mira. Well written.
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Yeah definitely. People crave normalcy most times and don’t want to be bothered with having to explain things to people. It’s easier most times. But yeah, thank you for your response.
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Beautiful write up! People are so bothered about differences, it’s crazy. I have learned that their reactions have nothing to do with us, but everything to do with who they are. So it’s easier to not care about how others view what’s different about you…what you think about yourself matters more. Love this Mira!
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I’ve realized that most people project their fears and insecurities unto to other. So it’s important to not focus on the many things that people have to say. Thank you so much for the response.
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