The world makes it easy for you to believe in your own specialness, but incredibly hard for you to truly discover your own ordinariness. A side effect of specialization under modernity is that everybody gets fractionally distilled from birth to "special" by age 21 or so.
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Replying to @vgr
Really? As a middle-aged woman I am constantly reminded of my own ordinariness. I'm practically invisible, in fact, particularly to men. It's actually kind of funny to see it happen. I'd make a great spy.
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Replying to @StrangerArray @vgr
Yes, but we're talking about the ways the world encourages you to think you're special. My point is that this may be true for some groups, but it isn't for all.
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Replying to @ReneeStephen @StrangerArray
Special doesn’t equal superior or positive. Just encouraging you to see yourself in a narrower category than “human” IS performing “special”. You’re more aware of “middle-aged woman” aspects of you than aspects you share with many more, like having 2 legs.
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Replying to @vgr @StrangerArray
If the point is that we pick or are given micro-traits to identify with to build our self-conceptions (positive, negative, neutral, and pre-packaged, i.e. branded) but that these things don't actually matter, sure. Coupland made a similar point back when he wrote Generation X.
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Replying to @ReneeStephen @StrangerArray
We’re talking past each other. That’s not really my point at all.
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Replying to @vgr @StrangerArray
If it's "people are mostly the same in most aspects and modes of being most of the time," see Hari Seldon's work... Exploring that as a way of self-actualizing could be useful tho I disagree that most people aren't already aware tbh. Us gifted kids were messed up in this way.
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That’s closer to what I’m getting st and I’ve written a few essays on the psychohistory idea actually Though for the individual level I prefer the life-log books maintained by Death in Pratchett books as an allegory for ordinariness
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You’re still focusing on “special = gifted” rather than merely “distinguishable”. Perhaps a clearer way to state my thesis would be: The world wires is to our own distinguishablity st the expense of our indistinguishability.
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