Don Mann: Focusing on my Craft

Saturday, Nov. 08, 2003 - 3:05 p.m.

Unique...what does the term mean to you? A unique experience, you've never felt anything like it before. A unique person, unlike any you've ever met. Unique has a quite different meaning to me. I come from a very bizarre heritage not very common in these parts of the world; Pacific Islander/Germanic European. I remember being in preschool wondering why no one looked like me, and why when we'd do activities that grouped us based on appearance I was always alone. At that point in my life, being unique meant being ugly and outcast. As I got older, looking into the mirror was a dreaded experience. No matter what I did I'd always see the same hideous creature staring back at me, with time the low self-worth of my younger years began to manifest into a psychological disorder, still running strong today. It trickled down into lesser but still crippling problems, such as low self-esteem, low self-respect, constant craving for attention and compliment, and deeper studies which would lead to relentless self-improvement intellectually and poor social skills. When I was seven I tried to carve my face off with a carpenter's knife. At this point the disease running rampant through my mind was out of control and incurable.

Even today I am constantly finding reasons to detest who I am, my pessimistic internal conflicts manifesting into real-life problems. I was convinced I couldn't get into a meaningful relationship, and thus in reality I haven't.

I figure that I've inadvertently stumbled upon how to effectively be unique. All the current proclaimers of originality and uniqueness are completely acceptable by social standards; fitting into cliques and levels of social strata. However, when I find friends I ride the thin lines between the cliques and moulds, never truly settling into one or the other. My uniqeness is found in being unacceptable by my common man, their lack of acceptance mirrored by my hatred for them. My attempts to be accepted mirrored by their blind attempts to be more unique.

In closing, being unique is inexplicably desireable by the lay man, and yet to those possessing true uniqueness it is a curse.

Delve Into The Past - Onward Into The Future