Wellness Wednesday: Being Different
(Headnote: Watch the video at the end. Trust me.)
As much as we are connected and similar, there are a million ways to be different. In fact, no two humans are genetically the same. Even “identical” twins show subtle variations in their genes, due to minor spontaneous mutations occurring during gestation. That’s in our species’ overall interest. Some of those variations will work better than others in a particular environment. Authors Barbara Kingsolver (Animal, Vegetable, Miracle) and Michael Pollen (“The Botany of Desire”) illustrate how well this works in the plant kingdom. Corn and apples produce enough seeds within one generation that some will make their way, regardless if the upcoming growing season is colder, warmer, wetter, drier, shorter or longer than the one before.
With human difference, or weirdness (I use this term very affectionately), the different one in a group may be a genetic sport, or express genes from an earlier generation. They are the quiet one in a family of extroverts, the athlete in a family of couch potatoes, the artist in the family of engineers. And much of what we use to think of as personality or individual choices are actually pretty well cemented in genetics, including tendencies toward depression, anxiety and resiliency. Our unusual attributes may be contained in a gene that is passed in degrees of strength throughout some members of the family, like being particularly tall or short, or having red hair. Don’t think red hair is unusual? It’s the rarest hair color– found in only 1-2% of the world’s population.
There are all sorts of visible differences people don’t choose that can be marginalizing, including those seen as disabilities or “birth defects” (note: I use parentheses because I don’t think of people as defective). People born with facial, limb or spinal differences can’t easily hide these. But sometimes they feel others much too completely define them by a singular physical difference.
Knowing and understanding that most people don’t exactly freely choose to be/think/behave as they do can go a long way toward relaxing our attitudes towards them. You can stretch this one as far as you like, depending on your belief system. No person gets a choice about being tall or short, born here or in a third world country, to a rich or poor or single or unhappy parent. We may not even have much choice about how attentive, creative or musical we are. The most useful frame might be to remember you don’t get to choose the hand you’re dealt, but you can choose how to play it. It’s fine to be unique. “Just be yourself”, the saying goes, “because everyone else is already taken”. But it can be isolating feeling different. Learn to love who you are, and don’t use differences to limit or isolate yourself. With luck, like the guy in this video, someday you’ll meet someone who not only gets you, but helps you figure out how to turn that difference into a strength.
