The following was origanally written as a rant about how much school sucks (important sidenote: school sucks, learning stuff doesn't). However, then it slowly turned into a petition against racism/discrimination, to be subsided later on about... well, I don't even know... This post is thus a collection of thoughts sewn together in the hope it'll make some sense. If it doesn't than I'm very sorry for wasting your time. But if it does I'M A GENIUS, I KNEW IT! Alright, let's start this shizzle...
Neil Gaiman
"I think people are as individual as snowflakes, they kinda look alike but no two are exactly the same, and all classification is the root of prejudice."
Craig Ferguson
"Your content is a unique snowflake. Nobody’s channel is like yours. Now you can organise and present your videos and playlists to reflect your one-of-a-kind style."
Youtube
If we all are indeed little unique snowfakes, why is it then that we aren't treated as such? There's a strict confirmation made between what's good, average and bad. We all get graded through a strict system. There's no room for errors or personal promptings, because that would mean you have to go off the grades-list, which would make us uncategorized and chaotic. But how else could we justify the successes of our fellow creatures? Those who have risen out of the ground, often from an early age, apparent to be greater than most of us. They must be identified with the main characteristics of a snowflake, namely unique and special (because being unique doesn't always equal with being special). They are often praised for being uncommen or even rare. However, in day to day life this principle we apparently appreciate a lot (it's often fame accompanied with those skills) gets to be humbled down. If we don't follow the rules there will be huge consequences. If we do follow the rules there will (also) be huge consequences. As you can tell there's a strong contradiction within those prosumptions. The answer for this might be that we humans aren't like snowflakes. We humans might just be like humans. As boring it may sound.
"Human beings are good, they have shadow, every single one of us
has redeeming qualities and every single one of us has qualities that
people can hold against us. That's what makes us human."
Matt Bomer
The word human gets the definition of a member of the genus Homo and especially of the species Homo Sapiens. However if we're bound to that definition, our lives ought to be very plain. And believe me, it sometimes seems to be plain but it really isn't. Going by the eccentric Grace Jones, "One creates oneself". So we humans are humans because we've defined ourselves as humans. But why is it that the definition we've given ourselves isn't good enough? Why is it that we humans always search for an equivalent of our being?Matt Bomer
I frankly don't know. Maybe it's because of the great diversity between one human being and another human being. Or atleast, the great difference we experience. I've always wanted to be different or better said "an individual". However, we are all searching for people who are alike, so we can become something different on our own... with eachother. A snowflake is an individual because it's a unique something that floats around on its own. While we humans are forever searching for people likewise minded. And besides the acclaimed searching, we as a society are trying to dictate and thereby redact other participants within the society, trying to create or unite eachother through a certain harmony. Ain't no snowflake ever done that!
"They say that every snowflake is different. If that were true, how could the world go on? How could we ever get up off our knees? How could we ever recover from the wonder of it?"
Jeanette Winterson
A snowflake is a snowflake because it just is. A human is a human because we as beings defined that difference between the socalled existing things we've witnessed. Therefore a snowflake can never be human and a human can never be a snowflake. Atleast that's what "we" have decided a long time ago. By stating this difference I'm basically just repeating the boundaries that I've learned to be the truth and nothing but the truth. And it's obviously not the physical characterisations we identify oureselves with when comparing humans to snowflakes.
"You are not special. Your are not a beautiful or unique snowflake. You are the same decaying organic matter as everything else."
Chuck Palahniuk
Everyone is a snowflake because there are no snowflakes alike, and there are no humans alike and therefore it must be a good analogy towards the being of an individual. However, who's stated that we're individuals in the first place? Isn't it mostly an equal ground we all posses that's representative towards the being of a person? And naturally the outcome is different because the factors we're exposed at are different. Therefore we're all actually equal. So the individual hides itself into the experimental factors that are (un)controllable. For instance illness. Illness is something not everyone's exposed at (and naturally differs in degree. I mean there's a great difference between the impact of a cold or actual bronchitis and the mental and physical impact both can have on your being).
This making the individual dependent on (mal)function of the body. The physical brings a mental picture with it. The body doesn't function like it ought to do and therefore you could like suffer from allergies or such. So you need for instance take great atention to what you eat, when you eat and where you eat. This changes your diet pattern from that of the average diet patterns which can built a wall between you and someone else's awareness of food. Besides, eating is a social affair and this influence your state of being (your development as being average). Thereby the individual gets formed because it's made a distinction between you and someone else (an experimental factor).
"There's no way to be truly great in this world. We are all impaled on the crook of conditioning".
James Dean
However, this brings you to another categorization -everyone who's allergic- where another standard has been held up as average. And so on and so on, until all of the paths you've had to overcome in your life that are different to everyone else, makes you indeed different and therefore an individual. Hereby not saying that you are for instance your illness or other struggles, but that we (yes even you) like to put things into perspective. And we all know that generalizations or stereotypes aren't the whole story, but it is something that limits you pertaining to the average crowd (which I realize doesn't probably in actuality exists).
"So I guess that’s losing your innocence: realizing that you are not special. And then maybe realizing that that’s OK; that life is not, in fact, you versus the world."
Tavi Gevinson
As stated once by one of my teachers regarding taste and art and stuff and how we may preceive ourselves as precious little unique things: all has been done before and we're basically living within the widely accepted boundaries based upon our culture (it was a very uplifting lecture). Or as said by Hank Green from the Vlogbrothers it's all cultural based:
"I saw a post on tumblr the other day, it was wonderful, it said: How do boys look so hot and they never have to wear make-up!?! It was one of those moments when suddenly you noticed the water you've been swimming in your whole life, right. We're always surrounded by culture, we never notice it's there. That's how culture works. But in that moment, you're like 'Yeah! how come boys don't have to wear make-up to look hot and girls do?'. Because boys without make-up don't look better than girls without make-up, but in our culture they do."
Hereby we're exposed or tempted by our surroundings and our definition of being. It's all based upon a relative approach towards distinction between one thing and the other. What's hot? for instance or even the difference we experience as being devided between "boys" and "girls" and therewith the role you play within society and the accepted boundaries you ought to live your life by (as stated by our upbringing which self evidently is based upon our culture).
So yeah, that's what I've been thinking about between breakfast and lunch. Have a nice day.
Love,
Dominique
Photo credits:
1. Lovely Flowers
2. You didn't happen to pass a pretty boy, bearing a club sandwich...
2. Lovely Jess
3. I see dead people
4. More Lovely Flowers
4. Lovely Painting of Lovely Flowers
5. MORE TEA
8. Alexa smears it all over her face
7. Lovely Eye
8. Arrow, innit.
