| "A Different Kind of Equal", by Natalie Abbott |
Equality. When asked to define this term, we tend to think of monetary value, prejudice and hurt. What many people fail to realize, however, is that there can be different levels of equality. As children, we learn to compensate. It doesn't matter if we can't run as fast or jump as high as the other children, we make up by reading or spelling better than they do. Something occurs, deep inside our bodies, and tells us that we can create an equal: a different kind of equal. And that we do, and it works very well for us for a while. Then we hit adolescence. Insecurities abound, we seem to focus all our energy on what we cannot do, or fail to do. And what about that above mentioned different kind of equal? It is ruthlessly twisted and it is turned until it becomes the dreaded word: unequal. And we go through a stage, a hard stage, where all we notice are the failures and the defeats, not the triumphs and the accomplishments. It lingers for a while, preying on the soul when it is at its most vulnerable stage. Someday, it lifts itself, and a sunny day emerges from a sea of dark clouds. "Remarkable," you tell yourself. "Equality is an inherent quality of humankind, it is not something to be earned by status or to be gained by prestige. It is not something to not be given to a person based solely on the fact that they can be considered "different." I am equal, you tell yourself, to every man, woman, and child who has roamed this earth in search of the elusive goal of happiness. And then you can rest with the knowledge that you, and only you, have the power. The power to feel equal. |