Will you be purple?

Boston Legal continues to be one of my favourite sitcoms... Between Alan Shore's witty charm and Denny Crane's undiluted 70 year old libido, they really have a good thing going. Besides, where else would you find grown men ready to dress up in pink fluffy flamingo costumes? No...don't answer that.
Sometimes, the most interesting things come to light. I was watching (re-watching) an episode from the second season, where Alan Shore tried a case on behalf of a little girl who was being kept out of a private school because she couldn't smile (read accident and nerve damage) and the kids at her current school were making her life hell. The private school didn't want to take her in, even though she got straight A's and was a phenomenal artist, because she wasn't 'normal'... What I liked about the episode, other than Alan's flamboyant theatrics in court, was when he quoted Epictetus to the little girl at the end of the episode. Now, not knowing who this man was, or indeed how to spell his name, finding him on Google turned out to be a bit of a problem. Still, I eventually did, and he turned out to be a Greek philosopher with a very well rounded perspective. The quote was from the discourses of Epictetus, Book 1, Chapter 2 -

For this reason, when Florus was deliberating whether he should go down to Nero's spectacles and also perform in them himself, Agrippinus said to him, "Go down": and when Florus asked Agrippinus, "Why do not you go down?" Agrippinus replied, "Because I do not even deliberate about the matter." For he who has once brought himself to deliberate about such matters, and to calculate the value of external things, comes very near to those who have forgotten their own character. For why do you ask me the question, whether death is preferable or life? I say "life." "Pain or pleasure?" I say "pleasure." But if I do not take a part in the tragic acting, I shall have my head struck off. Go then and take a part, but I will not. "Why?" Because you consider yourself to be only one thread of those which are in the tunic. Well then it was fitting for you to take care how you should be like the rest of men, just as the thread has no design to be anything superior to the other threads. But I wish to be purple, that small part which is bright, and makes all the rest appear graceful and beautiful. Why then do you tell me to make myself like the many? and if I do, how shall I still be purple?

Of course, the televised version was way simpler, and really boiled down to whether you had the guts to take a stand, and then stand out. To be purple, not white. To refuse to blend in no matter how much people make fun of you, or try and bend you to their way. Alan Shore definitely meant to move and inspire her.
The little girl had the last say though. With all the innocence and simplicity of childhood, she replied, "Maybe. But it's not always easy being purple..."