I prefer to think of myself as a non-conformist, a Bohemian, and on particular grandiose days, even a revolutionary. I read Kafka and Nietzsche, have my nose pierced, have traveled to third-world countries seeking reprieve from consumerism, sometimes don’t shave and hardly brush my hair. But what I prefer to think isn’t the truth. The truth is, I am more like a Stepford wife with hairy armpits. I only stayed in those third-world countries for a few months and I came home to a house in the suburbs on a street that looks like every other street, and just to top off the cliché, I have a yellow lab and a baby. And, really, a lot of people have their nose pierced, anyway. I am no revolutionary. I might use recycled toilet paper, but in all the ways that truly matter, I am just like everyone else on my cul-de-sac.

Or maybe I am wrong. Maybe the little things matter tremendously. Maybe those small everyday differences add up to make us each undeniably different from the next. We are certainly labeled by the sum of those small differences. And maybe I make assumptions about the people who live in suburbs. Scratch that, I KNOW I make assumptions. I have never looked at their armpits or toilet paper.

And I am not quite sure what it is about being like everyone else is so off-putting to me. We are humans, there are over 6 billion of us, and at least in the western world, all of our experiences seem to fall within a fairly narrow band of variation. As Maya Angelou poignantly pointed out, “We are more alike, friend, than we are unalike”. Yet, I desperately want to be different, unique, brand-new. Or, closer to the truth, I want people to think of me as different, unique and brand-new. I think, if we were being honest, all of us want to be seen that way. It is never considered a compliment to be told you are just like everyone else.

So, really, we all the same in wanting to be different. Is that right? Or am I wrong again? Because it also seems the opposite is true: we all want to belong, feel part of, feel known. And I guess this is the contradiction of being human in this day and age. We are inherently dichotomous: Ying and yang, freedom with safety, love without restriction, meditation while drinking Starbucks, hybrid SUVS, hippies living in the suburbs. We are steadfastly individual, just like everyone else. And perhaps the revoluntionaryness I am seeking already exists in all the little, subtle, differences. I am already distinct, even if I wasn’t the only tract home on the block with prayer flags.