Unity and Individuality

Some months ago two of my luminescent friends (Sera and Ryan, both of them the human equivalent of a solar flare) had a brief interchange of blogs on the topic of unity. Specifically, what is the point of possessing individuality if inseparable from it is the obligation to surrender it? If you lose yourself in unity, as commanded, isn't that a forfeit of the agency so central to our purpose? How does this stuff fit together? Does it fit at all?

These are limp attempts at paraphrase and I find them inadequate. Here: links. Take them and be enlightened.

Sera: Womanhood Rant
Ryan: Does the individual have a place in Mormon ideology??
Sera: Becoming Identical vs. Becoming Unified
Ryan: Individualism is a lie we must cherish

Unity is one of those ubiquitous concepts of Mormondom. The scriptures are riddled with it, and it pops up on Sundays whenever the subject at hand concerns missionary work, service, temple work, Zion, the ward goals, eternal families, the final millenium . . . Try getting away from it. Go ahead. Failure is good for you.

What they don't talk about so much is individuality. Agency has its primacy of place, yes, but individuality itself is never extolled as a virtue. At least, not inside the chapel, not from the pulpit, and not from the chalkboard. And agency is to be used to submit your will to another's, not to preserve autonomy. Is individuality a neutral attribute? Like dimples, maybe? Nice, but you don't really need them?

D&C 76 seems to imply that inequality and individuality both survive into the next life, preserved in the limited kingdoms. Glory in the telestial kingdom is numbered like the stars. It sounds like the classic mosaic model: together but different! The melting pot is over in the celestial kingdom, where there is a single glory only: one enormous blazing sun. It looks alarmingly as if the clear and defined differences that arise from individual preference, choice, and volition are kept only when power and responsibility are curbed to accommodate limited capacities. Which brings forward an unpopular conclusion: the defense of individuality is a wasted battle, because individuality is not exactly desirable and therefore not worth protecting.

Not desirable? For me, without differences between individuals there would be no richness of experience. Life would be without taste or texture. For Sera, these differences are vital to becoming edified. She says that without them there can be no true unity, only a bland sameness repeated endlessly. So individuality is vital, but it musn't be guarded unless you're aiming low. The only way I can make this work is if persons are never more fully themselves than when they are lost in the appreciation of others. Perhaps this is what it means to be one: not identical, but so intertwined in enjoyment of one another that the collection of celestial individuals runs together into a reverberating, rebounding, brilliant mass of light. Many people, none of them the same, but so caught up in each other they make one sun flooding everything in and out with truth, comprehension, and love. That kind of love isn't possible unless there is someone who is other, who can be loved and appreciated specifically because they are not you. Appreciation of them would only be compromised if you were concerned with maintaining your own identity and autonomy. How can you be lost in the brilliance of those around you when you are tending to your boundaries? You shut yourself in, you shut them out, you block the light. You are a star. Your light is small and cold.

So then. To be self contained and carefully apart is also be separate, alone, and miserable. It is to wither as your regard and attention narrow and collapse in the sterile environment of self only. In counterpoint is the celestial state. D&C 76 says people there "see as they are seen and know as they are known." In the celestial kingdom there is no hiding. You see those around you with absolute clarity, perfect understanding, and engulfing, overwhelming love, because you have forgotten yourself and are pouring out into them; you are cradled in the same regard and they pour into you. After experiencing that, how could you feel you belonged anywhere else? Maybe it's too late already. We weren't made to be in full expression in any other, lesser circumstances.

If all this is true, then to desire exaltation is also to desire to bring everyone you love with you. If you have only yourself in mind it is not exaltation you are thinking of. So forget your fabulous individuality and lose yourself in the remarkable, exquisitely unique individuals around you. Pour yourself out, and you will unselfsconciously, unaffectedly, undilutedly express yourself with perfect fidelity. And you will find that unity is the setting in which you become completely yourself.