RE: Are we really afraid of being unique?
Thank! I like your thought process.
Don't you think that society confuses such concepts as “loneliness” and “rejection”?
After all, if you think about it, then in loneliness itself there is nothing gloomy, you do not become an outcast and an empty place in this world. From the point of view of philosophy, we are all alone. We are born alone and die alone too. All the people in our lives are travel companions, because all our life we are alone and every day we conduct internal dialogues with ourselves.
Loneliness is even sometimes useful to gather your thoughts and understand what you want from this life.
Rejection = loneliness in terms of society is a failure, it is an outcast, an empty place, doomed to suffering. Perhaps this is the reason for this fear? We are afraid NOT of loneliness, we are afraid that they will turn their backs on us and for this we choose someone else's life for ourselves.
We think very much alike. I love being alone every once in a while, because I'm alright with myself. People who fear loneliness fear being alone with themselves, with their thoughts, with nobody that tells them what to be, what to like and dislike, what to think.
Thing is, only when you feel that you don't need other people you can establish healthy, strong relationships with them. Then you can share those "internal dialogues" and get those travel companions that you talk about.
I don't know if or why people confuse these two concepts. Rejection is, basically, forced loneliness; if you are afraid of loneliness, I guess you might feel rejected everytime you are alone. Or maybe, if you don't like yourself you get convinced that society doesn't like you either.