Being ‘Different’.

The imitation game is an outstanding film. A film with numerous inspirational quotes and messages.

It’s based on the story of Alan Turing, and how he broke the German’s unbreakable communication code of WW2. Himself and his team worked in pure secrecy for 2 years. Turing’s journey of breaking ‘Enigma’ included encounters of many disbelievers, doubters, and people that spent their days trying to be the cause of him losing his job. And why did they do this?

Because he’s different.

He didn’t see or interpret things the way others do, so people hated and despised him for it because they felt inferior. This is still apart of our society today, nearly 70 years later. We simply dislike what we do not understand.

This is a linkage to my father. Now, he hasn’t had the easiest life, but he has come to learn that he is special. Special in his own way: intellectually, logically, and as my Dad.

For example, I remember on one occasion he told me a story that, in an Art class at school, himself and his classmates were instructed to draw a tree. The other pupils were simply drawing scribbles that they called ‘branches’, but my Dad purposely drew each one precisely. I’m not saying my Dad’s the next Picasso- because he is far from it. But still, he proudly handed his work to his professor.

Resulting in the teacher ripping his drawing into shreds, in front of the entire class.

This was just one occasion out of many of his schooling life, but it just goes to show that until this very day, if someone does something differently to everyone else, even if it’s the correct way to do it, we dislike it. We ignore it- attempt to forget it if we can, but we can’t. Because we know it’s correct, we know it’s better than the rest but we still don’t change our ways of thinking as it simply is ‘change’.

So, that’s what links Alan Turing, the greatest British mathematician, to my Dad.

They’ve both had their fair share of others telling them they can’t, but that’s what taught them it’s better to be different. And if there weren’t people like this in our world: who are willing to take the risk, who believe in themselves- we would never grow as people. We would remain the same.

We would be normal.