> "I feel that we are seeing a narrowing of society, of what is deemed as being acceptable modes of behaviour or perhaps it has always been this way and we are simply seeing a shift in the view finder of tolerance?"
There's far more intensive efforts expended today in imposing a society-wide narrowing of what behaviour behooves one deemed to be a member of that same society.
Acceptable modes of behaviour are a weapon projected onto those who consume whatever the majority are consuming. I don't trust the majority's consumption of mainstream media to be in my interest, or safety, or whatever they think their consumption is for. Hence, I don't trust my ability to be congenial to people anymore (at least not towards the majority of people).
I find my attitude towards such people problematic because it makes me miss people, miss individuals and miss the enjoyment I used to get from random social interactions with strangers. I pretend that I'm okay and stronger because of it, but really don't believe pretending or getting along to get along, will work for me anymore.
Oh yes Dollyboy! I've noticed a trend over my lifetime. That trend being the squashing of any kind of individualism. We are all supposed to be herd members. Herds of like mind are much easier to control and manipulate. One only has to reflect back to 2020/2021 to see just how far the mass public has been brain washed into thinking that everyone has to be the same and if anyone steps outside of the "right thing to do" they are kicked out of the herd. In the future, us individualist miscreants will most likely be put in prison, a camp, or killed. I say, "bring it on". I really don't care. I would rather die standing on my own beliefs and principles. Heck, even with people I agree with on most things I still find myself outside of the collective when in a group. I'm proud of that! I don't need to be liked. I'll never forget something I read one time. It went something like, "Why do we spend so much time trying to gain favor from people who don't even like us? Why would a person even want to be friends with people that don't like us?" I agree. I would rather search out just one person that likes me exactly the way I am, then have 100 people in my life who only like me because I'm just like they are. Great post and I could rant for hours about this. But I won't. Haha
My grandmother used to say that the world would be a boring place if we were all the same. There was definitely more tolerance and a spirit of live and let live.
The difference that I can see is that people used to be more respectful of each other's right to live life on their own terms.
Now we have to fret about the consequences of everything we do & say on the collective. Workplaces are fraught with political correctness to the nth degree. Diversity is being measured in percentages of men, women and 'other genders' within a company. We are asked to lead woke initiatives that have nothing to do with our jobs and spend time on them that we don't get paid for.
It's time to get off the merry-go-round and smell the roses.
All I yearn for from others is calm competency while they do their jobs. That's it. I don't need the fakery or the bullshit. The management speak and vocal fry. The aggressive 'value competition' (as you so nicely say).
As for me? I have totally retreated from a society that I no longer understand and has made it clear no longer wants me. I hate leaving the house now and prefer to be alone.
"Humans are social creatures… or so I’m told. I would love nothing more than to be part of a community, to feel valued, to contribute in a meaningful way and to be surrounded by family and friends who care for me but this is not my reality - far from it. I just cannot fit into their narrow band of acceptance, hence this post to some degree. I’d love to find “my people” but alas I have not"
To paraphrase Groucho .. " "I don't want to belong to any club that would accept me as one of its members." LOL ( facetiously commented) .
I can sense some camaraderie in those commenting so far ... definitely a telltale sign of outcasts from another world . As for ones place in "society" ........... i believe this old saying is more true than ever :
" if you're poor you're crazy ........... if you're rich you're eccentric " :-)
cheers to those refusing to be molded into unnatural forms by ............ almost everybody
I don’t disagree with you overall especially in the push for always doing stuff and always being busy like a chook with its head cut off. However, what I’ve noticed is a lot of people who don’t think at all, don’t provide customer service at all and worse in the health professions don’t even do the basics of their job. I’d love to see more people who actually DO their job and don’t get paid for doing little. I have no issues at all with people who show up and do life (be it work or friends or family or what floats their boat) but I’d love to see it actually happening and doing the baseline level in some description. Managers being manager, professionals not expecting to be pat on the back for a job they choose and get paid for and those in less responsible positions thinking somehow they’re owed more money for having to smile and being polite. I’d also love to see government getting rid of useless laws and enforcing good ones (but that’s probably have to start with themselves) and I’d love to see people wanting to strive to excellence even if that is resting by not actually doing anything but reading a good book for the pleasure of enjoying the book! (Or a movie or some music)…but overall, I’d love for people to their work at a basic level and understand that so then they do the other things at will too. Hope this makes sense!!!
