Uniqueness (of being) is about (the question of) how individuality (distinctiveness / irreplicability) of each human being functions in everyday life and in psychopathology.
It is about how singular bodies and minds generate unique flows of internal biocognitive states, subjective experience and observable behaviors and then project them onto each other to be marked as (the reality of) “I” , “you” and the “other”.
Essentially, we ask, What is “I”?; What is “You”?; What is “body“?; What is “person”?, What is “subjective experience”? What is “consciousness”? How are they related?
“In-everyday-life” means here how we experience and treat ourselves and each other in moment-to-moment interpersonal transactions.
“In-psychopathology” means all signs and symptoms of human suffering, primarily disorders of personality and the self, but also any other aspects of psychopathology that are related to the interplay of the body, subjective experience and behavior observable to others.
What is uniqueness?
Uniqueness is a fundamental constitutive attribute of being and being human. Beings and things (objects) “exist” and manifest as such to the extent they are distinct and different in relation to each other. Uniqueness is, essentially, about (the question of) how one “is” as a human being among others.
Fundamentally, we exist as distinct and separate physical bodies. Our genetic code, biochemistry and appearance are unique for each of us. We develop idiosyncratic set of memories, personality and a sense of self with its own narrative. We are identified by time and place of our birth, by our parents and their personal history, our names and unique alphanumeric tags assigned to each of us by the society. We desire, speak and act differently and our lives evolve into unique mosaic of relationships, families, personal and professional accomplishments, societal roles, perceptions and stories, which can continue in time, endlessly.
Uniqueness of a being is a wonder of existence and subjective experience, a miracle of our singularity, of one life, of existing as a separate body and mind, separate desire and consciousness. The uniqueness of genius, insight and enlightenment.
It is also the challenge of separateness, of being different, often even in the most intimate moments of love and communion. Or thereafter, when they end. The challenge of exclusion and abandonment, despair of aloneness and alienation, agony of the dark night of the soul and, ultimately, of illness, pain and death.
Uniqueness is also a natural extension of biological singularity, an essential attribute of life itself evolved as progressively more complex systems of distinct organisms, self-organizing into particular biological bodies demarcated by their boundary, the skin. This fundamental singularity of most biological organisms is not only the evolutionary precursor of our inherent individuality as separate human beings, the origin of “me” and “you”, but also it still functions as the biological vehicle of the fundamental separateness of our bodies and subjective experience.