Social Functions Cause Our Problems (#40)

Everyone complains about some problem their having, some horribly seeming world-life-ending-oh-my-gosh problem that seemingly has their life entangled with the worst of all possible human problems, that no one else seems to have faced, and are put up against the impossible train that cannot stop.

Problems are usually an occurance out of two things: Society and Conformity.

Blind conformity and conforming to "fit it" is the most abundent thing i've ever come across, even i've done it at one point, I see other people still do it that are my age, older, even older and all the way up through death, I even see "important people" do it, what does that say? Out of all things humans do most, it is that people conform to the majority so they are not outcasted, so that they "fit in".

People worry too much about what others think of them: They worry about who they're hanging out with, what their doing with that person/people, who they're friends with, because if your seen with a group of people or a person, people will immeditly assume you are like that person or people that your with, they judge you that your "with" that person for whatever reason.

People also worry too much about others, thinking to themselves why is she wearing that, or why does he do that, or why does he act like that, or why is this like this? First off why the hell do you care? Does it really matter that much, do you have to judge everything you see? Theres quite a different from interpreting and noticing, and judging, and by far judging is done WAY more. It does nothing but narrows your mind to that particular viewpoint.

Because people judge others, that inclines people to worry about what others think of them. This "problem" causes the destruction and seperation of so many things, things like friendships, potential love mates, conventions, or just merely going out and trying to do some event, try something new, like joining a club or martial arts place, or even simply walking around outside at 9 at night because it makes you feel better; it causes all of those things to rip apart and die. All the things people desire fade away, all because people worry about some social conformity, and fear being outcasted. Do things because you want to do them, dont not do them because your afraid of what others may think. Two words to people who care about fitting in: Fuck You.

When things like fitting in socially with the "norm", have the ability to change your mind (thus your interpretation, perception, and thought) about the things in life, theres something wrong with the way people are, theres something terribly wrong with it, at least in contrast with how and why problems are occuring. Problems are arising, problems like lying, hate, destruction, friendship problems, family problems, love problems, and then followed by social problems; the social problems are happening in response to perceiving the other "problems".

This "social problem" doesn't just happen to me, but it happens to many people, it happens to probably all people at one point in time or another, or still does. Many people will deny that social conformity is the blame for most of the problems in life, mainly for the fact that they are entirely unaware of this phenomena. Let this apathy be the cause for our perceived "problem" risings, social blind conformity and outcasting is the greatest problem of them all, and the lack of that knowledge creates more of them in itself.

There's a fine line between genius and insanity. I have erased this line.
-Oscar Levant

The visionary lies to himself, the liar only to others.
-Friedrich Nietzsche

Ethics and Morality (#39)

Ethics and Morality is one of the biggest debates from and by all human beings, known in the world itself.

New studies found by Fans de Waal (Dutch born psychologist, ethologist and primatologist) suggests that morality is inbred in human nature and all nature itself. I always thought this was partly the case, my opinion is that some of it seems to be learned, and a lot more of it seems to be inbred, but then how do you explain the rapists and murderers for doing what they do?

If morality is already inbred, then how is it people can go about doing something like murder? It's pretty obvious, all one has to do is consciously and relentlessly tell themselves that they need or want to do something like murder, and its OK to do it, then nothing stands in their way of thinking that this is ok, and then doing something like committing murder, genocide, or destruction can be fine enough, if its justified enough.

As spoken by many religious faiths (i'm not trying to stereotype), and many individuals themselves, many say that we should start teaching morality and ethics and the mentality and examples of what right and wrong is. The understanding behind this logic is that if you teach morality and ethics, many people that learn from the teaching, that would potentially commit such "unjust" acts like murder, or stealing, or harming another individual (mentally or physically), that upon learning this teaching of morality and right and wrong, that the potential harming individual will refrain from doing these "bad" things and thus, lower the amount of "bad" things that go on in life.

But that wont stop anyone, if someone TRULY believes, or has something justified enough in his or her own mind, that they can and want to do something, its simple, they will do it. Right and wrong is relative, and can be manipulated by someones mind, to do or not to do something. This happens because it is a case of defined absolutes. Absolutes like right and wrong do not exist, because it cant be ultimatly defined. The terms right and wrong are all semantic and situational and can be manipulated.