I applaud you and your sensitive observation of (programmed) patterned behaviour, and the reflexive unawareness of most to their own corralling towards such behaviour and 'self'-expression. Most are either devoid of, and so are insensitive to their lack of a genuinely individual mind, and as a consequence they want what everyone else wants, do what everyone else does, aspire to what society deems as aspirational, and even say what society wants them to say. Incapable of independent critical evaluation, they borrow the values held by the majority. Incapable also of formulating thoughts they rehash second, third, manifold-handed snippets that disseminate out from - who knows where, and who cares anyway? There was always but seems acutely more so now a keenness to be seen or heard to say formulaic things, such as "I'm passionate about ..." even about the most banal, and mind-numbing of subjects. "I'm so passionate about tax accounting!" Whenever anyone around me utters the words 'passion' or 'passionate,' I struggle choking back my reflexive retching response. Whatever happened to or what's wrong with enthusiasm? Why isn't admitting one's enthusiasm about something enough anymore? "I'm enthusiastic - actually, to the point of obsession - about enthusiasm. But I'm certainly not indifferent to, rather I have a strong aversion to 'passion'!"
"It’s not enough to merely be complicit in society; to keep your head down and … exist."
Another thing to notice is that one is not permitted to exist (in society) without being encumbered by a myriad of expenses, whether for weighty and onerous commitments, or for trivial and unavailing obligations and undertakings. The simple fact is that finance and the imposition of financial liabilities has been a (the?) most powerfully effective control weapon the oiler-financier bosses of the governments have wielded, probably since banks have existed. Cunningly, in kind as well as how widely arrayed ones expenses are has been engineered to be the metric for determining one's social status. Being a poor little aux but without any expenses affords me only the disdain of the world and my elimination from society. And I'm very, even zestfully grateful for that!
Thank you for sharing your observations and thoughts. I greatly value your writing because you write so well, but especially because you skilfully articulate inklings or inchoate thoughts I might have but am not able to work into coherence.
> "I feel that we are seeing a narrowing of society, of what is deemed as being acceptable modes of behaviour or perhaps it has always been this way and we are simply seeing a shift in the view finder of tolerance?"
There's far more intensive efforts expended today in imposing a society-wide narrowing of what behaviour behooves one deemed to be a member of that same society.
Acceptable modes of behaviour are a weapon projected onto those who consume whatever the majority are consuming. I don't trust the majority's consumption of mainstream media to be in my interest, or safety, or whatever they think their consumption is for. Hence, I don't trust my ability to be congenial to people anymore (at least not towards the majority of people).
I find my attitude towards such people problematic because it makes me miss people, miss individuals and miss the enjoyment I used to get from random social interactions with strangers. I pretend that I'm okay and stronger because of it, but really don't believe pretending or getting along to get along, will work for me anymore.
Here's a performance that surprised me
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTOZMFW4MnE
Oh yes Dollyboy! I've noticed a trend over my lifetime. That trend being the squashing of any kind of individualism. We are all supposed to be herd members. Herds of like mind are much easier to control and manipulate. One only has to reflect back to 2020/2021 to see just how far the mass public has been brain washed into thinking that everyone has to be the same and if anyone steps outside of the "right thing to do" they are kicked out of the herd. In the future, us individualist miscreants will most likely be put in prison, a camp, or killed. I say, "bring it on". I really don't care. I would rather die standing on my own beliefs and principles. Heck, even with people I agree with on most things I still find myself outside of the collective when in a group. I'm proud of that! I don't need to be liked. I'll never forget something I read one time. It went something like, "Why do we spend so much time trying to gain favor from people who don't even like us? Why would a person even want to be friends with people that don't like us?" I agree. I would rather search out just one person that likes me exactly the way I am, then have 100 people in my life who only like me because I'm just like they are. Great post and I could rant for hours about this. But I won't. Haha
My grandmother used to say that the world would be a boring place if we were all the same. There was definitely more tolerance and a spirit of live and let live.
The difference that I can see is that people used to be more respectful of each other's right to live life on their own terms.
Now we have to fret about the consequences of everything we do & say on the collective. Workplaces are fraught with political correctness to the nth degree. Diversity is being measured in percentages of men, women and 'other genders' within a company. We are asked to lead woke initiatives that have nothing to do with our jobs and spend time on them that we don't get paid for.
