The Inner Monologue

There’s a quiet irony in the way human culture has flipped over the centuries. Once upon a time, when people made nearly everything they used, the products of life were unique, but the people themselves were bound to conformity. Today, when almost no one makes anything, our lives are filled with mass-produced sameness—but our hunger is to be unique. This reversal says something profound about what it means to be human in an age of abundance.

The World of Makers

Go back just two or three centuries, before factories, before global shipping containers, before online shopping could deliver a box to your door in 24 hours. Most people made their own tools, clothes, food, and even homes. A chair built by one carpenter bore the distinct marks of his skill. A dress hand-sewn by a mother carried the imprint of her improvisations. Every loaf of bread looked and tasted a little different. Uniqueness was inescapable because life was tactile and local.

And yet, people lived under rigid expectations. Clothing followed the codes of class, gender, and region. Even if your shirt was one-of-a-kind, you wore it in the style your neighbors demanded. Villages enforced conformity in speech, manners, belief, and ambition. Standing out could get you mocked, shunned, or worse. Survival required fitting in.

The World of Buyers

Now fast forward to today. We make almost nothing. Factories in far-flung countries churn out billions of identical products. Your sneakers are the same as millions of others. Your smartphone could be swapped with a stranger’s and you wouldn’t notice. Sameness has become the baseline. The objects of life, stripped of individuality, arrive sterile and standardized.

And yet, the pressure of society is no longer to conform, but to be unique. We’re told to “express yourself,” to “be authentic,” to “find your brand.” Since our possessions no longer bear the marks of our labor, we turn to symbols—tattoos, Instagram feeds, playlists, curated travel selfies—to assert our individuality. Our culture sells us “personalization” as if it were a product, while simultaneously funneling us through the same channels of consumption. Everyone wants to be different in exactly the same way.

The Inversion

The paradox is stark:

• Then: Everything you made was unique, but you had to live in conformity.
• Now: Everything you use is the same, but you’re expected to be unique.

It’s not so much that one age was freer than the other. It’s that human beings always seek a tension between individuality and belonging. When life automatically produced uniqueness, people leaned on conformity to hold society together. When life now automatically produces sameness, people chase uniqueness to keep identity from dissolving.

The Cost of Manufactured Uniqueness

But there’s a cost. When uniqueness came from making, it was earned. A chair, a quilt, or a loaf of bread was an expression of craft. Today, uniqueness is performed. It comes from consumption, curation, or spectacle. We rent uniqueness from brands, influencers, and platforms. It’s why a coffee shop advertises “authentic experiences” while using the same chalkboard fonts in a hundred cities. It’s why a “unique” vacation selfie looks identical to a million others taken at the same Instagram hotspot.

Our grandparents didn’t worry about authenticity because authenticity was unavoidable. Their lives, however constrained, were built out of the friction of their own hands. Today we worry about it constantly because the world we live in is frictionless. Everything looks the same, so we fight to signal difference—even if we have to buy it ready-made.

The Lesson

The lesson isn’t nostalgia. Few would trade antibiotics or refrigeration for a world of handmade conformity. But there’s wisdom in remembering that true uniqueness has less to do with standing out and more to do with making. To craft something—whether it’s bread, code, art, or even just a carefully written letter—is to mark the world with your presence in a way no algorithm or assembly line can.

If history has flipped the poles of conformity and individuality, maybe the next step is synthesis: to reclaim making, not because we must, but because it roots our uniqueness in action rather than performance. A homemade chair may wobble. A homemade meal may burn. But they carry something priceless that mass production and curated self-expression never can: the indelible fingerprint of a human life.