Today there is a tendency to praise equality. Not only that, to consider it the only way of social existence. We must all be the same. Men and women; adults, children, the elderly; white, black, Asian; riches and Poors; healthy and sick; gay and straight. Those who praise diversity are accused of racism, sexism, homophobia, classism, fascism, Nazism, conspiracy, non-conformism and so on and so forth. These are times when the politically correct triumphs over all forms of subversive irreverence. On the other hand, the champions of being rebellious at all costs use the "different" as a weapon of judgment and discrimination for those who, on the other hand, are not different. Whoever falls within the schemes of conformism, even in one of its smallest aspects, is accused of being "too normal". Paradoxically, being "normal" becomes being different. With all due respect to the hardened rebels.
So who are the "different"? Looking at the etymology of the word we discover its root in the Latin verb divèrtere, which literally means "to turn away, to move away", or to take another direction; to divèrtere also comes the Italian verb divertire, to amuse. This implies an element that is most overlooked: the different is, fundamentally, the one who has fun because he knows how to look the other way, moving away from his center. Different are those who leave the comfort zone to explore new realities unknown to them (but not for this reason unknown in an absolute sense), drawing personal benefit and satisfaction.
In a world that is inexorably pushing towards the single thought, with all its consequences, and towards the new paradoxical absolutisms, thanks to a too short memory, being genuinely different is a rare form of intelligence and subversion. This is why the different is frightening: because it does not respond to the known control schemes. From a different one we never know what to expect. You probably won't find him in the supermarket shopping, queuing for the iPhone, getting drunk at the pub. He will not be in church pretending to pray, nor at the polls to vote. Easier to meet him where you can "suck out all the marrow of life", as Thoreau said.
Being different is not so much a state in which one is or is placed, but a conscious stance. Labeling someone as different doesn't make them different. Although it is true that the process of becoming aware of one's diversity occurs, in most cases, through marginalization and judgment by others, it is not enough for the subject to embrace his or her inequality with love. By involving diversity with enjoyment in the broad sense, as we have seen, being different means fully enjoying this uniqueness.
Now, recognizing ourselves as unique should not make us proud and make us feel superior to others, separate, but make us understand that all, without distinction, are different, unique, unrepeatable. A synonym for different, in fact, is varied. And it is this variety that makes the world rich, that makes us enjoy life with all its many facets. Which makes us understand that everything is impermanent and that if we don't enjoy it now, we won't be able to do it anymore. This is the great secret of life: judging separates us from things making us unable to understand them, love them, enjoy them. Recognizing what is different from us is not judgment and criticism, it is understanding how beautiful it is that there is something that has nothing, or almost nothing, to do with us.
Byron Katie in her book Loving What Is explains it well. Suffering is given by that gap that we ourselves generate between reality, or what it is, and what we would like reality to be. The criticism and judgment of what is different is the non-acceptance of reality. This creates frustration, anger, hatred that we pour out towards this "disturbing" element but which is actually hatred towards oneself. Because we don't accept our being different. The others, in fact, are nothing more than mirrors that reflect parts of us. These parts, which we don't want to see, just tell us who we are. If we stopped to welcome them for what they are, that wonderful and ever-changing image that is our being would be formed.
Here it is, therefore, the task of the different: to walk through the reflections of oneself in others to enjoy one's own and others' uniqueness. At the same time, show others the paradox of a life closed in on themselves that brings only dryness, suffering and loneliness. The fulcrum, then, is in the acceptance of oneself, of every part of us, even the darkest and most frightening one. This acceptance leads us to no longer fear the different but to respect it as such, without pretending to make it the same as us or to conform to it.