Anyone who has taken Art Fundamentals knows about the color wheel. Some colors are complements, while others mix together to create yet another color. Some colors are on a dark end of a spectrum, while others are on the lighter end.

But every color is necessary.

I spent last Saturday on a street filled with shops and art galleries in the Central West End. The places hustled and bustled with a bunch of different people. From their ethnicities to their ages, from their clothing styles to the languages they spoke, people looked and sounded different.

It was incredible to see such diversity.

We walked into about five different art galleries and looked around at the sculptures and paintings, modern and antique, vibrant and dull.

That’s when I realized that there are two ends of the personality spectrum.

On one end, people conform to society changing their views constantly to fit in rather than form their own beliefs.

On the other end, people constantly try to differentiate themselves from society just for the sake of being different.

But here’s the truth: we are all the same, and we are all different. Both are equally terrifying.

If I were to adopt the ideals and principles of those around me, I would lose myself in others. Taking this route, I would become the equivalent of a single zebra getting lost in the dazzle.

But if I were different for the sake of being different. No one would understand me, and I would end up alone in my own little unique world isolated and disconnected from everyone else.

I would feel like an animal taken out of their real world and locked into a zoo while onlookers would converse and analyze my every move.

There’s nothing wrong with Average Joes or Crazy Sues, I’m just not sure if they exist.

I thought this as I looked at a piece of artwork that really struck me. Two bear-like sculptures stood side by side. Their shells were identical, except one face was red, and the other was blue. The red bear had a red chest, while the blue bear had one blue leg.

Ah.

Similar; yet different.

That’s how I see humans, too. But stereotypes have gotten in the way of bonding “basic” and “hipster” people.

I’ve talked to hipsters at school as they look at girls sporting monograms, and they have said something like, “She’s so basic it physically pains me.”

I’ve talked to the basic girls sporting those monograms as they look at the hipsters in overalls and say something like, “They’re just so…weird.”

I have talked to both “groups” of people, and I notice very few differences.

Actually, the biggest difference is what they see: the clothes, the hair, the activities they take part in.

The hipsters are blue; the basics are red.

But if these people talked to each other instead of about each other, they might just learn something.

I’ve learned that we are not that different.

I’ve learned that everyone, blue haired or blonde, struggles with the same basic things.

I’ve learned that people, like colors, create more things together than separated.

I’ve learned that we are the all same because we are all different.

I’ve learned I am not red nor blue but purple.