Individuality Is Choosing From Yourself

Gelme: Individuality develops when what you see and perceive passes through you.

If you only follow other people deciding what is beautiful and what is not, you may develop common taste—the taste appropriate to a particular period—but not necessarily your individuality.

The Other Voice: Individuality does not require deliberately choosing differently.

Refusing something merely because it is popular is another way of allowing other people to determine your choice.

Individuality is not necessarily choosing differently.

It is choosing from yourself.

Gelme: Social media depends on the person.

Some people absorb information and simply want what they see because what they see becomes truthful to them.

Other people absorb the same information but let it pass through themselves. They ask whether it fits their personality, the way they see things, and their own desires.

The Other Voice: Outside influence is not necessarily the enemy of individuality.

The more we see and experience, the more material we have from which to develop ourselves—provided we process it rather than merely copy it.

Individuality may be the particular way the world becomes yours.

Gelme: A person can still accept things from their culture and feel completely individual.

Some people want to question everything and have a wider perspective. Other people accept much more of what is around them.

They can still feel themselves to be individuals.

The Other Voice: Then individuality and independent thinking are not identical.

Every person is individual, but not everyone has the same desire to express that individuality outwardly.