Snowflakes

In our society, you are told as a young child that you are unique. You are an individual. There is no one like you. You are a snowflake. A tiny, crystalline figure with a pretty, perfect pattern floating in your very own patch of sky. And I bet that for a while you actually believed that. I know I did. For a very long time I thought of myself as mysterious, an enigma. No one could really know all about me. I was intriguing. Unique.

A snowflake.

Then I was given a book called The Way They Learn by Cynthia Ulrich Tobias. It was given as an effort to help me better understand my kids and "the way they learn". Now, let me just take a second to tell you how much I absolutely loathe reading child rearing and self-help books. I'd rather get my advice from a real, live person that I know has experienced what I'm going through, rather than read about it. Even if it is based on some group study by a guy who has a PhD in the given area. I prefer personalized attention. I am, afterall, unique. So, needless to say when I received the book, I had my hesitations about it. But since the giver of the book held it in high regard (and I knew she would ask me what I thought about it), I decided to at least try and skim through it. What I found inside was both illuminating and slightly disconcerting.

This book knew me.

It said that people perceive things in two dominant ways: concrete and abstract. Concrete was what could be immediately perceived through the five senses; it was tangible; the key phrase being "It is what it is". Abstract used intuition, intellect, imagination; looking beyond what is; the key phrase being "It's not always what it seems". That abstract thing sounded kind of like me. Next it spoke of how we use the information we perceive as either sequential ("follow the steps") or random ("just get it done"). Then it listed the four possible combinations of these learning styles. When I read the description of the Abstract Random learner, I had to pause. It was describing me. Nine out of every ten descriptions of an AR fit me to a "T". (Where does that phrase come from, anyway?) The book went on to tell how people remember things ( I'm primarily auditory) and how they understand information (analytic or global- I'm global and prefer to get the gist of things and paraphrase).

I finished reading the book and although now well informed, I felt a bit deflated. If I'm so unique, how could this book so easily throw me into one of four categories? Well, I decided to file that information in my mind. I was still a snowflake, there just happened to be some slightly similar snowflakes in my patch of sky now.

Then I found out about the Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman.

As I listened to the counselor describe how everyone experienced love by either: physical touch, quality time (those two are me, by the way. Apparently I'm "bilingual"), words of affirmation, acts of service or gifts, I had that sinking feeling again that my snowflake was again being blown towards another large group and my individuality was quickly disappearing. But, yet again, I did learn something about myself and going through everyone I know and figuring out their "language" was kind of fun. So, once more I saved the information and filed it away in the back of my mind.

A time then came where I was a little lost and couldn't figure out what I was really good for. An identity crisis. ( Being around kids 24/7 and becoming known only as _____'s mom will do that to you sometimes.) Sure I could slaughter at Trivial Pursuit, talk about why Aang is sad that he's the last airbender and read a 400 page book in a day, but how could any of that be used as a contribution to society?
Cue another friend with yet another book, Strengthsfinder 2.0 by Tim Roth. THIS book had you take a test online and then told you what your top five strengths were. The website even went so far as to give you an action plan and show you what occupations people who shared your strengths tended to excel at.

This book was the last straw.

After taking the 30 minute test online, it showed that my top five strengths were: Input (a craving to know more and file and archive interesting information- evident in my insatiable reading and my habit of filing things away in my head), Empathy ( sensing the feelings of others by imagining myself in their place or situation), Intellection (an appreciation for introspection and intellectual discussions), Ideation (my fascination with ideas and finding connections between things), and Individualization (being intrigued by the unique qualities of each person). It was amazing to learn that things I took for granted and thought of as just quirks in my nature, were actually strengths; qualities that others looked for and admired. I felt good. I held my head a little higher.

Then I was struck by the fact that I had once again been put into a group. A category. My pristine snowflake was just part of a huge, dirty snowdrift by the side of the road.

DANG IT!!

After wallowing in those thoughts for a while, I came to a realization.

An epiphany, if you will.

I didn't really care about being mysterious, anymore. I'd rather understand why I do things a certain way; why I crave certain kinds of attention rather than others. I would rather know that my thinking isn't scattered, it's just how I interpret information; that memorizing my social security number by making up a song for it isn't weird, it's auditory. Who wants to be an emigma when you can empathize with another person and try to understand what they're going through?

My individuality wasn't erased by the fact that I could be categorized. It helped to enhance it. It emphasized how different I was by connecting all the things that I learned about myself. That I'm still learning about myself.

I am a snowflake.

A global-abstract-random-auditory-touching-quality time-empathetic-individualizing-input-ideation-intellectual snowflake.

I think I'm okay with that.

Pink Ladies

I read an article last week in one of my fashion mags (stop snickering!) about a group of women in India known as the Gulabi(pink) gang, after the bright pink saris they wear as their uniform. They are a group of vigilantes started by a 47 year old mother of five, whose friend was being beaten by her alcoholic husband. When they sought help from the local police, they were told that nothing would be done. So the woman gathered dozens of neighboring women and taught them to fight back. Armed with traditional fighting sticks, these women, part of the "untouchable" caste, have beaten up accused rapists, corrupt officials, and abandoning husbands. Now numbering in the hundreds, these women don't need to resort to violence anymore to get their point across. Just the sight of their bright pink saris and the knowledge that they are coming is enough.
Reading this article made me want to go out and buy a pink sari myself. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that vigilantism is the answer to everyone's problems, but I think that solidarity is definitely a step in the right direction. Violence among women is a huge epidemic in all across the globe. The strange thing is though, that women outnumber men the world over.
But there is strength in numbers. Armies throughout history have made sure to look their fiercest and make a good showing of their size to allow the mere sight of them to strike fear into their enemies. So maybe if we just learned to stand together when we see someone, man or woman, being beaten down, like those women in India, the sheer sight of us would be enough to make anyone think twice before they ever tried to hurt someone again.
Of course, carrying a big stick might help, too.