It ’s a typical adolescent thing: to ask yourself ‘who am I’. The interesting thing is that the adolescent – and the adult – define themselves always as part of the group. A wonderful way to see this, is in ‘exactitudes‘: two Dutch guys, the photographers Ari Versluis and profiler Ellie Uyttenbroek, portraying people who have the same kind of ‘image’. This website is interesting for anyone exploring the meaning of individuality. You can savour the contrasts of individual vs groups. Individual is the choice of the group you want to belong to. The choice to be different – with others.
Funny how strong the illusion of ourselves as an individual is. And to see how we boil down our ‘individual selves’ to the part of us we know best: our conscious thoughts. We feel our choices to be completely free. We feel we make our own decisions in our conscience mind. The fact is however that our choices are contextual, based on influences we do not always notice. We react to our company. Our voice adapts (without us noticing) to status: the pitch raises if we meet a ‘boss’ and lowers if we feel socially above. This is all behaviour that has been measured and proved – but we are not aware of it. How much individuality is in behaviour we are not aware of?
There is a different level where the illusion of individuality is in tension with reality. In our world achievements are important (sometimes even in the circles that are achievement-aversive, competing in being more averse to achievement than others). We are highly trained in perceiving personal achievements as ‘individual’: something to be proud of as a person. There is nothing wrong with that, but if you look at any achievement under a looking glass, you will have to notice that there are no ‘purely’ individual achievements. I write this blog on a Mac Air. The software is developed by Blog Press. I lend all of the words from the English language, that – by chance – is the product of many language like Frisian (my origins are from “Fryslan”), French and many others. I learned the language at school. The thoughts I express are lend, if there is any originality in it is the blending of ideas. If there is any skill in language usage, I probably inherited it from my father (a preacher) and my mother (very good in telling stories). But we flourish on the idea of our own achievements. It has been proved that we get depressed if we do not indulge in a exaggerated idea about our own contribution to our successes. We need that ego-boost.
A third level. We are not that aware of how ‘others’ interact with and even ‘form’ our individual selves. I have been living for 23 years with my wife, 20 years of those with our eldest son and 17 with the second one. I live with these persons every day. I am working in a company I bought in 1998. Some of the employees I have been working with for almost 20 years, and I meet them at an almost daily basis. One of my best friends has become a brother in law 15 years ago. We have spend long hours disputing, exchanging ideas. Al of these persons have influenced in one way or another in the way I think, how I feel, how I take my decisions. What is the individual me? Where does it start? Where does it stop?
A fourth level in the ‘illusion of individuality’. Like me as one person. Or you as one. How different are you if you are with your three best friends or with your colleges? How different are you if you are in the company of superiors? If you talk to a beautiful male/female? If you enter a shop? Some of the ‘role changes’ are marked with different clothing. By wearing uniform. By changing attitude.
in the illusion of individuality. The illusion of myself as an invariant phenomenon. The illusion of me being the same as the person I have vivid memories of as a child. There is no single cell in my body that is the same as it was at the time of these memories. Psychology has proven that even these memories are not so much as ‘movies’ ‘proofs of the past’ but as a continuously retold story, changing through time without me noticing. If I look back carefully I see read threads through time, but also many changes. What we tend to see as a clear cut nucleus (our personality) is actually a cloud with not very defined shapes, to be interpreted in many, many ways and to change continiously.
And I do not think that this is a purely individual, philosophic fantasy. There are important implications to marketing and research. If we think that clients are ‘clear cut individuals with predictable choice patterns’ we might be wrong. If our marketing is based upon that conception, the marketing could be wrong.