Being unique can be dangerous. Schools of aquatic creatures know this. Swimming madly in their watery "balls" of fin and flipper, they hope not to meet the teeth of their predators by being part of a synonymous crowd, we call safety-in-numbers. But being a singularly identifiable member within, like a red herring, invites only trouble. The uniform came along to effect the business of keeping a low target profile in the military. No one stands out other than those at the top of that hierarchy. Destroying ones individualism is the first lesson on the first day of joining any "club". One for all and all for one - if you can find it. More and more are we subject to becoming non-unique. Keeping up with the Joneses, the must-have generation fetish of wearing labels inside out, ditto development structures with rules of occupation for-your-own-good, uniforms of any kind, gang life, educationally "brain" enhanced babies, no-stuff "clean" designer decor, professional terminology, business behavioral workshops, franchised stores, gymns with occupied rows of treadmills : the jump-on-the-bandwagon list goes on endlessly to prove that we are all mere small fish opting more and more to swim in big circles so that we don't "stand out" and have to explain ourselves as individuals. Blend in, is the advice. Street people with their free wheeling baskets and carts of strange belongings and their choice of sleeping outside "the box", are, alas, the last of the originals.
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