One Of a Kind

I'll go back to Whose Line rants soon, but I just had an epiphany and it's going to be hard to explain right, and at first you're going to think "No sh*t, sherlock", but bear with me.

The epiphany I had is this:

Everyone is different.

That would be the "No sh*t, sherlock," moment. But just see me through here.

We all know it in theory. We know in theory that everyone is different. But how well can we really know it if we don't know the personality of every single person on this planet earth? There's somewhere around six billion people in the world, and not a single one is exactly the same as any other.

Are you starting to see the hugeness yet?

In theory, we know that everyone is different. And yet, we still end up saying things like "everyone shops at [insert random store here]" or  "everyone likes [insert musical artist here]." As if we were the odd ones out. But the truth is this: everyone is the odd one out in their own mind because everyone has something different about them.

Let me try explaining it like this:

I often think that I am very different than everyone else, because I'm into old, unpopular shows and old, retro music and I don't like to..... well, to show myself off and so on and so on. And I often say the word "everyone" to show how different I am from "everyone." But to anyone else, I am part of that "everyone". No matter how hard we try to separate ourselves from that "everyone", we will always be part of that "everyone", because we can't possibly get everyone in the world to know my singular personality, and get everyone to know that I am different than the rest of the world.

Because absolutely every person is different.

I'm sure everyone finds some trait about themselves that they think is strange or weird or unusual, or apart from "everyone". But to every other person, they are part of the "everyone" because no one can know everyone well enough to separate them from the "everyone". Does that make any kind of sense?

We like to pretend that we are the only ones in the world that differ from the crowd. But everyone differs from the "everyone" in some way. The "everyone" doesn't actually exist, because if every person is different and are separate from the "everyone" then the "everyone" is nothing.

I'm starting to confuse myself. Is ANYONE understanding what I'm trying to say?

I realized it while I was thinking today. I was on the computer, logging into my Google account. And I suddenly realized:

I am the only one in the world that is exactly like myself. I am the only one in the world with my exact experiences, birthday, obsession with Whose Line, possible mild autism, passion for storytelling...... there is no one else in this world with all of my traits and experiences that make me me.

And absolutely everyone in the world is exactly like that in that they are not exactly alike in any way.

Try to imagine the hugeness of this notion for one minute:

Out of six billion people (or thereabouts), who all have basic human needs, not one of those six billion people are exactly like any other. They ALL have different experiences. They ALL have different interests. They ALL have different insecurities, they ALL have different little quirks. And even if someone shares traits - for example, I share a birthday with a girl in my class, I share a love of Whose Line with a friend of mine, I share possibly autism with many people.... but I am the only one out of all the world with precisely the same COMBINATION of traits, and if I were missing even one of them, I wouldn't be the person who is writing this post right now.

Now think about that.

Now think about that again - but stretch the idea to fit around over six billion people.

It's kind of an amazing idea, isn't it? And it's true. It's totally and completely true.

And it wouldn't be nearly as amazing if it wasn't.