Individualism is something that, as human beings, we all seek. We seek to find ourselves as individuals in the larger context of a social group, and larger still, society. We attempt to adopt a unique identity that we can call our own.
However, it can be seen that in many of these social groups, there is a sort of...sameness, of homogeneity. Everyone doing the same thing, wearing the same thing, listening to the same music, and even liking the same thing. Perhaps in our efforts of individualization, we also have a need for connection and social interaction. That need then turns itself into a sort of anticipatory socialization in which in order to be friends and engage with others, a part of yourself has to be like them as well.
I've always felt that I was always a bit different from my peers growing up, I always tried to go against the grain. Not different as in ...bad different, but just, different. Instead of being a bio major like what my parents wanted me to do, I became an engineer, now a sociology major. My best friends, I feel, are also a bit different, so perhaps we find some kind of unspoken bond in that regard.
Maybe what I'm trying to say is that as unique as we try to become, we always attempt to find a need of sameness, of connection with another. So perhaps it is in our differences that we come together.
Chelsea, Intersecting Lines
2 years ago
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