> "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.
"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."
It still is possible to enjoy those spontaneous interactions fused with wit and mirth. People can still be found that will defiantly affirm their humanity, who can't and wouldn't even if the could suppress their irrepressible human spirit. Compartmentalisation is key: not every encounter needs to be our cue to rehash the implications if the amyloidogenic peptides residing in the SARS-nCoV-2 spike protein should carry over. Sometimes, most times, a hint that the chance meeting has resulted in someone being captured in flagrante delicto while ducking their spouse really only needs to elicit jokes about that.
And me, as well. I'd have never looked-up, and even less watched that video had I known who the performer was beforehand (that's almost certainly why you shrewdly withheld that). As it turns out, that was the first time I had ever seen or heard a performance by that vocalist. While definitely not my cup of tea (I like metal), and despite the almost nauseating self-pity on display, I do in fact understand the angst, the realisation of having been made a product to sell products to all other products, and the monsters who make it all so.
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.
Your grandmother is wise, but she also seems a jolly character and a lot of fun. If she is not still physically with us, please forgive me for speaking in the present tense. Thankfully, both the wise and their wisdom outlast the incarnation of the body.
You have succinctly stated the - deliberately - infuriating and intractable 'new normal' of the workplace environment. I don't and can't know 'their' plans, of course, because I'm not in 'their' (nor any others') clubs, but it is inferable from what you described that 'they' are making the workplace a deadly toxic and hostile environment primarily to reasonable, sensible, competent humans, and striving for the elimination of them entirely. Evidently, 'they' have fully bought-into the generative A.I. phantasmagoria, however it turns out, either as hard fact or it'll just be puff, and most likely will turn out a dysfunctional bride of Frankenstein chimaera of the two extremes. On the other hand, the pliable sycophants that remain are being targetted for retaining within 'their' enterprises and governments, because these types have full, unconditional faith in the plan and the intellectual and moral superiority of their leaders. 'They' are pursuing a totalitarian Techno-Fascist dystopia, and 'they' simply cannot and will not tolerate dissension of any kind, nor even permit a flicker of doubt in the privacy of any single tyrannised mind.
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.
ergh, yeah. Sorta same here. I like leaving the house but not to go anywhere in particular. I don't like crowds or the hustle and bustle anymore either.
It's easy for me to identify the people I don't want to associate with or even to get within 25 metres of: basically, anyone holding a smart phone or wearing a smart watch.
It's bloody hard - no, it's impossible to identify people I do want to associate with, because there just aren't any people, it seems, that are not tethered to smart phones.
Many years ago, when I might actually have cared about these things, I was curious about how a mate of mine seemed to be doing rather well and getting ahead in his job. I asked him in my usual bungling way, and he responded, "cobber, I just do my job. That's it. It's not a hard job, but everyone fails even to get the bare minimum done. But I do, so I'm way ahead of the rest without even trying."
"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!!!
Excellent observations Telle. I knew I wouldn’t be able to quite pull off what I was thinking with this article - you’re not wrong. I guess what I was trying to say was how the layers of extraneous BS smother our existence to the point where if you don’t play the game you’re basically a pariah. I have no problem with people striving for excellence - real excellence, not this faux “above and beyond” nonsense. And that’s the prescriptive problem. Real excellence isn’t mandated. It comes from the ability to be free and express yourself, to seek out new ideas and ways unencumbered. It really is the opposite of what the world insists. I find all these barriers to being extremely limiting.
And yes, I think our expectations have lowered radically and flipped! Right is wrong and wrong is right and up is down and the sky couldn’t possibly be blue. Makes it hard to lead by example through simply living life. As you said, a more true organic and real process!
This is all intentional. It's an engineered collapse. The olier-financier oligarchs are transferring capital out from the 'Western' world, and in the interests of eliminating the threat of reprisal by the double-crossed and forsaken Western populations, they have been carrying our a massive, multi-tiered campaign of demoralisation and degradation of the sublimated survivors of the democide now in progress.
