It's all about YOU!

At least, that's what the brand was called on a series of necklaces that had every popular guy and girl name branded onto the jewelery. Why wouldn't you want to listen to that?

Well, there seem to be two problems at least initially - if we entertain the claim. First, if it's all about me, then why is the company trying to impose its products upon me? If it's all about me, then I must be the measure of myself, not some necklace I can hang as a tag about myself. If it's all about me, why do I need a necklace to prove that to myself? It's all already about me, so I seem to have no need for a necklace, having already been fulfilled by the overwhelming significance of myself.

Second though, it may be all about you, but you are not unique. Your name is about as unique as a list stuck onto a turnstile of identical necklaces but for the changing name. How many Mary's are there? Tom's, Joe's, Jane's? So, it's all about you, but it's also all about him and her and that person staring at the ground as they walk through the park. The company is appealing to everyone whose name merited being stuck on a necklace, by so doing reducing their claim. It can't be all about me if it's also all about someone else. We can each have importance, or one of us can have it all, but we can't share the importance without changing the mantra to "It's all about US!" And let's face it, how successful an advertisement is that?

We're stuck in a culture trying to find uniqueness. For example, the unique name is coming into vogue. Let's name our kid Tree, that way no one else is sure to have the same name. A good solution, I'm convinced. All you have to do is find the least attractive name, and you have a higher bet at least than all the names striking the popularity lists.

The name necklace lets one feel special, lets one feel a sense of belonging, at least until someone comes up and grabs the same necklace. Then you both are special, and you experience a feeling of that specialness diminishing. The Incredibles might have said it best: If everyone's super, that's the same as saying no one is.

And to some degree the movie is right. There must be a distinguishing factor. In order to understand cold, we must have hot. If we were cold all the time, with no difference, we would have no reason to qualify it. Cold would merely be the state of being that strikes all human beings. Here also is where we get our answer. If everyone were unique in the same way, we would cease to call anyone unique. However, people are unique in different ways, with different manifestations. While someone may take the same name necklace as I do, I feel no diminishing significance because I am not the same type of Emily as they are. Perhaps we could change our view as see these name necklaces, not as a source of identity - which we already have, hopefully - but as a means to recognize common humanity.