The Meltdown of Uniqueness

Photo by Greg Rakozy on Unsplash

God had made us all different giving us different set of talents and skill sets. Our social conditioning, education, life experiences, interests and other external factors help us in developing our talents and we start gaining expertise in specific domains. That is what makes us Unique in our own way. The uniqueness is also what sets us apart from others and that is also what we have to offer to the world. And we don’t force our interests. They just happen. And it was meant to be that way. But alas! There is a warning ahead. We are now doing everything that anyone is doing whether we need to do or not is meaningless. It may or may not be our area of interest or expertise. We just jump onto everything. Not because we want to, but because we have that desire to fit in and have a place at every table that comes our way. Welcome to the virtual world, where we are being everything that we are not and in the process losing the true essence of our uniqueness, our individuality.

Recently the Ghibli trend went viral all across social media and everyone started posting their Ghibli style image. Ghibli Studio is one of the most acclaimed animation studios that has inspired audiences for the last 30 years. It’s creators Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata have won countless awards for their work. The animated Ghibli style image is now being created by everyone through AI and people have started flooding their images on social media. The creator of this art, Hayao Miyazaki had earlier said on AI generated images that this is an insult to life itself. This art takes days to create few images which people are now creating in seconds through AI. The artist pours out his soul in his artwork. These lifeless AI generated images are mere a disrespect to art and the artist. And all this for what? A few extra followers and likes.

We are gradually forgetting who we are and what we are good at and mindlessly following trends. This in turn is leading to the greatest meltdown of all times, the Meltdown of our own individuality, our Uniqueness. As adults we have a responsibility towards our next generation. If we forget ourselves and take irrational decisions, how can we show the light to gen-next. Our children will never get to know what they are good at and what unique there is in them that they can offer to the world. They are easily writing, painting, designing, researching and what not. With everyone doing everything for themselves, we will have a whole generation centered around self. Team work will become a thing of the past. It is inter-dependence that has sustained the planet and humanity for this long. In the absence of coherence imagine how would the world look like. We are already into a loneliness pandemic. It’s time we don’t pass it on to the next generation.