Bang-on! It's frustrating beyond measure to me that the only people who can see it as I believe I do are just disembodied words conveyed to me across our enemies' own devices and platforms (Internet, digital infrastructure and network terminal interfaces, etc.)
Absolutely! I got lost in my rant and I have a migraine. But yes it’s the “look at me” syndrome instead of them ACTUALLY doing something!! Which is also my issue. Like a sort of “life virtue signalling” without them posting something etc. Their worth isn’t in following and supporting the current trend (Individuals, families, businesses) it’s in being them and doing that well (whatever “that” is)….. lol. I think we entirely agree. There is just so much of so little actually happening…. It gets hard to express!! (Haha well except when I’m firing someone for professional abuse of the little things I find it easier to explain my thoughts then!) 😊
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.
"Whenever anyone around me utters the words 'passion' or 'passionate,' I struggle choking back my reflexive retching response"
haha ok, my particular utterance from someone that brings the retch out in me is ......"that really RESONATES with me" . ( sorry to those here who might be offended . i also do have a few other retchable annoyances . alright, more than a few )
i agree that the sheer number of "encumberances" that modern society attempts to place on one and all makes living "freely" , being able to use time and effort as a unique human , almost impossible .
The escape routes to freedom have really been narrowed....... technology pretty much insisting that we all give up any hope of finding a way out. Or, at least around the obstacles. Lots of trade offs for those who wish to live free or ?? . Each of you, as an individual, do have some choices. Granted, little money makes it tougher . Save if you can . I made a run for it when i was fairly young , and it was easier then. But the road is never easy when one leaves their safety net . Get out if you can. Live simple and free if you can. In your own country... or another if that's what it takes.
Living "freely" may have always been almost impossible, at least in the physical world. Before civilisation, it was the leopards, and as bad as we might have thought they were, civilisation has been arguably worse. We should have always been able to feel and think and as much as our intellects and, ahem, 'spirits' were capable of, at least, but the extent possible has not only varied according to individual character and vitality, but also because of stifling constructs such as church and state that have always sought to restrain, confine, or flat-out imprison even imagination as well as body. In modern times, with the pre-eminence and pervasiveness of technology, especially of the "Trojan Horse" kind such as 'smart' phones that are peddled as conveniences and enhanced utility tools but are in fact tracking, monitoring, and service/transaction/privilege gateway devices, what should be the default organic behaviour of complete isolation and abstinence from being on-line and tethered to a device has become a hopelessly doomed right, under siege, and almost completely and irretrievably extinguished, when or even if it's ever considered at all.
"... that really RESONATES with me ..."
Now you done gone got me going again! Another one of (the many of) my detested bromides is 'surreal.' As per the vacuous exchange typical of sportsball interviews:
Interviewer: How does winning the "Kick-oblate Spheroid Best and Tattoo-iest Award for Season 2023" feel?
Oblate spheroid kicker: "It's kinda surreal. It hasn't sunk-in yet, but I gotta admit: it's a pretty unique experience!"
When I hear someone say some $h!te like that, the image of the René Magritte painting portraying a normal table setting with a plate holding a slice of ham, from the centre of which stares a human eye, or Salvador Dalí's floppy clocks and Paul Delvaux's dreamlike scenes of alien worlds appears in my mind, and I wonder what kinds of hallucinogens the waiting staff spiked these dingbats' award ceremony dinner cocktails with in order for the guests to experience the 'surreal' like the paintings portray.
And how can something as unconditionally unique as the term unique is supposed to denote, be more or less degrees unique? Am I wrong, but if something is unique then, by definition, it is a singular case, so it is not only superfluous but actually wrong to modify it with qualifiers, such as super, very, fairly, pretty, etc. ?
But then again, English was not my first language, so what would I know?
Thanks aux, I really appreciate your kind words. you summed it up succinctly with -
"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!"
