I walk where thousands have walked. I walk where no one walks. I am as a snowflake: the reason why there are no two alike, do you know? It is because a snowflake is a recorded history of its own drift down to earth. That where they go makes them absorb a crystalline structure in a certain way, and since no two ever occupy the same space at the same time, they will always be unique. It is that way with me, and it is that way with you — we go where others have gone, but not exactly where they have gone and when. Our histories will play never the same as the history of another. We are each as unique as a snowflake is to other snowflakes.
We are unlike snowflakes, though, in ways important. If we want, we can follow in the footsteps of others, try and absorb some of the things that they absorbed. And a snowflake never dreamed. A snowflake never desired. We do not helplessly drift to the earth, though we may feel like it sometimes. We, whom some see as only faces among the masses, we in our histories are even more genuinely unique, and it is ours to choose at least sometimes where we go. We have the capability, too, not to merely absorb, but to shape others' histories as well as our own. Snowflakes, no.
It is perhaps that snowflakes wear all they are on the outside. I think because most of what is special of us we carry within ourselves that we are not constantly astonished when we look at each other. Nor, that because, do we have such wonder when we look around the crowds of folk as we do when we, as children, gaze so upon the beauty of a snowflake.
x
6:39am sunday, 26th may
How do you know no two are ever alike? Has anyone ever looked at them all?
Geege
10:34pm sunday, 7th march
Duh, because scientists tell us that is the case. As are each of us, you know, no two fingerprints alike, DNA, etc. etc.
Shirley
3:29am thursday, 27th january
I was looking for something to compare snowflake uniqueness with human uniqueness. I think this is beautiful.
Thank you
Phyllis
3:42am thursday, 27th january
Anyone who enjoyed reading this would enjoy reading "Snowflake" by Paul Gallico. Pleasant reading!
x
Geege