We had a couple of books to choose from in class and I picked Gulliver’s Travels because I had seen the movie with Jack Black. This book was nothing like the movie and it was hard to understand because it was so old and had difficult writing in it. I didn’t think I would get much out of this book but I tried digging deeper into the writing and I really understood the fourth part in this book. If you haven’t read this part, it is the story about a man named Gulliver who was stranded on an island full of intellectual horses known as Houyhnhnms. In this society the horses are the ones that control everything and the humans known as “yahoos” are animals with no morals. The Houyhnhnms have no names and all look almost the exact same. They think the same and act the same and have nothing that makes them different from one another. Gulliver fits in very well with the Houyhnhnms because he never fit in with any other society because he was different.
What led me to my issue was the story of the Houyhnhnms and how they are all the exact same with no type of diversity. Also an event that happened about a year ago is when a male to female transgender ran for homecoming queen and she won. This brought a lot of publicity to her but also a lot of hate groups. Westboro Baptist Church went out of their way to come and protest at a school full of teenagers trying to get an education. So after talking with Mrs. Prater I decided that this is what I should write my open letter about.
I also was thinking before I wrote this that diversity gives us ideas because everyone looks at things a little bit different. If everyone thought the same way there would never be any new ideas or thoughts. The Houyhnhnms represent the perfect society, but is a world without diversity a world worth living in?
For a couple of years, I always felt a little different and like I didn’t have anyone to really fit in with. I used to be awkward and sometimes I still am but it’s not as bad as it used to be. It wasn’t until really in this last year that things started to fall into place and I somewhat found out who I was and who my friends were and who I wanted to focus on. I also started to realize that not everyone thinks different and people have their own opinions.
To anyone that has felt like they’ve had to suppress who they are. This is still a relevant issue because people still have to suppress their true selves. One thing that I can think of right now is how gays are suppressed for who they are. They still have to fight for their rights and deal with a lot of people against the way they think. There are also a lot of people that like the same sex but are scared of what people might think and they’re afraid that they won’t fit in. A lot of people aren’t who they really are because they are afraid of people making them feel different. 57% of high school girls and 68% of high school boys are less likely to go to college if they feel like they don’t fit in and when I read this it wasn’t pretty surreal to me. Just because you didn’t feel like you fit in while you were in high school doesn’t mean it will be the same in college. You will meet so many new people in college that are just like you.
The purpose of this open letter is too clear up the misconception that you have to change yourself to fit in. If everyone was the same there would be no reason to live. Not being the exact same as someone else is okay and you have to learn that you have to accept who you are and if someone else doesn’t like that then that is their problem. Also that it is alright to think differently than other people. I have learned that it is impossible to be friends with everyone and make everybody happy.
This book opened up to me the idea of individualism. Everybody wants everyone to get along and a world without conflict. The only way to achieve that is if everyone was the exact same. That’s the reason we have wars and people hate one another because we do think and act differently, but that is what makes us who we are. The Houyhnhnms didn’t believe in having differences in themselves so every day was always the exact same. Sometimes life needs some surprises to spice it up. Without spice life isn’t nice: be different and add some spice.