I am also poor and ostracised ... and thankful but also a little jaded because we have been railroaded, as you pointed out, into that position. It's play along (with enthusiasm) or be relegated to the backwaters. The backwaters are, in some form, a mercy but they remove us from our birthright - to be part of society. If only that society were better.
The trap of wealth has indeed been a travesty and full time work the bane of man. Something the banking cartels have orchestrated with such evil against humanity.
I try to tease out subtle concepts - it makes for more difficult writing and I know that I lose a lot of what I'm getting at in the exposition. Thank you for reading and being patient with my grammatical fumblings.
"Thank you for reading and being patient with my grammatical fumblings. "
You're far too humble! Your thinking is subtle and sophisticated, and you have an enviable command of the language. I'd have my own Substack if only I could muster up and elaborate a tenth of the thoughts, and if I were capable of even a half your ability to express them.
So many penetrating thoughts and, in turn, so much for me to think about.
"The backwaters are, in some form, a mercy but they remove us from our birthright - to be part of society."
It's peculiar how things, sometimes almost completely unrelated, seem nevertheless to evoke cerebration and ideas that are not logically consequent of what may be transpiring at that particular moment. Are you familiar with the 1979 Francis Ford Coppola film Apocalypse Now? The story was written by John Milius and Coppola himself, and is thematically and inspirationally derivative of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. Anyhow, whether you believe it was good or bad, the way you put that quoted statement above, somehow, Kurtz's words echoed in my mind, "And then I realized... like I was shot... like I was shot with a diamond... a diamond bullet right through my forehead." I've never understood or appreciated that society could or should be our birthright until I read your words. I've always been dismissive of society and one's choice to participate or reject it entirely, and I've just had a "take it or leave it" attitude about it. But the undeniable fact is that no one is here (in this community, in this society, even on this planet) as a consequence of one's own, nor of any other's deliberate volition. Nonetheless, though we are accidents of circumstance and the vicissitudes of biology, or rather the vicissitudes of psychology as steered by biology, it must always be understood that the consequences of our actions must be born either by the actors themselves, by society, or most morally-punishingly, by those haplessly induced into being who were inadvertently (*) put here on Earth.
I've never until now realised that society is our birthright. It is therefore incumbent on every one in or out of society to claim that right and assert it. If society is degraded, if it is dysfunctional, if it is under attack, that harm is intended at us directly.
Damn, you give great mind jobs!
(*) insofar as no one knows exactly who results - only that someone will indeed result ... either as intended, or following a contraceptive malfunction ...
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 be honest the themes of this article are centred around my landlady recently asking me to vacate the room I’ve been staying in. She claims it’s because she has family coming but I know it’s because she fears me, not directly because I am a near perfect tenant but I am all that: quiet, not interested in pop culture, not a talker of useless shit. I’m odd and hence I must go. It’s for the best ultimately but I find this attitude pervasive. Is it me? Absolutely. It’s not the first time I’ve been asked to leave for no reason (or a concocted lie). I don’t know how to play along and don’t think I even could if I knew.
I love that movie. A masterclass in film making. I sympathise with Kurtz.
Damn, that's a deplorable situation you're in. I really hope you get yourself re-tenanted elsewhere convenient, and quickly. I believe I can understand the trauma of looking for new lodgings, and then moving your life from one location to another. I went through that ordeal eight times in twelve years in one country, and then another half dozen times again over the last ten years in the one I'm in now. But what I can't admit to shared experience with is being evicted (let's not mince words) because the landlord/lady thought I was eccentric. I don't even know why that should be a problem. Does she expect you to serve a crack cocaine dependency, and all the attendant unsavoury associations and appurtenances? Does she equate gambling-fiendishness and whore-play with neurotypical private conduct?
