These pictures are of the same thing.

I feel closest to God when there is a vast expanse of highway in front of me.

I should've been asleep two hours ago. No rest for the weary.

I've been thinking about human beings. I was watching an episode of Bones where they had to figure out the identity of someone who had altered her bone structure through plastic surgery, and the perspective that Temperance had was really interesting. The girl had essentially destroyed any unique quality about her that would identify her as an individual. She had erased who she was. I think that's a really deep way to think about beauty. In the blogging world I think we are much more individualistic about our beauty.

It makes me glad I don't live somewhere like L.A. where the pressure to look a certain way is much higher. It's so sad to watch The Hills and see these girls who look like they were all pulled out of the same Hollywood mould. Remember back in the day when movie stars were uniquely gorgeous? Audrey Hepburn and Louise Brooks and Greta Garbo? Not to say that there aren't unique people in Hollywood currently. I'm just glad that I don't have people around me who want me to change my body or my personality to be something an arbitrary consensus deems beautiful.

But anyway, I digress. I was just thinking about the concept of uniqueness. At our most basic levels we are completely and totally unique. Of the billions and billions of human beings that exist, and have existed in past eons, there has never and will never be another human being that is a you. Not another person has the curve of my hip or the marks on my skin. Maybe some people try to erase that unique aspect about themselves not because they want to feel more beautiful, but because they don't know how to feel beautiful in uniqueness. I guess we're often taught to regard uniqueness as oddity. People with extremely unique characteristics are sideshow freaks. Being unique is frightening. It's so easy to be just like everyone else. Criticism is slim. Ridicule is limited.

Resisting the urge to blend in is a life long struggle. Some people have no qualms with blending in with everyone, becoming what the consensus desires. It would be such a waste of my genetics to train myself to be like everyone else, in my opinion.

I often wonder what it's like as a new mother to look at the brand new human being that you just brought into the world. All the potential that that little creature contains. I think it must be a singular moment. Unequivocal. To see this being as a pure individual. I think parents must have a much different perspective when it comes to the subject. After all, the parents have created that which did not previously exist. Before we become parents we are in the audience of the show, watching and pondering uniqueness and our own place in the universe. But then when we become parents, we make this thing that wasn't here before. We alter the space-time continuum by creating a human being. I am so glad I was born female. To experience that firsthand, it will be unmatched in its impact. As my mother's first child, I almost feel like I was once a witness to that moment (though perhaps that memory only exists in my furthest subconscious).

Okay, well, it's now three in the morning and I should have been asleep three hours ago. No more pondering existence for me.