I expect most people can make the claim that they have "felt out of step with the world" at one time or another.
Whether or not that is actually true, I do find myself wondering how often anyone actually finds themselves IN step with the world.
I look around me, and most of the time everything seems like some form of madness. and it gives rise to the deeper question of whether the entire world as we know it is "set up" to essentially prevent us from living the lives we'd actually want to live, in a situation where we had more freedom to simply be who we want to be.
The human Ego is a strange fish. It feeds on our fears and uncertainties... and sometimes "makes" us to things that really make little sense, in service of...?
When I look around me and try to actually characterize the madness I perceive to exist, it seems to take the form of the myriad people who are out there, doing some thing they don't really like — or outright DISlike — for no reason other than a misplaced idea that "they HAVE to."
I'm certainly no rebel or revolutionary... but what (evidently) makes me dangerous is the fact that I mostly don't give a damn what "they" say. At the same time, I don't feel any particular compulsion to automatically reject what "they" say... if it makes sense.
The thing about the madness of the world is that so many people are stuck in worries about simply managing the very basics of their lives... to such a degree they never even have time to sit down and contemplate the kinds of lives they'd really like to live.
And even when they do?
So often their choices are informed by "them" and represent that egoic need to conform with whatever "measuring stick" has been formally decreed to represent the scale of happiness vs. desperation.
Sometimes it even feels like this mad mad world has set up a system by which people don't actually feel qualified to determine what their own happiness might look like... so instead they merely adopt some "canned" version of it that might not actually fit.
More madness!
How did we get to a point where having an actual original and self-referencing thought about your life would almost be considered revolutionary?
I'm not really looking to play "the blame game" here, just posing this fundamental question of whether the world we have created is one in which we have self-abdicated from having to do our own thinking, and make our own choices?
I suppose I can understand some of it — from a purely biological imperative standpoint — in the sense that we know that it is "risky" to be "expelled from the herd."
There's safety in numbers, and if you're the seldom mentioned "Sigma Wolf" you're "at risk," even if you're highly capable. But what do you do, when the pack in no way represents what you know yourself to be?
Conformity can be good when it genuinely FITS you, but not so much when it doesn't. To what extent do we continue lying to ourselves, when the latter is the case... simply because that lie is what the world supports?
And no, I have no easy answers...
Thanks for reading, and have a great remainder of your week!
How about YOU? Do you think the world supports people's pursuit of their authentic self? Or does our system mostly support conformity? Comments, feedback and other interaction is invited and welcomed! Because — after all — SOCIAL content is about interacting, right? Leave a comment — share your experiences — be part of the conversation!
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Created at 20220712 00:43 PDT
0608/1854