It won't help you much to know - how can it? - but at least as far as some of these matters are concerned, I'm not so very different to you. I've said that I'm shunned by society, but the reality is that I'm the one who rejected it - and all my friends and acquaintances, my career, more recently my job and the 'privileges' it entailed, the many frivolous and tedious observances, and everything else that makes a person conventional, 'balanced,'(*) or at least makes them fit-in, and all that. I, too, am a misfit in my own family, and while I do dearly love them, I'm very different to them, I'd don't comfortably identify with them nor people like them (nor even the ethnicity I was born to) and perhaps I'm even incompatible with them, and I yearn for my own people - if such a species even exists, that is. On the other hand, I'm morbidly averse to associating in any tribal way, I hate clubs and joining them and being a member of them, and though I understand the evolutionary advantages it bestows, I nonetheless detest in-group preference and the ritualised, concerted, and the cliquish kind of behaviour observed among members of tight-knit groups. As a young aux, I played a team sport and recall hating wearing the team strip/kit and looking like everyone else. I was often threatened with disciplinary action unless I complied. It must be a character feature/flaw (it definitely is NOT a flaw) because I've been like that all my life. I used to enjoy rock climbing, but I never could improve enough to become confident and bold enough for free soloing, so I've had to practice that activity with other people. But the bandwagon affectations of the rock climbing sub-culture was just so tedious. If I had the disposable income to 'own'(**) and operate a car so I could get out to the coast, and whatever outlay would be necessary to keep up the hobby, I'd surf. But I'm certain that scene is positively teeming with wankers too. It's a conundrum.
"I love that movie. A masterclass in film making. I sympathise with Kurtz."
One of my absolute favourites! I've been in situations where I've set that film for others, decidedly younger audiences to watch, and though I was trepidatious going in about the prospect of those images and narratives screwing with their minds, I was greatly gratified at the many blown minds they enthusiastically declared and the admissions of having undergone transformational experiences. Most, or maybe even all worthwhile things simply can't be bought with money.
(*) I'm always consoled by Jiddu Krishnamurti who said, "It is no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society."
(**) No one owns a thing if that thing needs to be registered, insured, licensed, taxed, and what-not, just to keep that thing and use it.
Certainly no one in any positions of power, be it government or private enterprise, has the wellbeing of the people in mind. It's a smash and grab nowadays. We just muddle along as best we can in this exploitative and broken system.
> "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
"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."
It still is possible to enjoy those spontaneous interactions fused with wit and mirth. People can still be found that will defiantly affirm their humanity, who can't and wouldn't even if the could suppress their irrepressible human spirit. Compartmentalisation is key: not every encounter needs to be our cue to rehash the implications if the amyloidogenic peptides residing in the SARS-nCoV-2 spike protein should carry over. Sometimes, most times, a hint that the chance meeting has resulted in someone being captured in flagrante delicto while ducking their spouse really only needs to elicit jokes about that.
"Here's a performance that surprised me
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTOZMFW4MnE"
And me, as well. I'd have never looked-up, and even less watched that video had I known who the performer was beforehand (that's almost certainly why you shrewdly withheld that). As it turns out, that was the first time I had ever seen or heard a performance by that vocalist. While definitely not my cup of tea (I like metal), and despite the almost nauseating self-pity on display, I do in fact understand the angst, the realisation of having been made a product to sell products to all other products, and the monsters who make it all so.
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
"Why would a person obediently follow the orders of someone they will never get to meet?"
For instance, someone like the Prime Minister, or even "our" members of parliament.
As long as "we" acquiesce to have the responsibility for making decisions delegated to politicians, we'll simply keep following their orders.
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.
Your grandmother is wise, but she also seems a jolly character and a lot of fun. If she is not still physically with us, please forgive me for speaking in the present tense. Thankfully, both the wise and their wisdom outlast the incarnation of the body.
