Birds of a feather.....

Born we were human,

With speech, sight and sound,

With arms and hands to work

With legs to walk and pursue life.

But we remain maim, we remain deaf, blind,

We choose to be dumb To all.

Of recent expeditions that my mind takes, as it wanders through all the day's events, the words spoken, heard and understood, I choose to be puzzled by the question laid forth, when one wants to be different from the 'crowd'. There are some who have it in their genetics to stand out (or thats what we would like to assume), some try too hard, some dont care and thats when I wonder, how does one place oneself in one of these categories in the absence of a jury? how does the jury decide? What are the ground rules for defining a certain someone 'different'? A few days back, I was told by a dear friend that if I did a certain thing too often, I would be mad, so I said (refer reel dialogue) "sometimes the mad make more sense", after some more War of the Words, I was labelled "different". That word made me think and think some more and continue for some days before writing this. I mentioned earlier we see several people, some trying very hard or hardly to fit into the crowd, some trying to step out of the crowd, once again hard and hardly and of course the loners, not bothered at all. What one fails to understand is that when you try hard to be separate from the crowd, you just join another sparse one. You try to fit into a crowd, you begin to stand out and then again its hard being a loner too, you never actually are. Nature made us different at birth, the mannerisms, the sex, the race, the individual, everything is different, then why again do we try to be different when we are at the base, humans, the 'crowd'. Can it get anymore confusing! Lets see two theories that fuelled this 'study', one in Robert Ludlum's and David Morell's novels, the 'hero' of the story always chose to complete a task by being part of a multitude of people, at the scene of interest, be it for a crucial meeting (to quote the cliched "crowded cafe/joint"), an assaination attempt or 'any plot based event'. That way the person remains 'out-of-suspicion' to the eyes of the enemy, for the enemy spots nothing 'out-of-the-ordinary'. Note that though both remain oblivious to each others eyes, they are of course wary, noting, calculating, speculating the possibilities of the probabilities by observing the events occurring around, the feigned casualness, the heightened awareness or the more obvious 'trying to avoid'. Now to contradict, being in a crowd doesnt give you the necessary space required to 'break the mould', simply try something that YOU alone want. One wouldn't want to be part of the crowd then. These are rough concepts to give an idea of why being different and not being different or a loner is not good, it is not necessarily the definite 'will happen' cases. The whole idea is to choose to be different at the right moments for the right events. The lines at the begining of this passage explains it all, we have the difference but wont use it to effect, we end up choosing a path set by tradition and following the rules set by word of mouth. These I say with respect to individual development ONLY. Tradition should be chosen, to be followed, for the sole purpose of harmony within the 'crowd', most other aspects of life can withstand its absence. After rattling my brains on this, I choose to fulfill my friend's judgement of difference by trying to achieve that equilibrium between 'being different' and 'being unique' for one is different without any said uniqueness, but the converse offers no such trade off.