The Experience of Human Uniqueness *Jasz* I am a unique someone, existing as a person for whom there can be no duplicate.

The billions of years of time have produced only one me. The infinite expanse of space holds only one me. There are many other human beings but none can take my place and live my life. What I experience is experience by no one else. Others may feel the pleasure and pain, the sorrow and oy of human existence but the feelings they have are not precisely mine. !y experience is unduplicated. It is a special contribution to the totality of human experience, something that deserves to be noted and preserved. I am a unique person in that I face life by myself and am alone in the decision that I make for my life. The terrible drama of those moments of truth is mine and mine alone. The story of my life is not the story of everyman" it is not a mere repetition of what human beings have done in the past. It is my own private story, a story that has never before been lived and never will be lived in the future. !y life is completely new and unprecedented. #ecause of this there is an eternal significance to these moments of decision where this unique story of my life is being created. !y story deserves to be told and read. I am a unique someone in terms of the destiny that I am called upon to fulfill. I alone have my particular destiny that I am called upon to fulfill. I alone have my particular destiny" I alone walk down my particular path of life and face the particular task, which I must perform. I face responsibilities where no one can take my place. It is up to me to show the maturity and courage that is demanded by those responsibilities. I encounter people need cared for and loved. Without me they will not receive the care and love which they need. If I fail to perform what is assigned me, there will be something important lacking in what human history was meant to achieve. $ow important it is that I be myself and that I fulfill my special and unique role in history. !y uniqueness seems to be precious for two reasons. %irst of all, it is unprecedented. What is common has little value, what is rare is precious. !y life, being one kind, is priceless. &econdly, it is eternal. When life is lived uniquely it makes a contribution to history, which lasts forever. What is common is swallowed up and forgotten in the darkness of time. When a person creates his own unique existence he has brought forth something with crises above time and which exists forever as part of the eternal achievement of mankind and the eternal kingdom of god.