The issue of individuality has been discussed by the many philosophers, psychologists and other scholars. And all of them agree that individuality is a persisting entity. As for me, individuality is a crystal with a numerous number of branches. In the center of that crystal there is a solid unity that represents our personality. The short, long branches are formed by the ideas, peculiarities, experience, and characteristics and so on. All of them constitute an entity that is impossible to be dissolved.
These entities, their magnitude and splendor differ from person to person, sometimes striking with their grandeur, sometimes with simplicity and, what happens pretty often, with their absence. The history of individuality is represented by the life that the personality had to go through. What is the difference between personality and individuality? As I see it, personality is what is being shaped by the surroundings every moment, what is in the constant change, development, progress, or even destruction.
Personality is plucking up the experience all the time. For it everything’s new and exciting, like for a child. The individuality, on the other hand, is what makes one personality differ from the other one. Everyone can learn, but the results of the process of learning always differ. I guess that individuality is in the integral connection with spirit and soul, and that is why it is eternal. Personality and the experience it gets are very important for the individuality growth too.
Though, personality, to my mind is a temporary thing, the experience it gains lays its bricks in the formation of the individuality. That is why even when personality will eventually fade away, individuality of it will remain. Individuality means integrity, wholeness. It means that when a personality develops it, s/he becomes an integral human being. There is a common mistake that individuality is a state of perfection. It is not true. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe once stated that “Certain defects are necessary for the existence of individuality.
” It is really so, because if the individuality didn’t presuppose any flaws, there would be a common image, an ideal that no one could ever fit. And if even one could do it, that wouldn’t be individuality any more. There are some ‘hues’ of individuality, let me put it that way, for example, gender individuality. That proves one more time that the question of it is constantly discussed and referred to. Besides, the psychologists have worked out the scheme of the individuality levels. If I were to define individuality on my own, I would perhaps give the following definition.
Individuality is a colorful, iridescent mixture of peculiarities that make one man differ from the other, spiced up by the flaws and refined by virtues. There is a common notion that once man is born he is an individual, once he grows and develops, he becomes a personality. And only when he is grown personally and can prove it by defending his principles, he becomes individuality. The common definition for individuality is the following. The Free Online Dictionary defines it as “The aggregate of qualities and characteristics that distinguish one person or thing from others”.
As we see, the accent is made on the fact that there should be something that distinguishes. The individuality often isn’t realized by the person who has it. The self-image is not always identical to the real image of the person. When other people refer to the individuality of someone they usually address it as the ‘soul’ of that person. And that one more time emphasizes and assures us how deeply the roots of the individuality lie and how important they are in our life.
Works Cited
Farlex, Inc. 2007. http://www. thefreedictionary. com/individuality