We're all obstructed by either the limits of physical reality or society, the latter being the one that takes a bigger emotional toll on people. When we're children we could make up what the world was like and our place in it. As you get older, you find that you can't just act differently, there are consequences to your actions, and that everyone and everything has a hand in determining your place. So we teach ourselves how to behave and to be favorable and not too different. How liberating could it be to break free from those chains and forget about everyone else? This feeling only seems to come momentarily for me.
On the other hand, we keep each other in check. Humans are notoriously short-sighted, and generally succeed better as a collective. I certainly have had much more success doing the things I want to do by, for example, having a family, having great friends, and going to college. Our ancestors probably couldn't have made it without strict cultural boundaries, but things have gone overboard for today's species of humans with well developed egos and the world at their fingertips. And while we reject things that are too different, we accept and silence the oddities and depths of ourselves for our entire lives. How do people survive like this? I'm young and I've learned to live my life without too much fear of judgement, and of course we all see people doing wildly cool, strange, or even vile things with their lives without a care for others, but what about the millions of people we're not seeing around the world who just file into place? Humans are blowing up into these super collectives, filling every corner of the world and mass producing the culture of the west, a doomed paradigm for a society. Will we have time to truly embrace and heal ourselves and others before we march double file to our collective end? Will the emotional toll of stuffing your true self deep inside move you up the social ladder or cripple you?
Find out next time on every 40 seconds someone is committing suicide, and 20 more are attempting.
