Our differences are product by motley rules we apply in life and how our minds are predisposed by what we think is right based on our set values. Differences can produce indifference and apathy that lend to solitude or divisiveness. We essentially live through it and we breathe its animosity in the air. For the most part, we demonstrate friendly faces, but mistrust still ensues within us. We create a seemingly amicable atmosphere, but also built six-foot fence of reservation around us - high enough for us to secretly peek in others' faces beyond that fence, and good enough for us to take cover and duck if we choose to. A perennial cliche.

Yet indeed, it is almost the accepted reaction for fear of being rejected. A justifiable action we create to hide our own indifference (but, is it?) - wearing a smiling face mask amidst our own dejection; holding back our painful grimace to picture ourselves as a rather cheerful and hyper-active jester; or even more so as patching our wound to keep it from further bleeding and staining our skin, yet even a cut flesh needs breath of fresh air in order to heal!

We are so afraid that undoing these carefully juxtaposed life's rules could outstrip us of our self-respect we have maintained so hard and far. We tend to dodge and avoid biting the bullet.

At the end of the day, there's not much difference among us. It is pretty much cut-and-dry. We are all capable of feeling the pain; we have all the right to laugh at ourselves; we have all the capacity to harness our talents for good; and more - we have all the freedom to take sides, by our own choice to become content or miserable, achiever or cheater, liberal or conservative, etc.

What difference does it make? What does it matter if we unmask and become the 'sensitive' old self again ready to embrace another human being as well as our own weakness and flaw? Who doesn't have one after all?

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