I Am Not Special

The best lesson that Life has taught me is that I am not special.

There will always be people taller/shorter than me
There will always be people smarter/dumber than me
There will always be people who have more/less than me
There will always be people more attractive/less attractive than me
There will always be people faster/slower than me
There will always be people kinder/meaner than me
There will always be people funnier/sadder than me
There will always be people who know more/less than me
There will always be people who communicate better/worse than me
There will always be people who get what I want but couldn't have, and
There will always be people who wanted what I got but couldn't have

Therefore, I am not special. There will always be someone who bests me, both in being best and being worse.

The dark wavy hair that my family shares
The exotic face and skin color that my sub-race shares
The knowledge of life that my nation shares
The laughter that people share
The grief and tears that people shed
The lost of love, the finding of love, the decision to live, the struggle and strive to live
The pain and joy and fear and glee, the anxiety and calmness and depression and elation
The discovery and the loss, the long waiting and the quick reward
The trial, the error, the experience
All of these shared by other people
Amplified in some, downplayed in others

Therefore, I am not special. There will always be someone who looks or thinks or feels like me, I see a part of me in every human being.

But Life has also taught me that I am indeed special.
There are no two things in this world that are identical from one another
Not even if it comes from the same mold
Not even if it looks like a perfect copy to a human's eyes
Just like snowflakes and human's twins
Therefore, I am special

My thoughts, which also thought by many other human to some degree, are mine and mine alone
My emotions, which also felt by many other human to some degree, are mine and mine alone
My physical characteristic, which also exist in many other human to some degree, are mine and mine alone
My skills and abilities, which also present in many other human to some degree, are mine and mine alone
My choices and decisions, which also made by many other human to some degree, are mine and mine alone
My life and how I live it are mine and mine alone
Just as a flower: the soil that nurtured me, the seed that sprouted me, the climate that surrounded me,
All together made me who I am, and no flowers are exactly the same
I am who I am, the one and only me
Therefore, I am special

In this world I am not special because everybody, including myself, is special
I couldn't raise myself and look down on them, because they have something I don't have
A piece of them that is different than mine, a piece of them that is more than mine, be it better or worse
They couldn't raise himself and look down on me, because I have something they don't have
A piece of me that is different than theirs, a piece of me that is more than theirs, be it better or worse
We are not special, because each and every one of us is special

We are but a drop of water in the ocean
Each with story to tell on how he/she get there, and the journey that they take
Each has different shapes and different number of atoms, each is unique and one of a kind
Together these drops create the ocean where the sea-animals live
Together these drops made the waves that corrode the rocks
Together these drops made life, sustained life, or destroyed it
Each is special, and uniquely themselves
Each is precious

I am not special, and neither are you.
Yet I am also special, and so are you
And in this sea of life, I am glad I met someone special like you
I am glad that I met you

It's Hard to be Different

Picture from CNN article: Boy asks Santa to make kids stop bullying his sister

It's hard to be different. In the animal world being different means being dead, because the predator will easily spot "the freak" and have it for lunch. It also means rejection from their peer because they too will be easily spotted when "the freak" hang with them, and it probably does not worth the risk. Despite our constant bragging of how much better we are than animals, we human did this too. The tendency to become the predator and devour the weak was too much for some people to handle. Like a hyena that feeds itself with its prey, a bully needs the fear and emotion of the victim to feed his/her own emotional hunger. And just like the animal peers, there are also people who do not actively bully but rejected "the freak" nonetheless for the so-called-normality of their group. Some of us apparently fell off the evolution wagon.

These happened daily around the world. Some people labeled the bully incident as racism and discrimination, which eventually leads to war cry especially if it involves a hot topic case such as race or gay/LBGT or religion. The result is a whirlwind of accusations from both party, those who support the victim and those who support the bully, all comes completely armed with valid arguments and a well-packed set of name calling. A group would spoke out against the little girl's bullying incident and said the bullies are to be blamed, yet another group will spoke out and say it's her fault to be fat and she should be normal size for her own good anyway. In the end everybody just hate each other. Let's stop it.

A Bully is someone who picked on another person for being different. Small body size, big body size, normal body size, white skin, brown skin, black skin, the weird geek, the honor student, the school's athlete, the cheerleader, each of this characters can all be a victim or a bully depends on his/her own position. There is no simpler rule of why someone is bullied other than he/she was different than the rest of the peer. Instead of labeling the bully incident as an act of discrimination and focused on why the victim was attacked, label it as what it should be: an attack of another human being just for being different, a predatory act that can be averted by understanding that each of us is different. 

No two hearts shaped the same, and even twins would have minor differences between them. Humans may act like a group, but our advance intelligence is unique to each one of us. It is time for us to understand that humans come in many shapes and colors, and each of us has our own story to tell, our own struggles to live with. This does not mean you have to force yourself to accept people. This means you have to force yourself to leave them alone and not preying on them. You are entitled of what your opinion about people because it was a  result of your bearing and the environment you are exposed to, it is who you are. But you are not entitled to harm people. No one is entitled to harm others. Some people claimed the victim should be more assertive in protecting themselves. As ideal as it sounded, the fact of the matter is if the victim were ready to protect themselves they wont be the prey from the first place. The solution is not prepping the victim to be aggressive, it's to prep the bully to be not aggressive and to make every single one of us comes to the realization that each of us human is uniquely different.

The walls are crumbling and the diversity flood is coming through. First black president, legality of gay marriage, rights for LGBT community, and more recently the first Miss America from Indian descendant. With the advancements of internet and medias we are exposed to more and more diversity: various skin colors and body shapes and line of thinking and way of life to name a few. You can either use it to understand the vastness and greatness of life and world itself, or hide in your own shell with people who (you think) think alike and guard your "community" closely. My suggestion is to come out there and enjoy life. Be humbled on the majesty of life and the beauty of human being. Realize that you are special, but so do others. Stop preying. Stop being an animal. Start being human.