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Differentiation is Survival and the Universe Wants You to be Typical.
If living things [don’t] work actively to prevent it, they eventually merge into their surroundings, and cease to exist as autonomous beings. The world pull[s] at you in an attempt to make you normal. You must work to maintain your distinctiveness.
We all know that distinctiveness—originality—is valuable. We are all taught to ‘be yourself.’ What I’m really asking you to do is to embrace and be realistic about how much energy it takes to maintain that distinctiveness. The world wants you to be typical—in a thousand ways, it pulls at you. Don’t let it happen. The world wants you to, as Alec Benjamin sings, change what you are for what it wants you to be. You have to pay a price for your distinctiveness, and it’s worth it…don’t expect it to be easy or free.
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