Something I heard a lot, starting towards the end of middle school, was that I wasn’t going to be special anymore. That although I might be the best at something or the strangest kid right now, I was about to meet a whole lot of people, a bunch of which would be just like me, if not better. As I joined larger and larger communities, it was simply a numbers game that I couldn’t win.
Well, that didn’t really happen. Not to me at least. I’m always the one Jew, or the fencer, or the circus performer. Even in groups that are thought to be inherently weird, I do things within them that differentiates me. I’m the rapier fencer, or the poi spinner, or the Israeli dancer. There’s always something.
There are people who criticize this by saying that I’m actively trying to differentiate myself in order to form a separate identity. That I’m doing it just to get attention. That I have a will to be weird. None of these are really the case though. Sure, I’ve considered some of these after doing something, but they’re never the reason I do it in the first place. I’m just a person with very strange tastes. I prefer delta blues over punk, I prefer spinning staff to tumbling, I prefer specially blended tea from a small local store to Starbucks. It’s true that I’ll go out searching for similar things to what I’m already interested in, but who doesn’t? When you hear an amazing song, you look up the artist and see what else they did. I just tend to be carried away by the sound of a banjo rather than power-cords. And you know what? I like it!
Swords & Circus 