Uniquely Troubled Souls

Ever wonder what it would be like if something wiped out our uniqueness, our individuality? This is the premise of the tv series Pluribus.

When I was a kid, I remember thinking that outside our family—where frequent quarrels, nagging, and complaining erupted—the rest of the people in the world led mostly content, normal lives.

Over the years, I would occasionally bump into a troubled soul, whom I still viewed as an exception. Most people, other than these few and those in my own family, surely led normal, content lives. Finally, it dawned on me that we’re all troubled souls, though each in our own unique way.

Now, when I see a child or a self-conscious teenager mortified by their own clumsiness, incompetence, or ignorance, I want to say, “Don’t waste a minute of precious life feeling that way. Nobody will notice, at least not for long. They are all too wrapped up in their own issues and anxieties and challenges.”

The older I get, the more often I see individuals with traits or physical features that remind me of other human beings. We are all so similar and yet so different. What a mystery that some people are able to write music in their heads, draw figures that practically burst from the page, or play the piano without having a lesson.

My grandmother used to say of a woman she knew, “She could make the piano talk.” I play piano, but I can't compare with that. Paul McCartney says he just woke up one morning with the tune to "Yesterday" in his head, and "Yellow Submarine" another day.

This all strikes me as strong evidence of a creator. Not just a contented, normal creator but an omniscient, omnipotent creator who is somehow able to make each and every one of us unique, far beyond my ability to imagine or understand. How miraculous is that?    

A central character in my novel, The Ticket, is fourteen, an age when most of us suffered frequent agonies over things we’d done or said, how we looked, or what other people thought of us. You can watch a two-minute trailer for The Ticket: https://vimeo.com/50187275
https://www.amazon.com/Ticket-Debra-Coleman-Jeter/dp/B0BZBB4TS8/ref=monarch_sidesheet