You have succinctly stated the - deliberately - infuriating and intractable 'new normal' of the workplace environment. I don't and can't know 'their' plans, of course, because I'm not in 'their' (nor any others') clubs, but it is inferable from what you described that 'they' are making the workplace a deadly toxic and hostile environment primarily to reasonable, sensible, competent humans, and striving for the elimination of them entirely. Evidently, 'they' have fully bought-into the generative A.I. phantasmagoria, however it turns out, either as hard fact or it'll just be puff, and most likely will turn out a dysfunctional bride of Frankenstein chimaera of the two extremes. On the other hand, the pliable sycophants that remain are being targetted for retaining within 'their' enterprises and governments, because these types have full, unconditional faith in the plan and the intellectual and moral superiority of their leaders. 'They' are pursuing a totalitarian Techno-Fascist dystopia, and 'they' simply cannot and will not tolerate dissension of any kind, nor even permit a flicker of doubt in the privacy of any single tyrannised mind.
Dissension? I think I should have said 'dissent' instead.
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.
ergh, yeah. Sorta same here. I like leaving the house but not to go anywhere in particular. I don't like crowds or the hustle and bustle anymore either.
It's easy for me to identify the people I don't want to associate with or even to get within 25 metres of: basically, anyone holding a smart phone or wearing a smart watch.
It's bloody hard - no, it's impossible to identify people I do want to associate with, because there just aren't any people, it seems, that are not tethered to smart phones.
Many years ago, when I might actually have cared about these things, I was curious about how a mate of mine seemed to be doing rather well and getting ahead in his job. I asked him in my usual bungling way, and he responded, "cobber, I just do my job. That's it. It's not a hard job, but everyone fails even to get the bare minimum done. But I do, so I'm way ahead of the rest without even trying."
In some positions this is definitely the case.
Now it seems to be people who put 'pronouns' in their email signatures who do the best.
The collapse is coming I think - whether it is fast or slow remains yet to be seen.
If you ever do leave the house, hit me up for a coffee - kronos2400@gmail.com
"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
Another great comment, however long or short the name.
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!!!
Excellent observations Telle. I knew I wouldn’t be able to quite pull off what I was thinking with this article - you’re not wrong. I guess what I was trying to say was how the layers of extraneous BS smother our existence to the point where if you don’t play the game you’re basically a pariah. I have no problem with people striving for excellence - real excellence, not this faux “above and beyond” nonsense. And that’s the prescriptive problem. Real excellence isn’t mandated. It comes from the ability to be free and express yourself, to seek out new ideas and ways unencumbered. It really is the opposite of what the world insists. I find all these barriers to being extremely limiting.
And yes, I think our expectations have lowered radically and flipped! Right is wrong and wrong is right and up is down and the sky couldn’t possibly be blue. Makes it hard to lead by example through simply living life. As you said, a more true organic and real process!
This is all intentional. It's an engineered collapse. The olier-financier oligarchs are transferring capital out from the 'Western' world, and in the interests of eliminating the threat of reprisal by the double-crossed and forsaken Western populations, they have been carrying our a massive, multi-tiered campaign of demoralisation and degradation of the sublimated survivors of the democide now in progress.
Absolutely!!! It’s been going on for 150years in the current form….
Bang-on! It's frustrating beyond measure to me that the only people who can see it as I believe I do are just disembodied words conveyed to me across our enemies' own devices and platforms (Internet, digital infrastructure and network terminal interfaces, etc.)
Absolutely! I got lost in my rant and I have a migraine. But yes it’s the “look at me” syndrome instead of them ACTUALLY doing something!! Which is also my issue. Like a sort of “life virtue signalling” without them posting something etc. Their worth isn’t in following and supporting the current trend (Individuals, families, businesses) it’s in being them and doing that well (whatever “that” is)….. lol. I think we entirely agree. There is just so much of so little actually happening…. It gets hard to express!! (Haha well except when I’m firing someone for professional abuse of the little things I find it easier to explain my thoughts then!) 😊
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.
Great comment!
Coming from you, that is high praise, indeed! My goodness, the highs and lows I've hit today! This has been the highest high, thank you.
