The Element of Uniqueness & Its Hope For Different Perspectives

The Great Gatsby, a film remade in 2013 with Leonardo DiCaprio. The film has been remade many times starting 1926.

We are all special.  We are all unique.

10 different people can cook tomato rasam with the same ingredients and each will taste different. Because each of them did something different. Smashed the tomatoes before tharkaing it; fried the tomatoes with their skins on; pureed the tomatoes; sauted the tomatoes till they were caramelized; left the grains of the dhal whole; cooked the dhal until it was pureed.

I remember my friend Mariam telling me when she cooked anything new, she would have 4 or 5 different recipe books open to the same recipe.  She would compile the different recipes to cook the dish.

Isn’t this what most of us do, in one way or another? I have always believed that everyone is creative; Even those people who say they are not creative, I will observe creativity in at least 4 areas of their lives: the way they dress, the décor of their houses, what they do in their kitchens, and what they do in their gardens.

We are all special.  We are all unique.  Each of us brings something special to the table.  Our own special touch – a touch often captured more vividly in memories than in words.  

This is why we should welcome new and diverse friendships, however brief they are. 

Some brief friendships will turn out to be not so brief, after all.

Because friendships are like polar bears. Some of them will hibernate.  Some of them will hibernate for a long time.  My friendship with Gerri (captured in my post The United States of Friendship – Part 2) is one of those friendships that hibernated for a decade.

But back to uniqueness. Each of us is special and unique.

But we tell ourselves stories such as “I have nothing special to say”, “everything that has to be said about this subject has been said before”, “I could never be so good as ……x”

Things are always old.   Things are always new.  Everything that is new is a spin on something old.  Pinterest is a spin on bulletin boards, it is also a spin on Ben Silbermann’s bug collection.

Mark Twain said, “history does not repeat itself, but it rhymes”.

Nothing I have written on this blog is new.

It’s the fact I am saying it that is new.

This post I am writing is new.

It is new to me - I have never said what I am saying in this post in the exact way any time before.

It is new to you - You have never heard me say what I have said in this post in the exact same way before.

What I am getting at is whatever you are thinking about doing, don’t worry that it has already been done before.

Do you know there are 57 movie remakes currently in development?  You can read about them here. The producers and director of these movies didn’t say, “oh, this has already been done before, so no point” They know the secret – the people who will produce, plot, script, direct, act, do the casting and sets of these movies will be different from the people who did the original.  Plus technologies have changed, possibilities have expanded. 

This is what drives them. This is what should drive you.

Whatever you undertake, just because you are doing it, that’s what will make it new.

It will be new to you, it will be new to all the people who you are doing it for, it will be new to all the people who are witness to you doing it. They would never have seen you do that before.

So don’t say to yourself, “there are too many pizza restaurants. I can’t hope to compete with a new pizza restaurant.” You have never opened a pizza restaurant.  That’s what’s new.

You cannot cross the same river twice.

Don’t tell yourself, “What’s the point of writing another article about this subject?  Or writing another letter to the editor?  Or expressing another view in this online forum?  There is nothing left to say about this subject.  Everything has already been said, and more eloquently.”

The fact you are writing it is what will make it different.

Don’t worry about being eloquent, making mistakes and boo boos, stepping on people’s toes, and all of that.  If I had allowed myself to dwell on any of that, this blog would never have gotten off the ground.  If I am still going, it's because I have developed a healthy attitude to criticism, and a healthy humility about being ordinary and clumsy.

You should know.  You’ve been dealing with my orphaned sentences and my other annoying literary and grammatical outrages. Thanks for putting up with me and focusing on the gist of what I am saying.  Very grateful.

Don’t for a minute imagine I am not frightened when I write.  Every single time I have to hit the publish button, I have to take a deep breath before doing so. Putting something online with your name on it is psychologically quite scary. But I do it in spite of the fear.

I do it in spite of the fact I know I have nothing new to say and everything is a rehash of something that has been said before. I do it in spite of the risk of the post being considered a joke. I do it because I know each of us is different; so I know I am different enough (in some ways) to be able to say and do things somewhat differently from anyone else.

Even between 2 people from the exact same family, there will be different perspectives based on their personality, life experiences, knowledge, research, ideas and values.

Even between 30 students writing the exact same thesis, the thesis will be different based on the different personalities, life experiences, knowledge, research, ideas and values of the students.

Don’t worry about things such as success.  What is the guarantee of success? The 57 film remakes are not guaranteed success.

Sometimes we just have to take a chance.  There are no guarantees. There are just opportunities. And dreams.  And ideas.  Sometimes, they all come together.  You get an opportunity to pursue a dream for which you have some ideas.

We live in a golden time.  For free, we can create a blog or a website and express ourselves on it.  For free, we can create a profile and put it on LinkedIn.  For free, we can post our latest creations on Facebook, Pinterest, Tumblr or Flicker. For free, we can say clever things on Twitter. For free, we can create a video and post it on YouTube. For free, we can review a restaurant or event on Yelp. For free, we can review a product or book on Amazon.

The only price we have to pay is the price of our time and the price of our courage.

How many of these opportunities are you using?

Don’t let another day go by without sharing your specialness with the world.

Now go make some rasam. I know it will have your special touch.

Thanks for reading and have a great day and week…..M…..a Pearl-Seeker like you.