It's time to get off the merry-go-round and smell the roses.
I felt every word. Thanks for this.
All I yearn for from others is calm competency while they do their jobs. That's it. I don't need the fakery or the bullshit. The management speak and vocal fry. The aggressive 'value competition' (as you so nicely say).
As for me? I have totally retreated from a society that I no longer understand and has made it clear no longer wants me. I hate leaving the house now and prefer to be alone.
"Humans are social creatures… or so I’m told. I would love nothing more than to be part of a community, to feel valued, to contribute in a meaningful way and to be surrounded by family and friends who care for me but this is not my reality - far from it. I just cannot fit into their narrow band of acceptance, hence this post to some degree. I’d love to find “my people” but alas I have not"
To paraphrase Groucho .. " "I don't want to belong to any club that would accept me as one of its members." LOL ( facetiously commented) .
I can sense some camaraderie in those commenting so far ... definitely a telltale sign of outcasts from another world . As for ones place in "society" ........... i believe this old saying is more true than ever :
" if you're poor you're crazy ........... if you're rich you're eccentric " :-)
cheers to those refusing to be molded into unnatural forms by ............ almost everybody
I don’t disagree with you overall especially in the push for always doing stuff and always being busy like a chook with its head cut off. However, what I’ve noticed is a lot of people who don’t think at all, don’t provide customer service at all and worse in the health professions don’t even do the basics of their job. I’d love to see more people who actually DO their job and don’t get paid for doing little. I have no issues at all with people who show up and do life (be it work or friends or family or what floats their boat) but I’d love to see it actually happening and doing the baseline level in some description. Managers being manager, professionals not expecting to be pat on the back for a job they choose and get paid for and those in less responsible positions thinking somehow they’re owed more money for having to smile and being polite. I’d also love to see government getting rid of useless laws and enforcing good ones (but that’s probably have to start with themselves) and I’d love to see people wanting to strive to excellence even if that is resting by not actually doing anything but reading a good book for the pleasure of enjoying the book! (Or a movie or some music)…but overall, I’d love for people to their work at a basic level and understand that so then they do the other things at will too. Hope this makes sense!!!
I applaud you and your sensitive observation of (programmed) patterned behaviour, and the reflexive unawareness of most to their own corralling towards such behaviour and 'self'-expression. Most are either devoid of, and so are insensitive to their lack of a genuinely individual mind, and as a consequence they want what everyone else wants, do what everyone else does, aspire to what society deems as aspirational, and even say what society wants them to say. Incapable of independent critical evaluation, they borrow the values held by the majority. Incapable also of formulating thoughts they rehash second, third, manifold-handed snippets that disseminate out from - who knows where, and who cares anyway? There was always but seems acutely more so now a keenness to be seen or heard to say formulaic things, such as "I'm passionate about ..." even about the most banal, and mind-numbing of subjects. "I'm so passionate about tax accounting!" Whenever anyone around me utters the words 'passion' or 'passionate,' I struggle choking back my reflexive retching response. Whatever happened to or what's wrong with enthusiasm? Why isn't admitting one's enthusiasm about something enough anymore? "I'm enthusiastic - actually, to the point of obsession - about enthusiasm. But I'm certainly not indifferent to, rather I have a strong aversion to 'passion'!"
"It’s not enough to merely be complicit in society; to keep your head down and … exist."
Another thing to notice is that one is not permitted to exist (in society) without being encumbered by a myriad of expenses, whether for weighty and onerous commitments, or for trivial and unavailing obligations and undertakings. The simple fact is that finance and the imposition of financial liabilities has been a (the?) most powerfully effective control weapon the oiler-financier bosses of the governments have wielded, probably since banks have existed. Cunningly, in kind as well as how widely arrayed ones expenses are has been engineered to be the metric for determining one's social status. Being a poor little aux but without any expenses affords me only the disdain of the world and my elimination from society. And I'm very, even zestfully grateful for that!
Thank you for sharing your observations and thoughts. I greatly value your writing because you write so well, but especially because you skilfully articulate inklings or inchoate thoughts I might have but am not able to work into coherence.
If they ( the employers, the government, the "authorities") went above and beyond, then I may consider it.
As it stands......
Fuck em.
The self serving parasites on the arsehole of mankind, deserve nothing but our contempt.
P.S. I hope you're doing well mate.