Individuality: Creating Something Out of Nothing
The human mind is very much affected by other minds. We tend to think what others think; and create along the lines others have created. Individuality is to break out of this mode; to think differently and manifest what has not existed before. In fact, individuality is to think and create something out of nothing, which may be the process of creation itself.
A businessperson may look around and try to expand her markets by following standard procedures and methods devised by the business community over the last 100 years. She may follow a business plan to a tee, and if she does, she will likely build a solid and successful business.
Another individual however examines the marketing schemes of that industry and is not satisfied with current approaches. She scans the market, contemplates the issues deeply, and comes up with new, unprecedented methods to reach the customer. She then wins over others on the board and has it incorporated into a new strategic plan. The company then implements these unusual, even radical approaches to the marketplace. Several months later, through the grapevine it is learned that certain salespeople are connecting with prospective customer in unusual ways. Not long after, orders start coming in from reps who adopted the approaches; first as a trickle; then as a steady stream; finally as torrent. At the end of the year, the company is astonished to discover that these usual, unprecedented marketing approaches have become the dominant way sales are being won. Plus, each sale is found to be of a higher order; in terms of size, net profit, and satisfied customers.
In this scenario, this marketing executive has expressed her individuality, creating unprecedented schemes that lead to unprecedented success. In essence, these approaches were not there before, but through a mental process were created out of nothing. A new idea had manifested a new reality. This ability to create something out of nothing is in fact the ultimate act of individuality.
While it is true that steady, hard work has enabled much success in the world, it is also true that those who have envisioned what has not been there before have had an inordinate, far greater effect. Whether ah Einstein or Niels Bohr in science, or a Steve Jobs in business and technology, or a Martin Luther in religion, each looked around, examined current conditions in their domain, moved within to contemplate the situation, and then came to new understanding that matured into a vision of possibility. Motivated to act, the result was they created that which was not there before; in essence, something out of nothing. This is the hallmark of the individual -- whether the dynamic entrepreneur, the great imaginative author of fiction, or the creative thinker.
We can thus begin to perceive a process occurring here; a logical unfolding of individuality. It begins within, in a human mind that has the curiosity to look around and examine this world, and from there engage in a creative, mental exercise using logic and reason in which new possibilities take shape. Out of those ideas emerge yet greater insight, and from there comes flashes of light (“Eureka, I’ve got it!” said Archimedes) and beyond that pure intuition in which unprecedented possibilities reveal themselves. E=mc2, Einstein’s formula of material life, is of that type.
In this process, newly-conceived possibilities suddenly become real, even as society is stunned and stupefied by the result. Where there were never such things in the past, there is a new reality that has seemingly sprung out of nothing, like a vast field of flowers suddenly blooming in a once barren, sandy desert. Where did it all come from? Why did society suddenly change before our eyes? The answer is that it came from a creative mind that was fiercely individual, who looked at the world and conceived of a new one from within.
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