The Price of Not Blending In

When in Rome, act like the Romans, they said. The advice is sound. It has merit. Because it primarily teaches you to blend. Camouflage yourself. Conceal your intentions. Hide your incentives. Prioritise survival above everything else. It turns you into a chameleon. So you can advance faster than the rest. So people do not treat you like a stranger. The antithesis of this is a strange detachment. You feel no urge to blend in. You feel out of place. As if you could see through the matrix. As if you are observing from the outside. When that happens, it shifts your perspective. It reveals the futility of everything. The absurdity of blending in. The camouflage suffocates you. There are two ways to deal with it. One is to discard the camouflage. Be who you are. Speak what you feel. You risk exposure. Someone who speaks a different tongue. Someone who is an outsider. You risk being treated like one. You will be at peace with your identity. But you will be ostracised for it. And that is the…