We Aren’t Unique - We Are Products

We Aren’t Unique - We Are Products

I want to preface this article that there can be BOTH/AND.

What I say next has two sides, multiple sides, multiple avenues… and what I want to focus on isn’t solely the individual, but the collective… the systems and cultures we live in, the ideals and standards we adopt… that have made BOTH/AND more difficult to understand.

So, now that that’s out of the way - let’s dive in.

How many of us have grown up being told:

“You’re special!”

“You’re unique!”

“You are one in a million!” (now billions if you account for the world’s population, currently)

And how many of us grew up believing all of that shit?

?????? ME! I grew up believing all of that.

And while I believe we all have our own version of ‘authentic self’, I also believe that we aren’t unique. We aren’t special. We aren’t *really* one in a million.?

We aren’t the unique individuals we think we are, we are products of systems and cultures that raised us.

Now, how’s that for a mindfuck?

Layer 1: Universal Culture

I like to define this as what every human has in common, common human nature.

This can be things like:

• Needing food to survive
• Having water to drink
• Requiring air to breathe
• And a home to live in

Sounds like basic human needs, right? They are.

Universal culture is pretty ‘basic’ because the systems at play in this layer are ‘nature’ and ‘survival’.

In this layer of ‘culture’, we ARE all the same. We are humans, with the instinct to survive, and have our basic needs met.

See? We’re more similar than you might have thought. ??

Layer 2: Cultural Culture (yes, repetitive, I know)

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again…

The way we see ourselves, the way we see others, the way we interact with the world around us, the way we interact with others… What we think of as good, bad, right, or wrong…

All of this, all of us, are shaped by the systems we live in.?

Cultural Culture, as I like to define it, is inherited and learned beliefs and behaviors, specific to a group or culture. What a group of people has in common.

This isn’t to say we don’t have our own:

• Personalities
• Lived experiences
• Values

But think of it this way, a Shiva Roofeh raised in the USA will be different than a Shiva Roofeh raised in Iran, Pakistan, or Spain.

Our understanding of the world depends a lot on the culture, history, and systems of the country and communities we were raised in.

For example, some of the systems we are interconnected with are:

• Political system: two-party systems that push binary ways of thinking and creating policies. This creates a ‘with us’ or ‘against us’ system, instead of, for example, a community, plurality, and interconnectedness.
• Economic system: capitalism has turned us into parts of a machine and exploited us for our labor
• Identity system: individualism where we only look out for ourselves, fear others, live in a scarcity mindset (there isn’t enough for all so I have to hoard for me and mine), the belief that anyone can “make it” with enough hard work (which completely denies systemic issues and only focusing on the individual)
• Culture of binary: this system doesn't leave room for the immense amount of nuance and plurality in our world, both past and present - only giving us a ‘right vs. wrong, good vs. bad, two gender, etc.’ lens to look at things from?
• Education: our current system is privatized and accessible only to the few, which drives competition, individual succession, exclusion, AND elitism.
• Western culture bias: favoring education, information, ways of being and doing that are from the “West” because they are deemed better

Each of these systems has many more parts to them, I’ve only pulled out a piece of each to share how these systems and cultures dictate real things like:

• HOW we act (or don’t)
• WHAT we find important (or don’t)
• WHY we do the things we do (or don’t)

And a lot of other things that we’ve been programmed to do and believe.?

When I teach Cultural Intelligence or Leadership, so much of my work is helping people understand WHY they think what they do is the ‘right’ way or the way that everyone ‘should’ be doing things.

For example, many leaders and teams promote things like:

• Individualism
• A linear sense of time
• Direct communication
• Leaders are our heroes/saviors (this is so problematic, btw)

And their pushback is:

“But those ways are just better”

Let’s pause here for a second and I want to ask you:

• Who says it’s better?
• Who is it better for?
• Are these ways better for the majority of the world that live in a community, communal, and collectivist dynamic?
• Why do we think they are better, or superior?

And THIS is usually where I see a lightbulb moment happen…

Because let’s think about it, this idea of it being better is a product of the culture and systems we are programmed to live in.

Layer 3: Personal Culture

Personal culture is the inherited and learned personal beliefs, behaviors, needs, and values, specific to the individual.

Let’s think back to the beginning of this article when we talked about being unique, special, and one of a million - if we look at ourselves through the lens of systems and cultures…

Can we say that we are unique?

We aren’t the unique individuals we think we are… we are the products of systems and cultures that raised us. Systems and cultures that favor (present tense, folx):

• Production at all costs (even when people are tired)
• Right vs. wrong/good vs. bad (removing nuance and thinking outside the box)
• Western culture over any and every other culture (meaning if it didn’t come from the USA or Europe, it isn’t ‘worthy)

Choosing to live outside imposed ideals and standards

After lots of deprogramming and decolonization - really looking at the cultures and secret rules I was living by, I realized one thing:

I don’t believe in these cultures and ways of being.

So why the fuck am I living into them, upholding them, and expecting them from others?

My mother culture, Iran, is deeply collectivist, non-linear, and incredibly indirect. I was raised in the USA, however, that taught me directly and indirectly that my ancestral ways are…

Not ok…

Inferior…

And that white culture is better, superior, and more effective.

So, what did I end up doing? I believed the system I lived in and abandoned my authentic ways of living for something that I thought would give me more power and access to money, jobs, importance, etc.?

I abandoned what could have been an opportunity for authenticity and *true* uniqueness for programming - and I don’t want to shame anyone here because most of us DON’T realize that we’re living into values, standards, and ideals that are imposed on us.

I also want to be clear that these cultures that are imposed on us are not necessarily ‘bad’.?

What this does mean, however, is that we need to do the work of understanding ALL the systems we live, work, love, play, and exist in.?

It means we have a duty to explore what we have been programmed to think of as ideal and the standard. We live in a world of multitude and interconnection… A world of many, many valid and valuable ways of doing, being, and existing.

But what are we unconsciously and consciously choosing to live into? Do we even agree with those ways or are we just choosing to perpetuate them because we’re on auto-pilot? Who and what are we excluding because of that choice?

If you’re feeling anger, frustration, and confusion right now... You’re not alone.?

It took me years to start seeing the system of arbitrary (but systematically designed) superiority we live in.

This shit is hard.?

AND it is also incredibly liberating because then we can show up as our unique and authentic selves, showing others they can, too.

Double and… we get to be better ancestors for the generations that come after us, not just our immediate children… but their children, and their communities.

Ancestor-in-the-making, I started off this piece saying we aren’t unique, that we’re all programmed… and I believe it’s both.

We can be unique and authentic when we learn to deprogram everything we’ve been taught to believe, so we can choose for ourselves.?

That is fucking liberating.

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