I chose this term to draw attention to an important difference between the content of the words UNIQUE and EXCEPTIONAL. I consider a bad understanding of this difference to be a great danger, perhaps even one of the biggest threats to our personal development.
By observing nature and the Universe around us, this difference in physics becomes readily apparent. Any combination of elements can become UNIQUE by being different from others, but none can become EXCEPTIONAL because they are always subject to one and the same laws of nature.
But the meaning of this difference in psychology and philosophy is more difficult to see. Many of us then do not realize that we are just UNIQUE and no one is EXCEPTIONAL. And those who think of themselves, or thought they were EXCEPTIONAL, and did not prevent the feeling of EXCEPTIONALITY from setting into their INNER CONVICTIONS, they actually become the tragic figures of our history. The slave owner felt EXCEPTIONAL over the slave, …