Striking out “special” to make room for “self”

STORY LINDA YUN

ILLUSTRATION ETHAN LYONS

Humans pride themselves on the individual. Multitudes of fiction chronicle the lives of one central protagonist who can seemingly overcome anything. However, this illusion is shattered when the child inevitably toddles towards adolescence. Unlike in fiction, a tear-jerking blowup will not resolve into a happily-ever-after. While children take comfort in the story arc of the “chosen one”, Harry Potter and Katniss Everdeen are but works of the imagination. While the idea of being special pacifies the human need to feel wanted, letting go of this dependence is the most painful, yet important step to understanding your self-worth.

Much of childhood is shrouded in the idea of “standing out”. This idea is parroted in many works of young adult fiction to which children are exposed. In The Hunger Games, Katniss Everdeen is framed as ‘the chosen one,’ the Ubermensch woman who will single handedly take on the Capitol.

From a biological standpoint, humans need assurance from infancy. Without even realizing it, parents cement the virtue of being special as if dangling a carrot from a stick, treating the quality of being special as a reward for one’s accomplishments, rather than a requisite for reaching them. Instead of dispelling the taboo, schools and social circles only add fire to the flame. Soon enough, childhood becomes a competition, a long, stretched-out Hunger Games, where only the prettiest, smartest, and most athletic survive.

One day, you run to the end of the road where the white picket fence you’ve grown up seeing gives way to a fuzzy, nebulous horizon. For the first time, it dawns on you that your personal manifest destiny is hardly a unique experience. You discover that, paradoxically, wanting to feel special is not so special.

Frightened, you look to others ways to “match up” against your competitors, but these efforts are like bandaids on a bullet hole. In a world of eight billion people, the pursuit of the esteemed title of being “special” can feel like a lighthouse on a stormy night. When the only guiding lights are dimmed, even staying adrift becomes a challenge.

The term “gifted kid burnout” is used to describe the plateau of many high-performing individuals. From a oneway ticket through the education system to affirmations of their intelligence, gifted kids seem to have it all. Those who experience gifted kid burnout often attribute their conditions to an exhaustion of extrinsic motivation. In other words, when they fail to live up to expectations that match their level of “specialness”, they are seen as a failure. Naturally, this raises the question of “if you are not special, then what are you?”

Capitalism, and specifically, consumerism, plays a large role in why so many people want to be “different”. In the early 1900s, the idiom “keeping up with the Joneses” saw a rise in popularity. It was used to describe the pernicious effects of consumerism, and reflects a distinctively

American mentality: If your neighbors get a new car, you have to get a new car. If your friend gets a color TV, you need to get a color TV. What’s more, you want to get a bigger car than your neighbor. A better TV than your friend. The desire to stand out often manifests itself in a need to keep up with the latest fads - a step towards keeping up or even staying ahead of the curve.

For many, “special” implies “better”. But with maturity comes the realization that uniqueness is manifold. While we can celebrate Harry Potter and Katniss Everdeen for their place in cinema, we cannot do so without acknowledging their detachment from reality. The beauty of individuality lies not in the pedestal it places beneath the special, but the value it affords to those who are not.