What makes you unique ?

[m1469]

I am just curious how people approach an answer to this question when asked in an interview, for example. 

Is it even answerable ?  Do you actually try to convince people in words that you are 'different' somehow than all the rest ? 

Please make it as specific or as general as you would like.


m1469

[ted]

Oh good heavens, I don't need to convince anybody ! I have been told about it from one year's end to the next since I was a kid, usually in extravagantly negative detail.

[gilad]

If someone can't see you're different i think they is a potato head. Are we all clones? Do some people suffer from an incapacity to differentiate between one joe shmoe and the next?

But I guess it's a fair question.

A bit difficult to come up with an answer on the spot too.

But I would say I am unique due to the obvious, my DNA, my life experiences and my actions.

Get to know me better and you'll soon see I am alike no other person. Same applies to us all.

But I suspect in a job interview for example they are looking for words like I take initiative, Im creative, Well organised blah blah blah.

It is not that "one" is unique from the rest that is interesting to me, but rather that it is our collective unique qualties that are complementary to those of other people and visa versa.

[rc]

I remember going to a job interview being asked questions like that.  I heard the guy who interviewed me was a cocaine addict, he was more jittery than I was, with a gigantic gut that quivered the whole time.

"Where do you see yourself in 5 years"...  I was 18 at the time, all I could think is 'I sure as hell won't be HERE by then'.  Instead I said "I don't know".

"What makes you unique?"...  "I live right nearby and am desperate to make MONEY! I WILL WASH THE DISHES!".  It's a job interview dammit, I'm here to work not be unique.

...Then the guy tells me to come in for a second job interview, loses my resume and the guy who I went in for the second interview didn't know I was coming - and doesn't do interviews.

That place went under a few months later.

Funfact:  another place once cancelled a Miles Davis tune I picked out on the jukebox also went under a few months later... Coincidence? probably not.

[pianolearner]

I am just curious how people approach an answer to this question when asked in an interview, for example. 

Is it even answerable ?  Do you actually try to convince people in words that you are 'different' somehow than all the rest ? 

Please make it as specific or as general as you would like.


m1469

No. When in a job interview I try to convince them that I am exactly like everyone else and they have no chance of finding a suitable applicant for the position. It's also why society will crumble and fall apart.

[pianowolfi]

Well this is one of these challenging questions that makes me think for days. Others may be faster with their answers. And after these first fast answers unfortunately a thread like this seems to wander more and more towards the end of the page Bump I say  .

Okay I could talk about my own "uniqueness". That would be very unhumble. I could talk about your uniqueness which is obvious to me from listening to your recordings and reading your posts. And though I would like to say something about this I don't do that here and try to answer more in general. Every person is unique. But some seem to be more unique than others. Like Rachmaninoff for example. You can listen to two measures of his music and you will say "That is Rachmaninoff. Without any doubt". You can describe his uniqueness as a composer by using harmony and analyzing. You can show in detail which harmonic means he used and how he used them. And a fake Rachmaninoff piece would stay a fake. Nobody can copy him. He is irreplaceable. And without his music the world would not be the same. This is a thing I learned from my dad. He uttered about certain composers that the world would be not the same without their music. But can you analyze this or prove it? I think you can feel it distinctly. Also you may feel about yourself, in all humbleness, that you can give something which ONLY you have got in your soul to other persons through your music or through your thoughts or simply through the fact that you are there and existing. That you are IN THE WORLD. That you are a part of it and that the world needs you. This may seem hard to get. And mysterious. It is in fact mysterious. But i think as crazy it seems as true it is to me. Because it is my experience. Every important encounter I have had with certain persons has left something unique in myself which I can assign to these particular persons. From time to time I dig in my virtual treasure chest, take a remembrance out or a skill or a thought i have learned and say to them: "hello, you are nice and precious, where do you come from?" And then they answer: "Well I come from Sebastian, or Rachmaninoff, or Bernhard "

[johnny-boy]

Before we can answer that question we would have to have a definition of a normal person.

