The tragedy of not being special

My last entry got me thinking about a trip I made to Wollongong a few weeks ago. I tried to block out many of the things I saw in Wollongong because they were kind of weird and scary. The main things I remember were:
A: A large number of drug addicts eating rainbow paddlepops at 8am.
B: A bogan woman loudly berating her new puppy for its continued diarrhoea.
C: The Australian Unicycle Championships.

Now if you come from Broken Hill and you get round town on a unicycle I imagine you’d really stand out from the crowd. People would say “There’s Gavin. He’s a bit different. He rides a unicycle.” But when people like Gavin from all over Australia gathered in Wollongong, they immediately ceased to be all that special.

Sure, some of the competitors probably liked the feeling of being part of a community but in most I sensed a feeling of deep disappointment. No longer were they special or different. They were profoundly normal.

All of them were craving some way to capture some attention. I think that is why the woman in the picture above has impaled a tiny horse on her unicycle and is trying to eat its arse.