One Of A Kind

Our religious leaders and philosophers are noted for their attempts to impress upon each of us just how unique each one us really is.  We are told that from the beginning of time up until the very end of time (if such a thing is possible), there will only ever be just one being that we know as our self.

That means just one you, one me, one Uncle Jonas.

So for the curious at heart, just what kind of mathematical odds against the possibility that each of us were ever born to begin with? What does the science of statistical probability tells us about just how unique we individually are?

An intriguing article on this topic by writer Tara MacIsaac was featured in the July 17th-23
2014 issue of the newspaper, Epoch Times. (www.theepochtimes.com)

Tara cites self help author/blogger Mel Robbins’ remarks at a 2011 Ted Talk (Technology, Entertainment & Design) conference in which she declared that the likelihood of you being born as you has been calculated out to about 1 in 400 trillion.

To quote the writer Tara, “This is the probability of you being born at the time you were born to your particular parents, with your particular genetic makeup.”

Tara reported that Dr. Ali Binazir, author and personal change specialist, was also in attendance at Mel Robbins Ted Talk. Dr. Binazir did his own computations and came up with the odds of 1 in 700 trillion.

Dr. Binazir’s conclusion was: “the odds that you exist at all are basically zero.”

By way of illustration, Dr. Binazir shared this scenario: “It is the probability of 2 million people getting together each to play a game of dice with trillion-sided dice. They each roll the dice and they all come up with the exact same number — for example, 550,343,279,001.”

Then there are those characterizing attributes that make up the individuality of each of us that perhaps serve to reinforce the uniqueness factor.

Internet writer/blogger, Mary Jaksch, offers a website, Goodlife.Zen (www.goodlifezen.com), that speaks to individuality. In an essay entitled, 35 Things That Make You Special, she lists the following:  personality, signature style, beliefs, spirituality, aspirations, dominate sense, thoughts, goals, creativity, happiness, attitude, attraction (whom/what are we drawn to?), genes, body, face, ethnicity, culture, voice, diction, gender, health, hormones, age, intelligence, life experience, childhood, trauma, opportunities, relationships, learning, habits, work, quirks and foibles, communication style, and, last, your life journey.

Whew! This list of 35 attributes or qualifiers, by her reckoning, would seem to lend support to the mathematical odds discussed beforehand.

In attempting to comprehend what these kinds of hyper-sized numbers represent, and, in review of the spice cabinet variables writer Jaksch has listed, one can’t help but feel a sense of awe and wonder at the apparent hand of Divinity that is at work here.

Way too many of us for too damn long have ignored just how individual and unique we all are and were meant to be.

So stop and pause the next time you come upon a mirror, give yourself a long gaze and then smile. You’re looking at a one-of-a-kind original.


Jeff Dodson
August 18th 2014