"Whenever anyone around me utters the words 'passion' or 'passionate,' I struggle choking back my reflexive retching response"
haha ok, my particular utterance from someone that brings the retch out in me is ......"that really RESONATES with me" . ( sorry to those here who might be offended . i also do have a few other retchable annoyances . alright, more than a few )
i agree that the sheer number of "encumberances" that modern society attempts to place on one and all makes living "freely" , being able to use time and effort as a unique human , almost impossible .
The escape routes to freedom have really been narrowed....... technology pretty much insisting that we all give up any hope of finding a way out. Or, at least around the obstacles. Lots of trade offs for those who wish to live free or ?? . Each of you, as an individual, do have some choices. Granted, little money makes it tougher . Save if you can . I made a run for it when i was fairly young , and it was easier then. But the road is never easy when one leaves their safety net . Get out if you can. Live simple and free if you can. In your own country... or another if that's what it takes.
Living "freely" may have always been almost impossible, at least in the physical world. Before civilisation, it was the leopards, and as bad as we might have thought they were, civilisation has been arguably worse. We should have always been able to feel and think and as much as our intellects and, ahem, 'spirits' were capable of, at least, but the extent possible has not only varied according to individual character and vitality, but also because of stifling constructs such as church and state that have always sought to restrain, confine, or flat-out imprison even imagination as well as body. In modern times, with the pre-eminence and pervasiveness of technology, especially of the "Trojan Horse" kind such as 'smart' phones that are peddled as conveniences and enhanced utility tools but are in fact tracking, monitoring, and service/transaction/privilege gateway devices, what should be the default organic behaviour of complete isolation and abstinence from being on-line and tethered to a device has become a hopelessly doomed right, under siege, and almost completely and irretrievably extinguished, when or even if it's ever considered at all.
"... that really RESONATES with me ..."
Now you done gone got me going again! Another one of (the many of) my detested bromides is 'surreal.' As per the vacuous exchange typical of sportsball interviews:
Interviewer: How does winning the "Kick-oblate Spheroid Best and Tattoo-iest Award for Season 2023" feel?
Oblate spheroid kicker: "It's kinda surreal. It hasn't sunk-in yet, but I gotta admit: it's a pretty unique experience!"
When I hear someone say some $h!te like that, the image of the René Magritte painting portraying a normal table setting with a plate holding a slice of ham, from the centre of which stares a human eye, or Salvador Dalí's floppy clocks and Paul Delvaux's dreamlike scenes of alien worlds appears in my mind, and I wonder what kinds of hallucinogens the waiting staff spiked these dingbats' award ceremony dinner cocktails with in order for the guests to experience the 'surreal' like the paintings portray.
And how can something as unconditionally unique as the term unique is supposed to denote, be more or less degrees unique? Am I wrong, but if something is unique then, by definition, it is a singular case, so it is not only superfluous but actually wrong to modify it with qualifiers, such as super, very, fairly, pretty, etc. ?
But then again, English was not my first language, so what would I know?
Thanks aux, I really appreciate your kind words. you summed it up succinctly with -
"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!"
I am also poor and ostracised ... and thankful but also a little jaded because we have been railroaded, as you pointed out, into that position. It's play along (with enthusiasm) or be relegated to the backwaters. The backwaters are, in some form, a mercy but they remove us from our birthright - to be part of society. If only that society were better.
The trap of wealth has indeed been a travesty and full time work the bane of man. Something the banking cartels have orchestrated with such evil against humanity.
I try to tease out subtle concepts - it makes for more difficult writing and I know that I lose a lot of what I'm getting at in the exposition. Thank you for reading and being patient with my grammatical fumblings.
"Thank you for reading and being patient with my grammatical fumblings. "
You're far too humble! Your thinking is subtle and sophisticated, and you have an enviable command of the language. I'd have my own Substack if only I could muster up and elaborate a tenth of the thoughts, and if I were capable of even a half your ability to express them.
Stop it ☺️
So many penetrating thoughts and, in turn, so much for me to think about.
