There is an inbred, genetic, innately psychological need to be an individual. For example, the teenage years is time for individuality to emerge, truthfully quite subjectively, no matter how objectively similar adolescents are with each other. “I want to be who I am and dye my hair green like the rest of my green-haired friends!”

Toddlers want to do whatever others want to do. Siblings think whatever big brother is doing is always cooler. The toy your playing with isn’t as fun as the toy he is playing with. These thoughts then dissolve once puberty hits, and the “I” thinks its emerging.

This craving however is not only found in the monad, but also in society. From the classroom to the casket, every social institution looks down upon a lack of individuality. Other designations include poser, loser, unoriginal, imitator, wannabe, commonplace, low-class, plagiarists, pedestrian, in-the-box thinker, “part of the system,” etc. Students are encourage to draw their own creative picture. Funeral services should have been unique and “the way he/she would have wanted it.”

Is this why society is fascinated with the new, cutting-edge, “what’s next,” etc.?

Ironically though monads desire individuality, social trends intentionally or unintentionally do away with any derivative of independence. By definition, that’s what a trend is. “I” want to be “me,” but let me find out what “everyone” else is doing to see if that is really is “me.”

Atheistic models and its sub-currents such as evolutionary biology claim diversity was and is achieved through random trait survival. If a noodle of a trait survives the harsh environmental conditions of the colander, then its phenotype is seen in nature (or the kitchen sink). So nature waits patiently for the gene pool to morph (or mess up depending on how you look at it) and if it survives, then poof!, a new trait; or, the creation of uniqueness; or when applied to social psychology, we have individuality.

If anything, though a rational model, uniqueness is stomped out by the conditions of the environment. Genetic mutations (if you assume diversity has its hope in the malfunction of RNA polymerase) are at the mercy of the goddess of nature and the elements. Given enough time, the same survival traits should be manifested in all species until one emerges and all divergences are expunged (until the next great fad in mutations – sound familiar?).

Based on the monotheistic narrative of Scripture, Christianity states that diversity had an original point. God who has the innate characteristic of diversity within His essence (dubbed the Trinity) created all possibilities of individuality in the beginning (within humanity as well as other). Adam and Eve were to “be fruitful” and spread out these potentials of individual traits and complex combination of these traits through their posterity.

True individuality is found in the mental blueprint of the original mechanic that installed these traits and that designed a complex, unique product. There is a firm confidence that there is only one of us in this universe, just as there is only One of Him in this universe. We do not need to compare ourselves with the rest of the universe (or the rest of society) to see this. Even if we do, we will end up losing our individuality in the process.

So then this inbred, genetic, innately psychological need was in fact designed and implanted. In turn, the common desire of society to find individuality is a great argument that we were designed to be individuals. Created.

Before thinking, one must question whether they are thinking. Too often, reproducing the traits (thoughts) of another species (individual) is understood to be survival (thinking). Rather, true thinking comes from individuality. And the individuality of the creature comes from the Creator.

Divine ontology is a foremost prerequisite to proper epistemology.

“Every discipline must be framed by a theological perspective; otherwise these disciplines will define a zone apart from God, grounded literally in nothing.” – John Milbank