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Anything from the sound of a word through the color of a leaf to the feel of a piece of skin can serve to dramatize and crystallize a life. For any such thing can play the role in an individual which philosophers have thought could, or at least should, be played only by things which were universal.
Any seemingly random constellation of such things can set the tone of a life. Any such constellation can set up an unconditional commandment to whose service a life may be devoted - a commandment no less unconditional because it may be intelligible to, at most, only one person.