The Purpose and Beauty of Being Different Humanity is a garden of complex individuals, so difficult to understand, so simple to accept. We clamor for equal treatment, yet we treat others differently. We fight for “our” rights though we sometimes ignore the rights of others. We are inundated by commercial cliches like making a difference and being special, yet we let them go like a sonorous emptiness. And although many of us come from a normal family, there are families who are neither “normal nor abnormal”; they are simply different, simply beautiful in their own ways. This is about a work on a short story I critiqued some time back. “Piňons” (Pine Nuts), written by Thomas Vallejos narrates about the travails of an optimistic young man convinced of being especially different in a family that considers him odd. Vallejos writes an omniscient voice : “And everything, every little stitch, has its place in this grant quilt He designed. No matter what color you are…there’s a place for everyone”. Then through the eyes of a young man he continues: “But they forgot to mention anything about people like me. I don’t seem to belong in anybody’s patchwork quilt. Even my own family treats me like a misfit”. Through the boyhood memories of the narrator, family episodes were told of men acting like boors, behaving like pigs and outcasting anyone who did not perform like them. As such, the male members of this “tribe” teased the narrator, because he showed apathy and disgust against such typical comportment. He was accused of being weak, teased for not being crude. He was not like the rest of the men in his clan. He was considered frail, imperfect, and almost like a mystery. Nonetheless, this did not stop him from believing that he has a specific purpose on being different. The “Piňon” was a delicacy, a seasonal treat coming from a tree that seems not to reflect the exquisite flavor of its fruit. The narrator recalls with fondness the extended family rendezvous around the harvest of this “acorn”, a fruit from a not so pretty tree of the evergreen family. “What I like most of all about the canyons is being among the piňons…Not that they’re the most beautiful trees in the world…They are squatty and gnarled…Still, there’s something brave about them…It’s something deeper than that. Something those pendejos wouldn’t understand” . And the boy contemplates alone in the canyon, awed by the solitude of a tree that bears fruit to many of his memories. Vallejos describes: “ The trees there are windswept, as if they’ve been beaten low through more lifetimes than you can imagine. Some are huddled and lopsided. Others have their branches splayed…like an animal fighting for life…locked forever in a struggle against some brute force”. Those trees were a metaphor of the individual differences that comprise man’s universe – a symphony of an apparent ugliness able to create beauty only amongst those whose eyes can behold beauty. But for those wrapped up in the diurnal drudgery of common tradition, and for those trapped in the short sighted perception of stereotyped values, such thoughts are considered a stupid waste of time. For them, the struggle of individual appreciation cannot be preferred to the consensus of collective patterns. Tradition, designed to establish the continuity of an identity is misconstrued and is then erroneously established as an imposition of a collective permanence. Towards the end, Vallejos writes: “I think maybe those nuns were right after all. Just because people do not appreciate something doesnt mean it has no place in the world”. This conclusive statement validates the introductory proposal of the story. There is purpose in being different. And there is something special in having a purpose. Unfortunately, in the garden of humanity, the visibility of the dominant majority is accepted as a norm, while the inconspicuous beauty of the few is concealed in the oddity of its uncommon appearance. The superlative trait becomes a backdrop or a foreground behind the approval of the majority regardless of whether this majority has the most or the least traits and attributes. But then, who cares? Vallejos provides an answer: “Let them think what they want. I’m going out tomorrow to pick piňons the way don Mateo told me. Nice and gentle. The only way I know”. His story ends with a vindication of man’s determination to validate his own convictions, to keep his own thoughts, and to persist with his own way of appreciating the beauty and purpose of his own life. For no matter what they say, no matter what they think, our instinct for survival and continuity will supersede any intent to establish a verdict promoted by the mere numbers of a voting majority. The individual will stand out not as an added ingredient of a diverse humanity but as an essential element of human harmony and diversity. So what is the purpose of being different? What is the beauty behind it? I think that being different is an upliftment of an intrinsic value, a validation of that unique and individual importance we all possess. Anything that is in excess in unnecessary. And anything that is unnecessary cannot be beautiful. If we are all different, then no two persons are alike. Therefore, not a single person is unnecessary. Hence, every person has a latent beauty. Through our personal differences, we enhance the difference of others, and in so doing we contrast every trait and every human quality in a process that further develops a deeper perception and appreciation of all the beauty involved in such a range of differences. Sad to say, such is not always the case. Social media, for instance, will not endorse the intrinsic values of being different unless a throng of likes first approve of the fact. Being special, unique, different or beautiful then becomes a function of popularity. Quantity becomes the basis of quality. In an environment skewed by marketing and advertising contraptions, being different is either being odd or having a superlative trait in comparison to average benchmarks. It is being the “most” within a range of positives or negatives. Yet, the value of being the “most” is oftentimes confused with a negative appreciation of that which is being “different”. “Standing out” is not allowed to precede “blending in”. The adolescent crowd, for example, so desires to keep up with peers, yet competes to be the best, either in aesthetic form or athletic skills. In so doing, frustration, desperation and a lopsided sense of self esteem will logically emerge. Unfortunately, this adolescent aftermath has shed its skin and tinged the rest of society with its negative hue. We are all different. And that is the causality of our beauty. We are all beautiful. And that is why we are different. For the rest of this semantics, enjoy it with a friend. I hope I have planted good seeds for discussion.
Posted on: Wed, 12 Mar 2014 01:03:55 +0000