I think instead of teaching what IS right and wrong, I think we should rather teach what is the term morality, why something is right or wrong instead of teaching blind analogies and teaching that if you don't keep these analogies then you clearly are a "bad" individual. We should teach the meaning of ethics and teach what it means to say something is right or wrong, go one step further and understand the process of morality and ethics, thats what we should teach. Thinking processes should be taught, not definitions or absolutes, let the individual decide for themselves upon learning, what it is that makes up of the underlying meaning of such phrases.

A Taste of Consumerism... (#38)

I've lately been indulged to the reality of consumerism and our materialistic society. I even watched a documentary film on affluenza (a made up disease from the word affluence). For those of you who dont know what affluence is, it merely means wealth.

Consumerism is denounced as "bad" and therefore perceived as "bad". Many people however, are unaware of their own lifestyles and how they are actually under the influence to consumerism more than we'd like to know, or are even aware of. So, in reaction to thinking consumerism is bad, many people will honestly say they hate consumerism. They will believe ,in their own minds, that they really do hate consumerism, but five minutes later they start to argue to their best friends what game system (almost all of us guys have done this my age) is better, or contemplate what to wear the next day (you girls definitly do this; dont deny it), or talk about your newest gadget, clothing, movie, etc. Even i'm one to be in synch with the consumeristic society.

We are naturally closely related to the things we have and the things we use. We like a particular gadget, clothing brand labels, movies, books, electronics, or materials based on our liking or distinction of that something; which can often reveal something about ourselves. In some ways we wont be able to eleiminate materialism, and some of it is ok for society, as it shows who we are, what we are, and why. Just dont forget the quote:

Men have become the tools of their tools.
Henry David Thoreau

Consumerism has its ups and downs, and its my goal, through this writing, reading of several articles, and watching that documentary of affluenza, is to answer some questions and ask some of my own.

Consumerism is seemingly inbred in our human nature, and we often identify with objects and use them to portrey who and what we are. Too much of un-needed and simultaneously un-wanted things, though, is what consumerism is. So what is consumerism?

Consumerism, defined by wikipedia, is....a term used to describe the effects of equating personal happiness with purchasing material possessions and consumption.

Consumerism is considered bad for many reasons. One reason I can think of, is the difference that many people throughout the world do not have such lifestyles offered to them (poor people) and therefore starve, die and miss out on many of the things we have the ability to easily do with what we are given (watch movies, play games, go to the movies, drive cars, fly planes go on boats, buy specially constructed housing).

My greatest concerns of consumerism is, one, I listed above, and, global destruction. I mean would you want to travel like this ?

http://www.nigeriavillagesquare1.com/Articles/Nworah/transport.jpg

or look and FEEL like this?

http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/1998/387/sudan2.jpg
http://www.comedyclub.co.za/feature/images/starve.jpg
http://www.nairobits.com/e-learning/courses/course2/php/studimagoos/sick.jpg

Hunger, and disease is mainly a lack of resources, they have NO MONEY! They have no materalism, and we have a super abundence of it over here, and we waste most of it on stuff we dont need nor want. We can reduce it, we can even recycle many of those resources. I'm not asking to simplify your life and be a Puritan (its just not practical nor exciting to live that way), just merely asking you to re-think and evaluate what you have and need and if you plan on buying something else, is it THAT worthy of a buy? I also ask you to re-use what you can, recycle what can be recycled, and conserve as much else as you can till you cannot.

My other greatest concern is that of global destruction. We use many resources faster than the world can replenish them, and if we add MORE people to the world, all we will get is MORE suffering and less ways to deal with them, with an overconsumption of goods that we wont be able to replace as quickly.

Some questions that I ask you to ponder, which I immeditaly came to question after hearing the inital remarks of what consumerism is and what everyone thinks of it.

Is simplicty important to produce happiness?
What produces happiness?
Is happiness the one thing in life everyone strives for? Is that all important to all of us?
Why?

And finially..Why is consumerism bad?