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Rant & Rave
Has anyone ever called you different, abnormal, unusual? If your answer is yes, congratulations! You have something about you that makes you special, unique. Time we all relish
our differencesBut don't feel offended when you are called different. I know, you don't want to be a weirdo or a freak, you want to be just plain normal. But who's to say what's normal?
The Webster's Dictionary defines it as average, conforming to a type, standard, or regular pattern, not deviating from a norm, rule or principle.
Boring!!
Try to think of a world where everyone is normal. Everyone would act the same, look the same, do the same things at the same time, with no creativity or lust for knowledge.
Pretty dull, isn't it?
It would be like an unswerving path that no one could leave. All new ideas, special talents, individual thinking, would be destroyed. And for what? So that we can be the same, blend in.
But in reality, there is no ideal.
Take Michael Jordan for example. When he was a high school sophomore, he was 5-foot-11, the same height as the average American male. He couldn't even make the varsity basketball team. Then, he grew to the abnormal height of 6-foot-6 and became one of the most successful basketball players in history.
I've never heard anyone call Air Jordan normal. His gift for basketball distinguishes him from all others to such an extent that he is considered phenomenal.
If Albert Einstein were normal, we wouldn't have the Theory of Relativity or the famous equation E=mc2.
Although he hated school, Einstein could make sense of difficult concepts, which would have put him in the category of "nerd." I'll bet Einstein was teased a lot for thinking creatively, dreaming of what was considered stupid, impossible. Yet, he won the Nobel Prize in physics and couldn't have accomplished this if he were normal.
The best kind of people are the ones who can think for themselves.
Another person you wouldn't consider normal is the comedian and actor Robin Williams. His abnormal personality has made him one of the funniest people alive. Without his bizarre sense of humor, he wouldn't have starred in such movies as "Mrs. Doubtfire," "Dead Poets Society," "Bicentennial Man," as the voice of the Genie in "Aladdin," and more.
This one man can make millions of people laugh. A normal person couldn't do this.
When someone is as tall as Jordan, as smart as Einstein or as comical as Williams, it's easy to regard them as lunatics or freaks. But if we killed their creativity and talent, where would we be today? We'd probably be half-naked, freezing to death in cave in the middle of nowhere. There would be no weirdo to come up with new ideas and concepts to move us along in life.
We are so different in our physical features. Why can't we be respected for being different in all the ways not as plainly evident: in intelligence, compassion, physical abilities. But it is these differences that make us unique, that make us each special.
Would you rather be like everyone else, copying fads and ideas -- being normal? Or have a talent that no one can match, something that makes you, you?
I don't know about you, but I'd choose the distinct and rare individual over the normal one any day.
Kelly Matayoshi is an 8th grader
at Punahou School.Rant & Rave is a Tuesday Star-Bulletin feature
allowing those 12 to 22 to serve up fresh perspectives.
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