At this very moment there is someone on this planet doing the exact same thing and thinking the exact same thoughts as you. There are only so many different actions that can be ‘performed’ before those very same actions are repeated and circulated. Granted there very well may be thousands of different choices that are offered, for every event there may only be a particular action in which we could possibly partake in.
People aren’t really as different and unique as they would like to believe. We all need to eat, we all need to drink, and of course we all need to defecate. There will be some who implement each action to a greater or lesser extent, but over all we are in essence doing the same thing.
The more our paths cross the more likely we are to partake in copying the same actions of someone we socialize or associate ourselves with.
There is not a significant amount of originality to your thoughts, nor do they necessarily belong to you. Thoughts come and go, much as night and day do, some lost within the realms of existence, some remembered long enough to be consecrated and accepted as our own…………..OR………Thoughts are the direct result of your processing of information you gather from the outside world. As such my thoughts, here and now, are likely to be subtly different to what I might experience if I were sitting but 1 metre to the right. Given that a lot of incoming ‘data’ comes from others [and other entities] around us, the people we meet [and the experiences we have in relation to those 'events'] shape us, in terms of our persona, a great deal.
What is the point of trying to convince ourselves that we are individuals? We are but collective wholes, identified by stereotypes and clichés, which resemble other tangible realities that exist? We have labels for a reason and that reason is to define our likeness to one another. Thus again I state that originality and/or individualism cannot exist.
What is a thought? What does it mean to be an individual? Is it possible to be a complete individual? What is your perspective on clichés and stereotypes?
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Cliches are a way of expressing yourself lazily, but there’s no reason to make poetry out of everyday speech. Cliches have their place. Stereotypes are a means by which we group certain people together, by assuming that because they all share trait X, they must also all share trait Y (where, usually, X is concrete and Y abstract). Stereotypes have their place too.
On the other hand, what makes us an ‘individual of the whole’ is the unique combination of the unoriginal things that exist in ourselves and in our lives. Perhaps there isn’t such a thing as a unique idea, but we as human beings tend to define the world by our own perception[s], which are constantly changing and constantly evolving. We may have never thought a certain way about a certain matter until now.
Obviously there must be originality, or else nothing would ever evolve or change. Incorporating old ideas to change things is still original, IMO.
As for individualism, we live in a world where it is primarily discouraged, not celebrated. The vast majority of people who consider themselves individuals are simply falling for the counter-culture propaganda.
However, bc time will always exist as an independent variable, there is no way that two events could ever happen in the exact same way, if given the chance, to the exact same person. The universe holds more variables than we could ever imagine. It’s in a constant state of flux, hence everything, in some way, has to be original and individual to its own parts.
Every ounce of matter and energy in your body has been and will forever be in the process of recycling itself into all the other matter and energy in the everlasting cosmos…….
Unfortunately since we have no way of checking the mind of every entity that has ever existed everywhere, this will always be a matter of conjecture. Still, it’s an interesting idea… $@}
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method
and just for fun…..to go along with my many contradictions in this post……
