The Trap of Being Special

“Special” will take you out. It erodes something essential, so slowly you barely notice—until one day, you realize you are stranded. To be special is to be separate. And to be separate is to be exiled from the current of life, from the deep intimacy that is our birthright.

Yet, we are taught to seek this exile. From the start, we are told to strive—to be the best, the most desirable, the most irreplaceable. It feels noble, even necessary. But in setting ourselves apart, we sever the very thing that could nourish us: Eros..

In love, this illusion is especially insidious. We cling to each other, mistaking attachment for connection, exclusivity for intimacy. In trying to possess love, we smother it. Love cannot be held. It moves, it breathes, it requires openness.

Arousal—true arousal—exists beyond grasping. It is a current we step into, a river that does not stop for us. It does not care about our fear, our longing, or our attempts to make it safe. It only asks that we surrender to its pull.

But surrender is terrifying. And so we resist. We negotiate, we set rules, we try to control what cannot be controlled. We do this because we are afraid—afraid of what will happen if we let go, afraid of the unknown, afraid that if we stop holding on, we will lose ourselves.

Yet the truth is, we are already lost. The illusion of specialness wounds us more than the reality of surrender ever could. What we fear is not losing control, but losing the identity we have built—“I am this, not that. I am worthy because I am different.”

But here is the paradox: when we let go of the need to be special, we do not disappear. We expand. We merge with something vast and alive, no longer struggling against the current but moving within it.

This is the great unlearning. The realization that everything we were taught to seek—importance, validation, certainty—was a distraction from what we truly crave: to be fully alive. And aliveness does not care whether we are special. It only asks that we open, that we say yes.