John

[lichristine]

jack nothin'

[opus10no2]

Right now I'm just a unique seed, and I'll be nothing more until I water myself.

[m1469]

I am just curious how people approach an answer to this question when asked in an interview, for example. 

Is it even answerable ?  Do you actually try to convince people in words that you are 'different' somehow than all the rest ? 

Please make it as specific or as general as you would like.


m1469

I think, m1469, it is less about what we "have" or "have not," including our experiences and knowledges, and more about what we do with those things and how we use them.

For example, you may do something different with this post than I would -- although, apparently, we both have it  .

And, a person's actions boil down to a person's intentions.  So, perhaps it is our intentions which make us unique.

[opus10no2]

haha my post above is a bit hilarious looking back

Yes, m1469 v2.0 , a person is everchanging, hopefully for the better, but the people we once were are sometimes more beautifully naive

Still, I think there is a great element in us that never changes and is everpresent, much as we sometimes try to cloud it with pretentious posturing.

[Bob]

Genes, your experiences, your region you are in, the time you are time, the decisions you make...

I was thinking the other day, that one decision can change you from one person into another.  If you took one person and were able to see the outcomes after just one decision, then after that decision you would end up with two different people.  Very similar, but not the same person anymore because of the experience factor.

[opus10no2]

Indeed, and this is why if I were cloned, even though he would be VERY good looking, he would most likely be a completely different person to who I am.

[m1469]

Indeed, and this is why if I were cloned ([edit]... yadda yadda ... (hee hee hee, sorry, couldn't resist)) he would most likely be a completely different person to who I am.

Yes, I completely agree.  I was thinking about this earlier today and almost brought it up in another thread.

[opus10no2]

Yadda me all you like, wont change teh facts 

You've seen teh classic seinfeld yadda episode I take it?

[rc]

I think I have clones running around.  Every once in a while somebody comes up to me looking for trouble only to find it was one of my clones.  Apparently they're a buncha jerks, always pissing people off who then think it was me   and they're EVERYWHERE!

But maybe I'm also a jerk but don't know it, and I'm also causing trouble for them as well...

I learned the name of one clone, people at a party once started calling me by his name and wouldn't listen when I told them I'm not him.

If we ever meet, it will have to be a battle to the death.

[zheer]

What makes you unique


   Nothing.

[pianistimo]

zheer - even your fingerprints are unique.  what do you mean nothing.  you must be depressed aND confused.  let me assure you that all it takes is some medication and you'll be fine.

what makes me unique?  i water the grass too much.  i hand pick weeds instead of using weed killer because i think it hurts the environment.  i try not to run over animals (with the exception of a turtle last year - but that was an accident).  and, i think that using too much household cleansers and detergent is bad for water - so i minimize household cleaning to once a week (with cleansers).  i am very interested in making weed killers and household cleansers out of regular everyday ingredients.  for instance, i heard you can kill most leaf eating pests by simply squirting grapefruit juice or lemon juice on the leaves of your plants.  baking soda only goes so far with cleaning.  the disinfecting part of cleansers are hard to imitate with vinegar because it kinda stinks - so occasionally this fad passes and i just use regular cleansers because they smell better and work better when used minimally.

[zheer]

depressed aND confused.  let me assure you that all it takes is some medication and you'll be fine.

  LOL

[pianowolfi]

I ask this question differently: What is the price of being unique? I mean it has mentioned before that everybody is unique in some way. But what is the price? Do we have control over our "uniqueness"? Or are we forced into it? Are we forced into individuation? Do we really have a choice or is our "uniqueness" a doom? And, if it IS a doom, how can we change it into a blessing?

[counterpoint]

depressed aND confused.  let me assure you that all it takes is some medication and you'll be fine.

LOL too 

[rc]

Whoa...

