Individuality

I've been thinking a lot about individuality, that facet of consciousness that thoroughly separates us from the other animals. We are the ones blessed with a deep knowledge of being unique and cursed with the compulsion and societal pressure to be the same as everyone else. We're the ones who know we're going to cease at some point.

Note: This is actually a fairly personal subject as it has affected me badly in the past. Enough said.

We are mad mad human beings, working away to raise money in order to eat and live and make more human beings who will then do exactly the same things. We stuff all our resources into savings for the future and end up doing very little in the present, and all the while time grinds on and the great washing machine of the Universe continues its endless cycle of rinse and repeat.

Where does the balance lie? Where is the line to walk that manages to preserve our own quirks but also satisfies every other responsibility that we accept from societal norms and madnesses? The answer is simple, really, in that the line is different for every single person. Some people, obviously just from looking around the world, can quite happily balance a family and work and whatever interests they have and not go mad. Other people, myself included, have trouble even managing one of those things individually. What, work and have some kind of social life?! Impossible! Give me my keyboard, and I'll just spout rubbish at people on the Internet instead of having to talk about the weather and whatever someone did that day. And no, I will not talk about how good this soup is at length, thank you very much. Take the hint, soup-maker.

That got oddly personal, and may even me a mild violation of the Quirky Muffin editorial code. I think soup-hatred is proscribed also.

On the other hand, people concerned with their individuality and maintaining their own identities can badly tend to self-absorption, much like couples and parents preoccupied with their own internal life over old external acquaintances. That would be just as bad a loss of identity as that experienced by those who get too submerged in their own families and work. Where is the truth in this? How can people know what to do? How can I even know what to do?

This blog really doesn't make any sense. Expect revisions soon.
O.