Monday, March 05, 2007

Boxes within Boxes

Do you ever worry that you're terribly unoriginal and will always be so? And as hard as you try and as much as you twist and turn and wriggle to break out of molds, you just throw yourself more and more into other molds?

There are 6 billion people on this planet. Telling someone that they're one in a million means that there are a thousand people just like them in China.

You think that your writing style is an original blend of geekiness and craziness and meta-ness, and then you read another blogger who does it all much the same, only about actual interesting topics instead of random thoughts.

Everyone's a type and the most annoying type of all is the intellectual type. The type who thinks that it's so clever and so self aware that it could never be a type. And you look at others of the type, at parties and shabbat tables and colleges, and you wonder "Am I really that much of a type?" But of course, you aren't. You're the one exception.

What is the obsession with not being a type? Is your personality so little inherently justified that it needs uniqueness for it to be valid? Are you afraid that you don't count if you don't create a type of your own? Or is it simply ego?



Second person is a cheap way out.

8 comments:

e-kvetcher said...

I think it is possible to not be a 'type'. But it can be unbearably lonely. Sometimes, it is good to find commonality with others.

ggggg said...

Although whatever you do you will have some similarity to someone else on this vast planet, still, like fingerprints, no two people are exactly the same. You have to discover your uniqueness- it is there- and build on it!

Looking Forward said...

am I the only one it the world who things that being unique is over rated, stupid and an absolute fantasy?

at my school they say that they always have the same times. They have this type, they have that type and when one leaves another takes his place. I remember when I went to do observations at schools there was one kid at my school who was, evidently, almost just like I was. Same attitude everything.

People aren't unique. you may not fit the regular mold, but you do generaly fit some mold. I remember in highschool giggling to my self as I saw all these kids, one exactly like the other who where tying to be "unique". It's really funny almost if it wheren't so sad.

Looking Forward said...

its called "adolescent ego-centrism: the personal fable".

:-)

M.R. said...

Oh, sad comments. Sad comments :(

Nay ye saddeners, let us take pride in our wierdness! You really aspire to be *normal*??

OK, so I finally learned the value of having friends, i.e., fitting into a small group. I'm still a little awed by this wonderful new feeling. {sits with slightly opened mouth, too spaced to break into the necessary song} Yeah, it is nice to find a couple of people with whom you [realize that you] have a good deal in common.

But to want to fit into a conglomerate? Icky icky icky pa-ting! Even the mere acceptance of conglomeration deserves a passionate redition of "Rage, Rage Against..."

Miri said...

Tobie - yes I feel exactly like that. it's worse when you find someone who does it better than you. on the other hand, there is a certain joy in the realization of so many kindred spirits.

lakewood venter-
it's just the combinations that make you different though; not that any one or two qualitites is actually unique. this person has this kind of out look with a mellow personality, that one with a type A personality, the third one with blonde hair instead of brown etc. one can't escape the typism, though. that's just humanity's way.

Miri said...

and, no offense to m.r. whose blog I really enjoyed, but you aren't that much like her really. you're generally more focused on your topic. possibly she's a little more like me than you that way, if mayhap slightly more manic. scratch that, she couldn't really be more manic than me, could she?

Tobie said...

Gosh, the lesson of this post is that I can write something totally random, disorganized, and badly written and my readers will still transform it into an actually interesting topic of conversation. Good job, all!

e-kvetcher- you're probably right. But it's annoying when you find that even those traits that you flatter yourself are unique aren't really all that much so.

lv- well, yes, every snowflake is unique too, but that doesn't mean that they all don't look really, really similar. I love to think that I'm secretly terribly unique, but it's hard not to doubt it.

hnc- I know! and that's why I hate the idea that I might be one of that stupidest type of all- the type that obsesses with pretending that it's not a type.

m.r- well, that's rather it- what does one do when they wake up and realize that they fit into the massive conglomerate just as much as all those identical people that you like to pretend you're not.

miri- she could try;)
but anyway, you may be right, but the difference is in details, not in substance. Or maybe it's in both. I don't know...I was just feelng boring and blase. (with a little slashy over the e that I have no clue how to do.)