Everybody's Unique

  Over at Raising Homemakers a young writer has expressed concerns about girls keeping diaries or journals.  She makes some valid points, but the problem, IMO, isn't in keeping diaries, and simply not keeping one won't fix it.  The problem is one common to youth.

Remember when we were young and idealistic, and full of what we thought were brand new ideas that our elders had never considered, and lofty and compassionate goals we knew our elders never cared about, and they certainly did not understand us?

This is not a new thing.  Charlotte Mason described it in volume 5 of her six volume series:

"There comes an epoch in every young life when the person discovers himself to be an individual. He perceives that he is like no other. It is this notion working in them which makes the captious girl and headstrong youth 'neither to have nor to hold'; and 'education' leaves young people absolutely unprepared for an era so important in their lives. The arrogant young man is apt to suppose he is individual in all that he is, and, by consequence, that in everything he is superior. No wonder he is unmanageable and infallible! "

Charlotte Mason, Vol 5 pg 292-3

 What she is, is an exceedingly interesting study to the young girl.... She is full of vague self-consciousness, watching curiously the thoughts and emotions within her -- an extraordinary spectacle to her inexperienced mind, leading her to the secret conviction that she is some great one, or, at any rate, is peculiar, different from the people about her. Hence arises much mauvaise honte, shyness, awkwardness; she feels herself the ugly duckling, unappreciated by the waddling ducks about her. She is clumsy enough at present, and is ready to own it; but wait a bit until the full-grown swan appear, and then they will see!

I think this stage must be recognizable to anybody who has ever been 20 or younger, and to many who are parents of children in that age group:

Now, this stage of self-consciousness and ignorant much-doubting self-exaltation, this "awkward age," as people call it, is common to all thoughtful girls who have the wit to perceive that there is more in them than meets the eye, but have not begun to concern themselves about what may or may not be in other people. It is a moral complaint, in which the girl requires treatment and tender nursing -- only of a moral kind -- as truly as she did when she had measles. If left to herself, she may become captious, morbid, hysterical; the years in which the foundations of sound character should be laid are wasted; and many a peevish, jealous, exacting woman owes the shipwreck of her life to the fact that nobody in her youth taught her to think reasonably of herself and of other people.

Charlotte further describes young people at this stage in life as sometimes being a bit, well, boring- their 'talk is full of "oh," "well," "you know."' Their opinions often consists of unreasoning "enthusiasms and aversions" and the knowledge they have learned in their education hasn't really been applied toward "soundness of judgment."  They overlook responsibilities and claims of home, and the very acts of service which they are neglectful of at home will be performed under much more burdensome situations for friends or even  relative strangers, perhaps.  Sometimes young people at this stage in life are are also prone to what Charlotte terms 'excessive religious observances' while also, as Charlotte describes it, "comically blind to duty as her elders see it."'

They feel they have a heightened moral sense, quick to see the faults and shortcomings of their parents or other older people (and the faults are present, after all, and often the young people have a keen eye for spotting them), while somehow their own small evasions, disobedience, a critical spirit and a lack of full hearted cooperation at home do not appear under this strong moral magnifying glass.  These compassionate young men and women imagine what great things they could do in the service of great causes, "but the trivial round, the common task, afford her occasions of stumbling."

She likes to talk about herself––what she feels, thinks, purposes, and her talk is pathetic, as showing how far she is in the dark as to the nature of the self about which her thoughts are playing curiously. And this is a thoroughly nice girl, a girl who will make something of herself at last, even if left to her own devices, but whom a little friendly help may save from much blundering and sadness.
There are girls of another pattern, who have no enthusiasms––other than a new "frock" excites; who do not "gush," have no exaggerated notions of duty or affection, but look upon the world as a place wherein they are to have and to get,

Miss Mason says that the latter sort of girl is often easier to deal with,because they have 'marked out a line for themselves and know what they are about,' but there is no principle of growth at work here, and they must be helped as well as the young women with noble ideals and aspirations for helping others that somehow cannot find an outlet, or even a small expression, in cheerfully helping the immediate family.  They imagine they will will do great deeds of service for untaught tribes in the jungles of South America, but they do not cheerfully do the dishes or even put their own shoes away at home.=)

Miss Mason says there are three things which make up the ideal of a noble life- to do, to bear, and to give.

