How to Navigate the World When You’re Different

While in some ways, we are all the same, sometimes there are people are bound to be very different from most of society. I have often felt throughout my 35 years, that in a lot of ways I am different from others. The world can feel like a lonely place in that case, and I believe that it’s a big reason why I have not been able to keep a lot of friendships in my life. When you don’t really share a lot of the same interests, after a while, it’s hard to maintain a friendship. In this blog post, I will share a few ways I navigated through society as someone who is different.

Let’s start with music. Back in 2003, I really started to get into rock music. I didn’t care for pop, had no interest in R&B and hated rap. The band that broke me into the rock scene especially, was the band Yellowcard, a pop-punk band with a violin player in the band. I then got into The Used, soon after. By the time 2014 came around my enjoyment of rock was dwindling and there weren’t any new bands that I really enjoyed. To make a long story short (a story I will expand on in a later blog post), I started to gravitate towards country music, and since 2014 I haven’t looked back. Now you might be wondering why liking rock music and switching to country music makes me different. The answer is because, while I am mixed race, I do look much more South Asian. My dad’s side of the family is Portuguese, and my mom’s side of the family is Guyanese. I look South Asian, and many people are surprised to know that I am half Portuguese.

Heavy metal is a global phenomenon and there are members of rock bands who are not white, so it can be understood and accepted that someone who looks like me could like rock music. The same can’t be said for country music. Now this is not to say that country music is racist, but yes, it’s less ethnically diverse, especially when you look at country artists. I will get more in depth with that in a later post, but the point is, I haven’t found a group of people I am comfortable enough with to share my love of country music. So what do I do?

First of all, if I am going to listen to the radio, it’s country radio I am listening to. I also like the radio station on Facebook, so I always see and sometimes interact with what they post. When there is a broadcast of a live country award show, or a live country concert, I do my best to watch it on T.V. Doing that represents for me that I am part of the community and is a way for me to identify myself as a fan of country music. I subscribe to the YouTube channel Grady Smith, who does reviews and analysis of country music. I also make sure that when a new album or country single, I like comes out, I download it off of iTunes. I support country music in the background and surround myself with an online, and media community that loves country music.

While liking a different type of music may only be a social challenge, a bigger challenge, from a health perspective, is exercise. I still struggle with exercise, especially when it comes to committing to doing exercise every day. Now while the struggle to exercise daily is not something that makes me different, the form of exercise, and what motivates me to exercise is different. For a lot of people going to a gym to lift weights or use cardio machines is something that people commit to doing. For others, running, jogging, or swimming is something that they can do. For me there are two things that I can commit to, that have its own challenges. The first is walking for close to an hour. That is only possible when the weather is good, and the walking path is fairly dry. Given that I live in Canada, in the greater Toronto area, good weather does not happen all year round. That brings me to what is different about me in terms of exercise.

Aside from walking, the other form of exercise that works for me, and motivates me on a strong enough level, is practicing my martial arts. I spent several years practicing Karate, getting all the way to brown belt, until I stopped because I wanted to focus on getting through college the first time around. While I haven’t taken a class since those days, I have always felt that martial arts was a fun way of exercise. Whether it was practicing my techniques and working on good balance, or a cardio workout where I go at least ten minutes, throwing techniques and combinations similar to shadowboxing. I put on The Joe Rogan Experience podcast and workout in my room. While I would love more space, I work with what I have. Finding space where I can feel comfortable, and not feel watched or judged, has been the main issue, as I do not have any interest in going back to learn martial arts anymore. For me, my ideal situation would be to have my own place, with a room or a space allowing me to do my martial art workouts.

In a more general term, I also noticed how different I was when going through my film and television program. When asked about favourite films, most people mentioned movies in the genre of drama. My answer was Captain America: The Winter Soldier. The reason being was because of the fight choreography, which I thought were quite impressive, considering that you had a mix of fighting styles in a mainstream American movie. When it came to studying and analyzing film, most of the times it was dramas that were examined. Everything from the cinematography to the directing. However, most people never paid attention to the action realm. I want to entertain people with my work and be a form of escapism from reality. I struggled to get through assignments or videos where things were either dramas or comedies. As an empath I didn’t want to watch dramas and feel the darkness, depression or dread that surrounded those films. When it comes to comedies, I don’t find most of them to be funny and I feel scripted comedies are the hardest to get right because comedy is so subjective. I would choose movies that I could watch/tolerate, when I had to analyze a film and did not apologize for enjoying the movies I liked.

So how do you navigate the world when you’re different? First, acknowledge that you are going to see things differently. People might think your weird, or just not get you, but that’s okay. It’s a big and connected world out there. There’s most likely someone who agrees, relates, or aligns with how you act, think or live. Maybe your thinking is unconventional, or “dangerous” but you shouldn’t be afraid to be who you are. Second, and probably more importantly, find the courage within you to be yourself. That may mean going to events alone, or going to places you find interesting, alone. Enjoy the things you want to, and you may attract people who like what you like and are intrigued by the fact that you are there too. Being alone can suck at times. Especially when you see people who are together and enjoying themselves. You know what’s worse than that? Not going where you want to go or doing what you want to do because you are alone and regretting the time you’ll never get back. It’s better to say, “That was awful”, or say “That was a waste of time”, then be wondering what could have been. I had a great time personally going to see an outdoor show for five dollars, where I met people who enjoyed the same type of music as I did. They found me. All I did, was show up and enjoy what I enjoyed. It’s okay to not be the norm. It’s okay to be different and not know where you’ll find like minded people. Go out and enjoy what you enjoy. The universe will take care of the rest.