So I was looking around on Okay Cupid the other day (yes,
yes, make of that what you will) and I found this one girl—for the sake of
anonymity, I won’t reveal names—who seemed pretty cool. She was mildly self
deprecating, into David Lynch and French flicks, liked discussions of
philosophy, that kind of good stuff. However there was one mild turnoff, even
if it was in jest: smack-dab in the middle of her profile was the phrase
~*BuT
waIt i'M A bUTtIFuLL UnIQuE SNoWfLAke JSt LuV mE *~
Now if there’s one metaphor that’s
always gotten on my nerves, it’s the old “every person is their own unique,
beautiful snowflake.” I’m sure you’ve heard it, if not during kindergarten
making one of those stupid cutouts that never, ever end up looking anything
like a damned snow flake, then either on one of those motivational posters
they’d always post around school, and if not there than in fight club. Tyler
Durdan once said to his underlings in Project Mayhem “you are not a beautiful
or unique snowflake. You’re the same decaying matter as everything else.” Now
while I certainly understand what Durdan’s getting at, I’m going to have
to disagree with the comparison, not in that I think we’re beautiful or unique,
but that by calling someone a snowflake, no matter how beautiful, you might
as well be comparing them to the same decaying organic matter as everything
else.
I mean let’s think about snowflakes for a bit here. They may each seem to
have their own perfect geometry that seems to be crafted by the hand of god,
Himself, however you’ll hardly be noticing that when you’re stepping on them
left and right, letting your dog piss on them, or shoveling them out of your
driveway into piles on the street for them to turn into brown slush.
Let’s look
at the lifespan of a snowflake. After a snowflake forms in the sky via whatever
scientific process creates snowflakes, it floats to the ground as gently as a
feather, or, well, a snowflake. This could be likened to the process of being
born, or better yet, becoming an adult. Once you hit the ground, so to speak,
it’s nothing but hell from thereon in.
For the
first few hours of your existence, yeah, you’ll make everything look all nice
and sugarcoated, but people’s wonder lasts only so long before people decide
that your current placement is too much of an inconvenience to be tolerated.
Chances are, if you aren’t stepped on, sled upon or pissed on by some dog,
you’ve shoveled into a giant pile of along with god knows what else was in the
road, dirt included. If you’re lucky, you’ll be used to maybe make a snowman or
molded into a snowball (although if that’s the case, there’s also the very real
danger of further corruption, depending on how cruel the child is). But if they
do, then you’ll be smushed against your brethren, each of you losing your
uniqueness so that the shape you’re being formed into is stable.
Not only
that but your entire existence is dependent on the harshness of winter. As
beautiful as you are, you are a hazard. You and your brethren cause hypothermia
and frostbite in any humans unequipped to deal with. Your existence is
dependent on the blocking out of the sun, preventing plants from
photosynthesizing and creating more life.
And when
winter does eventually end, you’ll melt, not all at once, mind you, but inn
short enough bursts so that, even if you’ve been molded into a snow man, you’ll
become deformed and misshapen, as if the rays of the sun have given you down
syndrome. If you’re lucky some kid whose likes to think he’s clever will save
you snowball form for some unsuspecting victim; but in the end it’s just
delaying the inevitable? Whether it's at the beginning of March or at the end
of summer, you will melt.
In short,
by comparing either yourself or anyone to a snowflake you’re saying that our
existence is small and fragile. Despite it’s outward beauty, it is wholly
dependent on the harm and burdening of those we share space with. Each one of
us may be unique, but that uniqueness is buried beneath the uniqueness of
several millions of other of our peers before disappearing with barely a trace.
The best we can hope for is to become a part of something bigger, our
uniqueness unseen beneath the general shape we have become a part of. And yet
together we cause more harm than our beauty truly deserves.
Isn’t that
inspiring?
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