Rose Bialk/The Mossy Log
Over the course of the past few transformative years in my life, I have become increasingly disillusioned with a very simple phrase: “I’m not like other girls.” At face value, this is easily picked apart as anti-feminist and can be taken in jest in most cases. But what I find most alarming is how it fits into toxic individualism — a modern movement against interdependence and a rejection of commonality.
Why are we so scared of being like others? Why do we push aside similarity? Why does community scare us so deeply? These are the questions that have followed me persistently, not just in my personal life, but in my writing as well.
During my time at The Mossy Log, I have written 11 op-eds. On the surface, they span a range of topics: electoral politics, the importance of reading fiction, the necessity of engaging with the news rather than retreating from it and even diet culture. Looking back across this range of topics, nearly all of them can be delineated into a single underlying theme: the necessity of community.
This realization has forced me to confront something uncomfortable. Even as I have argued again and again for the value of community engagement, I have still internalized a culture that treats similarity as something to avoid. The thrill of feeling “special” is tangible, but it does not last. The phrase “I’m not like other girls” may seem trivial and even ironic, but it reflects a much deeper impulse that encourages us to define ourselves in opposition to others rather than in connection with them.
Toxic individualism thrives in this impulse. It tells us that our worth is measured by how distinct we are, by how well we can separate ourselves from others. It reframes ordinary experiences as something to escape, rather than something to share. Under its influence, being “like others” becomes nearly synonymous with being unremarkable, and being unremarkable becomes something to be feared.
But this fear is fundamentally misplaced. For hundreds of years, people have been walking paths similar to our own, paths that we can learn from. I believe that we should take more comfort in that realization.
There is a strange kind of arrogance embedded in toxic individualism — the assumption that our experiences are so singular that they cannot possibly be understood by anyone else. Yet at the same time, there is also a deep insecurity driving this thought that whispers into our ears that if we are too similar, we will disappear into the background.
In reality, it is our shared experiences that make connection possible in the first place. The op-eds I have written about politics were never just about policy or elections, they were about participation and about the responsibility we have to one another as members of a collective. My reflections on reading fiction were not simply about books, they were about empathy and the ability to see ourselves in the lives of others. Even my insistence on staying engaged with the news was rooted in the belief that disengagement isolates us, while awareness ties us to a broader story of humanity.
In other words, the necessity of community has always been my throughline, even when I did not explicitly name it as such.
And yet, we live in a cultural moment that often undermines this very idea. We are told to “stand out,” to “be different,” to curate identities that distinguish us from everyone else. This creates a paradox: In trying so hard to be different, we end up feeling more alone.
Toxic individualism isolates by design. If everyone is so focused on proving how unlike others they are, then genuine connection becomes more difficult to achieve. Vulnerability — the core of community — is replaced with comparison. Instead of recognizing ourselves in one another, we search for ways to set ourselves apart. But what if we rejected that instinct? What if, instead of asking ourselves how we are different, we asked how we are the same?
There is an often overlooked comfort in recognizing our own experiences in others. The anxiety you thought was uniquely yours, your uncertainty about the future and the small, fleeting moments of joy are not anomalies — they are a part of the shared experience of the human condition. Acknowledging this does not erase individuality, it grounds it. Community is not a threat to selfhood. It is what makes selfhood meaningful.
To belong is not to disappear. It is to be seen and understood within a larger context. It is to recognize that the things that connect us are just as important, if not more so, than the things that set us apart.
This is something that I am still actively learning. Writing about community — both creatively in personal endeavors and persuasively for The Log — does not make me immune to the pull of toxic individualism. If anything, it has made me more aware of how pervasive it is, how easily it can slip into our language and ultimately our senses of self. Receiving recognition for your work can make it easy to distance yourself from those around you and see them as competition that threatens your identity, but it is not sustainable to buy into that line of thinking. Allow yourself to simultaneously be proud of your work, while also setting aside space to appreciate the people who have impacted your journey.
Awareness is a starting point. If we can begin to question why similarity feels so threatening, we can start to dismantle the idea that it is something to avoid. If we can allow ourselves to take comfort in the fact that we are not alone, then we can begin to rebuild a sense of connection that toxic individualism tries to erode.
The truth, simple as it may be: We were never meant to do this alone.
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