Everyone has to deal with this paradox – how can I preserve my individuality, yet not be isolated? I think of it as a spectrum, with individuality at one end of the line, and shared membership of a group at the other. Our immune systems are designed to recognise anything that is “not me” and reject it, so our prime defence mechanism is to reject anything that we don’t recognise as consistent with our individuality. We all need a coherent sense of an individual self. We create that through the stories we tell ourselves and others. At the other end of the scale, solitary confinement is one of the worst imaginable punishments, used to control prisoners since time began. We need to belong. We need to know we are not isolated, unrecognised or unloved. I think we all juggle that paradox throughout our whole lives. It’s a dynamic. Some of us hover mainly around the individuality end of the spectrum and others hover around the group end, but we all need to satisfy both needs in our lives.
It’s this photo I took in Japan earlier this year which got me thinking about this. See how almost all the turtles are trying to crowd onto the one little rock! They need to be together! I say “almost all”, because if you look closely you’ll see one little guy out there on the right happily paddling his own way.
Heroes Not Zombies 
As I read this I was wondering if understanding the continuum would help dissolve the angry rejection that so often comes from struggling with where one fits or others don’t. If you understand that everyone is in a search for which ‘rocks’ to group on or ponds to swim in are you more understanding of someone who chooses to be elsewhere?
I am the mother of a teenaged girl who’s currently struggling with this paradox; she wants very much to be herself, but she wants to be part of a group, too (but WHICH group?! It’s all so hard). The ideal, I tell her, is for her to be herself and to let that energy draw others TO her. I’m not sure she understands that just yet, but I’m working on it…