Charlotte has a suggestion for the cure, too.  There were hints in one of the above quotes- they must be helped to gain a sense of perspective,  "to think reasonably of themselves and other people:"
Give the young man or woman "a ground-plan of human nature, let him know what he has in common with all men..." (Vol 5 pg 292-3)

A woman's success in life depends on what force of character is in her; and character is to be got, like any other power, by dint of precept and practice: therefore, show the girl what she is, what she is not, how she is to become what she is not, and give her free scope to act and think for herself.
..., and open discussion on this subject [the subject of 'what she is'] helps her out of foolish and morbid feeling (Volume 5, page 232)

It is only a few who founder; many girls are graciously saved: but this does not make it the less imperative on the mother to see her child safely through the troublous days of her early youth. The best physic for the girl is a course of ... (study) just enough to let her see where she is; that her noble dream of doing something great or good by-and-by -- for which achievement she is ready to claim credit beforehand -- is shared, in one form or other, by every human being; because the desire of power, the desire of goodness, are common to us all; that the generous impulse, which makes her stand up for her absent friend, and say fierce things in her behalf, is no cause for elation and a sense of superior virtue, for it is but a movement of those affections of benevolence and justice which are implanted in every human breast.

Thinking of ourselves and others reasonably is a cure for many of the ills and frictions of day to day life, methinks.

By the time the girl has discovered how much of her is common to all the world, she will be prepared to look with less admiring wonder at her secret self, and with more respect upon other people. For it is not that she has been guilty of foolish pride; she has simply been filled with honest and puzzled wonder at the fine things she has discovered in human nature as seen in herself. All her fault has been the pardonable mistake of thinking herself an exceptional person; for how is it possible that the people about her should have so much in them and so little come of it? .

It is true that a life of stirring action and great responsibility is the readiest means of developing character -- better or worse: but not one woman in a thousand leads such a life; and then, not until she has reached maturity. Put into the hands of the girl the means of doing for herself what only exceptional circumstances will do for her; teach her, that is, the principles and methods of self-culture, seeing that you cannot undertake to provide for her the culture of
circumstances. ...By the time the girl has some insight into the nature of those appetites, affections, emotions, desires, which are the springs of human action; into the extraordinary power of habit, which, though acquired by us, and not born in us, has more compelling force than any or all of the inborn principles of action; into the imperious character of the will, which rules the man, and yet is to be ruled and trained by the man; into the functions of conscience, and into the conditions of the spiritual life, -- by the time she has some practical, if only fragmentary, notions on these great subjects, she may be led to consider her own nature and disposition with profit. So far from encouraging the habit of morbid introspection, such a practical dealing with herself is the very best cure for it. She no longer compares herself with herself, and judges herself by herself; but, knowing what are the endowments and what the risks proper to human nature, she is able to think soberly of, and to deal prudently with, herself, and is in a position to value the counsels of her parents.

Volume 5, 239-242. Emphasis added.

These passages reminded me so much of myself when I was at that stage full of secret (and not so very secret) admiring wonder of myself and so willing to take credit for all the deeds and accomplishments I only hoped to achieve, that I blushed to read them the first time.=)

As I say in the title, everybody's unique.  When his mother tells him 'everybody's special,' the young philosopher Dash in The Incredibles mutters that this is just another way of saying nobody is.  Dash was making a funny dig against egalitarian, politically correct standards which would create an artificial sense of equality.  But at a deeper level, the understanding that yes, you are special and unique, and so is everybody else is just the correct seasoning of humility we all need.