So there I was ...

... walking to work, thinking about haecceity ... Huh? This is true. The other day, I linked to a post at Anecdotal Evidence titled "Thisness" and said I might have more to say on the subject later.
I arrive in my office this morning and awaiting me is an email from Dave Lull (who had sent the aforementioned link to Anecdotal Evidence) with another link: Thisness, Part 2.
At this point the plot thickens, because this post has much to do with poet J.V. Cunningham. Many years ago, when I wrote a book column for a local weekly, I reviewed Cunningham's Collected Poems along with his Collected Essays. Sometime later I received a very nice letter from Cunningham, who said it was nice to be praised for just the things one would hope to be praised for. (He also read some poems of mine and told me I had perfected a style, but had not quite figured out how to make use of it. He was right. It was an invaluable observation.)
So now here is his poem "Haecceity" and his comments thereon.
What I find most interesting is that the conclusion I arrived at on my way to work regarding haecceity is in a way diametrically opposed to what Cunningham says.
The essence of a thing is that which makes it what it is. But what makes this particular thing what it is in particular is precisely what it does not have in common with anything else. So the individual essence of something (or someone) can only be known apophatically - through a process of negation, the "neti, neti" ("not this, not that") of yogic meditation. Apophatic theology emphasizes that we know God negatively - He is not finite, not material, not temporal, etc. My conclusion? That it is by virtue of our uniqueness that we may be said to be made in the image and likeness of God, and that it is through the mystery of our uniqueness that we can come to know God - by being alone with the Alone, as the saying goes.