I really don't think there's any need to worry about our uniqueness.  It's there anyways, waiting to be expressed in whatever we do.  I can't help but think one who worries about being unique isn't expressing themselves so much as they express that desire.  It seems superficial and false.

I'm reminded of something I read somewhere, probably a Tshirt:  "You're a unique individual... just like everybody else"

[pianistimo]

is there a price for being unique?  maybe there's a price for thinking.  that is usually what threatens some people.  that you might upset the status quo. 

i think blessings come from emptying oneself occasionally.  you know - just giving up what you want to do for someone else.  i'm sure you already do this pianowolfi.  it's just that we don't see the results right away.  maybe never.  sometimes people can't thank you immediately - but what goes around comes around, i think. 

[counterpoint]

As Einstein said (I don't have the exact wording)

To be able to be a good member of a sheep herd - you have to be a sheep!

(In German, sheep (Schaf) has a malicious double meaning of "dull")

[pianowolfi]

is there a price for being unique?  maybe there's a price for thinking.  that is usually what threatens some people.  that you might upset the status quo. 

i think blessings come from emptying oneself occasionally.  you know - just giving up what you want to do for someone else.  i'm sure you already do this pianowolfi.  it's just that we don't see the results right away.  maybe never.  sometimes people can't thank you immediately - but what goes around comes around, i think. 

Yes sure. I am somebody who wants to go deeper and deeper and deeper. Nobody can stop me. I am not satisfied. I am like Faust. "Giving up" is my most recent "spleen" so to say. And as soon as I am really able to give something up--- I win 10 times more than I have lost by giving up. Okay so far so good. But all this does not answer my question. of course you can't answer. But perhaps there is somebody in the world who will read this one day and be able to answer. Give up. Never give up

[danny elfboy]

What makes you unique ?

Everything.
Our whole individual essence and any bit of it is like our fingerprints.

[Derek]

I seem to be motivated by the internal, rather than the external, as most of my peers (that I interact with at work, etc.) seem to be. I have never been able to relate to my peers, on virtually any level.   

[Bob]

On the cloning idea, there was that movie, End of Days maybe?, with Arnold S.  Even in that, cloned with the exact memory of the original, I would think the slight differences in experience would eventually result in two different unique people.  Each one has to be some place -- They can't be in the exact same spot.  Someone has to go throught he door first, someone last.  They can't live in the same house so the houses would be different.  I think all that would multiply after awhile.

[will]

What makes you unique


   Nothing.

zheer - even your fingerprints are unique.  what do you mean nothing?

zheer is unique in that he lacks uniqueness. 

[pianowolfi]

  Someone has to go throught the door first, someone last. 

Someone has to go through the door first, someone last
Someone has to think twice, someone only once
Someone wants to hide, someone goes out
Someone may wait for the unexpected, someone may do it
Someone may wait in a room, someone else may not enter because he is afraid of the other one...

Some things may happen because of this, some may not...cloned reality--cloned mind?
Just a few associations, randomly....

[danny elfboy]

On the cloning idea, there was that movie, End of Days maybe?, with Arnold S.  Even in that, cloned with the exact memory of the original, I would think the slight differences in experience would eventually result in two different unique people. 

No one would in its good conscience claim or believe that a clone of a person would have the same skills, personalities, beliefs, ideals, sensitivity of the cloned person.
If you clone a great musician or composer, the chance that he or she will ever develop a musical sensitivity, creativity and skills is infinitesimal remote.

Not only we're unique but we can't help to be unique and the process of internalizing a culture and its beliefs, limitations, rituals and status quo is a struggle (we often forget) made of sufference, pain, mocking, compelling and artificially created ignorance as observed by Rousseau and Mill.
It's about showing us just one facet of truth/reality while not allowing us to explore different facets hence internalizing the view of the moulder by ignoring the existence of alternatives and pondering them. That's how most kids become the creepy clones of their parents and its the same approach used by slavers with their slaves.