The Importance of One's Identity
Persuasive
It doesn’t seem to have significant importance in our everyday life. However, in all our lives it is of greater magnitude than is conceivable. Individuality gives our lives a meaning that contributes to how we live. Even though it is an inanimate object that we cannot touch, its presence in our spirits is what really enables our everyday lives. Without it, our life on this earth may not have any spiritual significance.
Only through our own individuality can we experience all the beauty and wonder, pain and hardship, as well as knowledge of the world. Even if one were to live vicariously through another, the experience wouldn’t feel as sweet, the emotions wouldn’t feel as strong and the knowledge of the event wouldn’t be as vivid. Basically, having our own individuality brings out all the potentialities and faculties of the human species. Erich Fromm notes in his work On Being Human, the thoughts of eighteenth century philosophers and states:
It was believed that man, only by developing his own individuality fully, could come to the experience of his own humanity and that means of all humanity…And if he does not become fully himself, if he remains mentally speaking, a stillborn person, then he will neither have nor be able to feel that humanity which he carries within himself. (68-69)
We live our life assuming that because we are alive, then we are exerting everything human.
However, to live is not just to breathe air, eat food, and reproduce. To live is to know why life is important. If one has no identity, then one really isn’t living they are just existing. When one has his individuality, he has all the human qualities that make him unique. One lives knowing they have a purpose in this world and is able to relate with others in this remarkable state of humanity.
The significance of individuality also befalls the development of healthy relationships. The concept of ‘oneness’ causes confusion within the statement I am arguing. However, it is more than clear. Relationships are held on the foundations of several individuals. Each individual brings into this emotional association distinguishable qualities, characteristics and humanistic capabilities that are unique of each person. However, this is only if people present this in their identity throughout the relationship. If they don’t and the individuality of one overrides that of the other who lacks such, then this is no longer a relationship but a dictatorship. Furthermore, ones’ individuality contributes to a relationship the necessities that evoke the humanity of all its members. In his same work, Fromm states:
If he invests his life poorly then he is without success. He himself thus becomes a thing, an object…When one becomes an object; one is dead, even if one- seen physiologically- is still living. And if one is spiritually dead…then one is not only subject to decay but becomes dangerous- dangerous to himself and dangerous to others. (22)
The concept that Fromm is illustrating is that one must give something in a relationship. If not, then one is just an object with no meaning and gives no basis to a relationship. People cannot love human beings whom are just objects.
Everyone’s life is a continual journey that is a constant search for something. That something is unknown to us as we start out. When it is found, however, it is clear what it is. It gives our life that meaning that makes living the most incredible concept. When one is able to have the spiritual knowledge that comes with individuality, they are essentially everything human
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