I march to a different drumbeat.

A short reflective essay I had to write for school in grade 11.

I want to be different, only because everyone else wants to be the same.  I want to go to extremes, only because everybody else likes do everything with limits.  I want to give the punches, only because everybody else seems to fold under strain.  I want to be carefree, only because everybody else is afraid to live.

 

I want to love, but so does everybody else.

 

I this your drumbeat or is it mine?  It is easy to say we are different and that is off course what makes us human, not the fact that we murder, steal, rape, lie and hurt but merely the fact that each of us are different and in some cases it is such a small difference that it is barely noticeable.

 

While some of us like to be different, some of us prefer to follow the flock of sheep, if grazing on the east pasture is in, then that is where we will be.  The media is evidently the dogs who keep the sheep at bay, teeth bared when their example are not followed.  We find ourselves in a world where the media has such a great influence on us, especially the youth, that doing anything or being anyone else which is not in their frame of mind, simply seems unattainable or imaginary.

 

Learning to know who you are can be disconcerting.  Then ask what about the media, do they not give us an idea of who we can be?  I believe that knowing yourself, finding your own drumbeat, is a task that only you can undertake.  The media also influences people to “categorise” other people.  People believe I am different, “arty” because the way I dress or the manner in which I do things.  This is merely ways to express myself, showing the world who I am and by simply being the person I believe to be.  Off course, most of us are born the same, only wearing our eyebrows, but the person we are when we die is the one that which is different because each are differently raised, made different choices and mistakes and chose to be someone else.

 

Certainly, each of us is to some extent on another wavelength and each of us seems different, but we are all human.  The hurt never ceases, years later but we still cling to the past, the hurt, the ghosts.  We bury ourselves with the guilt of the past, with our acts of selfishness.  We keep looking back while saying we are looking forward. We say we are the specie of the underworld, while thinking we are perfect.  Human: In that, we are all the same, simply with a different beat.