And as the demands of my daily life increase, this habit has been reduced to times when I happened to flip to the particular page in the Life section or whenever I randomly remember. Recently, I am beginning to doubt how the various positions of the Sun, Moon and Planets affect my individual life, as well as billions of other separate, unique beings.
Increasingly, I believe that the decisions one makes or doesn’t make have to do more with the different agencies in one’s life. I am accepting this job because I am an Indian from the middle-class, I am choosing children over work because I am a female, I am living the present, uncertain about the future because I am a youth, and it goes on endlessly. There is really no such thing as a unique and special individual.
Because everyone can be matched to a certain other(s), experiencing identical emotions, dealing with duplicate problems, going through particular equivalent stages of life. There are different groups, but there is no marked and distinctive person. Ecstatic happiness that “no one knows of”, piercing sadness that “you’ll never understand” are little notions that we subscribe to for the precious and fragile sense of individuation, which does not exist.
So, the stars glitter black skies and- I think it ends there.
12 comments:
Forsaking the risk I'd be running of sounding like a broken record, I've since ceased to truly believe in horoscopes. People believe what they want to believe, and each horoscope is tailored for that sort of ambiguity such that it retains its wide employability and validity of application. Test it empirically and suddenly, it's not that straightforward.
Individuation is what some of us seek, but there are a burgeoning number of people who would rather be normal and indistinguishable from the common crowd, because being different is just too tiring and conflictual with social norms and expectations. Yet if such a struggle against normality and monotony is deemed unworthy of pursuit, won't life be so uninteresting and mundane? Where does innovation fit in with all this? Why do certain individuals believe they can 'change the world' with their actions and words?
Ambition, belief and faith - those distinguish those who dare to be different, despite the normality and sameness of problems, emotions and 'stages of life'. The circumstances may coalesce in the same configurations, but the approach can differ. The agency of the individual interacting with the situation - that offers an opportunity out of the humdrum rigidity of problem-solving 'techniques' established today.
Joshua the original hugger says:
Every living creature today that was born from Meiosis is uniquely individual. You may have your mother's eyes or your father's hands, but the complete you is unique, special.
No amount of variables will ever suffice the complexity of a human being. Everything has influence, but no amount of combined variables is causal.
Nothing in the biological and social sciences should ever convince you that you are not special. So perhaps it was a good thing that you gave up on horoscopes.
Never forget how special you are.
Life is ultimately charted as according to the decisions that a person makes. The factors that belies one's decision are also very multi-faceted. I feel that it is so fatalistic to just ascribe the living of one's life to such simplistic considerations. There are always outliers to any situations. There are always women who chose children over career because they believe that they will be just simply happier doing that. Stuff like horoscopes, forune cookies or tarot cards only give people some sense of hope and direction. Ultimately, it still boils down to the will and decision of the individual. It would be really sad to not examine what one truly wants from life and only lives life in accordance with the influence of others. The exact beautiful thing about life is that it is so unpredictable and dynamic that there can never ever be a homogenous experience for one and all.
hi annonymous, i'm examing the whole notion of individualised decisions, which i feel is not only loaded, it is overplayed. and by saying that individuation does not exist at all, i don't think i am taking a fatalistic stand because people still make choices every single day. but the factors which affect one's decisions are mostly similar, by and large, for each of us. we are moulded by the same institutions, well, yes, how one negotiates around such factors differ. but for every decision that an individual makes, he/she can be mapped to another who makes that same so-called, very personalized decision.
how one negotiates around that differs, of course. hence, my point about there being different groups, and each of us having membership in multiple groups.
about life being unpredictable, i would say it is only unpredicatable in that you can never guess what is going to happen ten years, twenty, fifty from now. but it is extremely predictable how a person will react bounded by identical forces. that's why social sciences have continued to exist thus far: )
poke poke joshua!
"Never forget how special you are."
i cant forget that when i dont even believe that, can i!
harrison, cya soon! for that foreign film/movie/comedy that has been postponed... and typing this now, i realised how we have gone from wanting to catch something from the french film fest, jap film fest, etc- they've all gone by us and we still havent watched a single one:/ haha, can't help it, we're ninjas!
Joshua the original hugger says:
Zq, i utterly and completely wasted my weekend! :) i loved it! finally got to around doing "nothing". Anyway!!! I dont care if you think you're special. I do and its too bad that you dont agree. HAH! *Poke ur eye*
joshua, : )i was at home the entire day and i watched the rain come and go. it feels good being home, smelling after-rain, and taking a few naps in a single afternoon, not really doing anything at all. hoola i was going to do lots and lots of readings, and well, i did one for the entire afternoon.
i'm so happy this evening, i dont know why again.nothing to do with estrone levels la. *POKES YOUR EYE WITH A SHARPENED PENCIL.
Joshua the original hugger and emphasized male says:
Omg u resort to violence with a weapon! I am so going to boycott everything. BREAD AND ROSES!!!
*I am a rose*
:)
i know that feeling. I am proud to waste my weekend away. Afterall, like our evolutionary cousins, the monkeys, our main job in life is to sit around. Why do you think our butts got so big?
You know what i like most? when you wake up, and the first thing u smell is the rain and u can hear the rhythm of the rain rocking u back to bed.
If death is about sleeping forever, it might not be that bad
Can we not be so morbid this early morning? Rainy days don't have to always be melancholic, you know. They could be silently contemplative, or pit-patteringly therapeutic, or even refreshingly cleansing. Like in the olden days, when the storm would envelop everything across the landscape and bathe it, washing away the grime, the baggage of days' past.
As I wrote on my blog, zhiqi, the Ninja way of film-watching has taken on a whole new meaning: we just watch them come and go! But this Friday's going to be different. The European Film Fest is coming soon - will update you again!
Did you read that article I sent you the other day about NMP Thio?
Joshua the original hugger:
If you change all the "He" to "She" and "His" to "Her" this is how i feel on a crappy day.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mpqXu0z3wU
And this is probably how most of us feel about our dating life.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4HIyOWtzlo
I am refuting your idea that there is really no such thing as a unique and special individual.
Look at your handprints, your fingerprints....they look similar to everyone's, but they are uniquely yours.
We are similar in many ways, just like everything else, but we are unique, just like everything else :)
Lord, I ask you, to rid me of my concern
over what impression I make on other people.
Forgive me for being so preoccupied
with what i seem to be
with the effect I produce
with what others think and say of me
Forgive me
for wanting to imitate others to the extent
that i forget who i am,
for envying their talents so much
that i neglect to develop my own.
Forgive me
for the time I spend trying to be someone else
and for the time I don't spend in developing my own character
Lord, let me be open to others,
so that, through them, you will be able to
vist me as your friend.
For then I will be the person that your Love wants me to be
you child, Father, and a friend to all. Amen.
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