Does Individuality Exist?

individuality = when everyone excitedly agrees with us
conformity = when we reluctantly agree with everyone

individuality = when everyone excitedly agrees with us conformity = when we reluctantly agree with everyone

Mr Kipling Individual Victoria Sponges exist.

I've touched on it before, but I was brought up in a family where my brother and uncle were autistic, and I suppose my thinking about individuality has always been affected by this. Neither of them could use language. Neither of them expressed a desire to ever really communicate with another human being, but would disappear into a repetetive code of unintelligible behaviour. Rocking, nodding; in the case of my brother he would bite his own hand a lot, as if his own body was the only tool he could use to voice frustration. Its strange to describe how isolated they were. I spent a lot of time with these people, the first 20-21 years of my life, before I went to university.
Since then, its strange to view non-autists as 'individuals'. Of course, I'm not saying we're /you're all clones, but I tend to celebrate the things that make us the same, instead of the things that make us different: love of music (any music!) , food (any food!), and language. Especially language.

Crikey - self pity alert. I didn't mean it to sound like a sob story. Of course individuality exists - its the thing that keeps us interested in everyone else, its the reason why we all love meeting new people, and the reason why I spend so long talking to all you fine folks! So yay individuality!

there's a famous sci-fi short story where everyone has become telepathically linked except for a few rebels inc the protagonist. but what was the year? i mean anyone remember the author -- someone famous

it would have been nice if everyone had answered exactly the same, only the software stops you doing that. gah.

gag from Life of Brian (recycled from Ripping Yarns??) B:"You're all different!" Crowd:"We're all different" bloke: "I'm not"

john wyndham's "the chrysalids"?

That doesn't sound like a sob story, Will. It sounds like personal experience that has colored your perspective upon the world.

I don't know if individuality exists but striving for it is stupid, irritating, and causes angst, so it should be avoided.

Just look at what happened to Vronsky

jeeeze that's a downer. sorry !

In a relative sense, yes, in this polarized, dialectical, illusory world.

In the Absoute: no, of course not, for only the Absolute exists. The mirage of individual personality is only temporary, before the small, innumerable waves of conciousness are refracted back into the Ocean Light of the singular Universe/Absolute

(i'm NOT kidding, that's what salvation really is)

The Chrysalids is the other way round - no one is telepathic except the kids inc the protagonist, and everyone else is in thrall to post- apocalyptic Christianity and hence burning of telepathic children = urgent & key. In the end the kids escape and fly off to New Zealand where everyone is telepathic.

Hmm. Calling Dunedin, calling Dunedin...

Individuality exists on IL* because the Lord God Greenspun gets stroppy if you try to post exact same thing as someone else