"The backwaters are, in some form, a mercy but they remove us from our birthright - to be part of society."
It's peculiar how things, sometimes almost completely unrelated, seem nevertheless to evoke cerebration and ideas that are not logically consequent of what may be transpiring at that particular moment. Are you familiar with the 1979 Francis Ford Coppola film Apocalypse Now? The story was written by John Milius and Coppola himself, and is thematically and inspirationally derivative of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. Anyhow, whether you believe it was good or bad, the way you put that quoted statement above, somehow, Kurtz's words echoed in my mind, "And then I realized... like I was shot... like I was shot with a diamond... a diamond bullet right through my forehead." I've never understood or appreciated that society could or should be our birthright until I read your words. I've always been dismissive of society and one's choice to participate or reject it entirely, and I've just had a "take it or leave it" attitude about it. But the undeniable fact is that no one is here (in this community, in this society, even on this planet) as a consequence of one's own, nor of any other's deliberate volition. Nonetheless, though we are accidents of circumstance and the vicissitudes of biology, or rather the vicissitudes of psychology as steered by biology, it must always be understood that the consequences of our actions must be born either by the actors themselves, by society, or most morally-punishingly, by those haplessly induced into being who were inadvertently (*) put here on Earth.
I've never until now realised that society is our birthright. It is therefore incumbent on every one in or out of society to claim that right and assert it. If society is degraded, if it is dysfunctional, if it is under attack, that harm is intended at us directly.
Damn, you give great mind jobs!
(*) insofar as no one knows exactly who results - only that someone will indeed result ... either as intended, or following a contraceptive malfunction ...
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 be honest the themes of this article are centred around my landlady recently asking me to vacate the room I’ve been staying in. She claims it’s because she has family coming but I know it’s because she fears me, not directly because I am a near perfect tenant but I am all that: quiet, not interested in pop culture, not a talker of useless shit. I’m odd and hence I must go. It’s for the best ultimately but I find this attitude pervasive. Is it me? Absolutely. It’s not the first time I’ve been asked to leave for no reason (or a concocted lie). I don’t know how to play along and don’t think I even could if I knew.
I love that movie. A masterclass in film making. I sympathise with Kurtz.
Damn, that's a deplorable situation you're in. I really hope you get yourself re-tenanted elsewhere convenient, and quickly. I believe I can understand the trauma of looking for new lodgings, and then moving your life from one location to another. I went through that ordeal eight times in twelve years in one country, and then another half dozen times again over the last ten years in the one I'm in now. But what I can't admit to shared experience with is being evicted (let's not mince words) because the landlord/lady thought I was eccentric. I don't even know why that should be a problem. Does she expect you to serve a crack cocaine dependency, and all the attendant unsavoury associations and appurtenances? Does she equate gambling-fiendishness and whore-play with neurotypical private conduct?
It won't help you much to know - how can it? - but at least as far as some of these matters are concerned, I'm not so very different to you. I've said that I'm shunned by society, but the reality is that I'm the one who rejected it - and all my friends and acquaintances, my career, more recently my job and the 'privileges' it entailed, the many frivolous and tedious observances, and everything else that makes a person conventional, 'balanced,'(*) or at least makes them fit-in, and all that. I, too, am a misfit in my own family, and while I do dearly love them, I'm very different to them, I'd don't comfortably identify with them nor people like them (nor even the ethnicity I was born to) and perhaps I'm even incompatible with them, and I yearn for my own people - if such a species even exists, that is. On the other hand, I'm morbidly averse to associating in any tribal way, I hate clubs and joining them and being a member of them, and though I understand the evolutionary advantages it bestows, I nonetheless detest in-group preference and the ritualised, concerted, and the cliquish kind of behaviour observed among members of tight-knit groups. As a young aux, I played a team sport and recall hating wearing the team strip/kit and looking like everyone else. I was often threatened with disciplinary action unless I complied. It must be a character feature/flaw (it definitely is NOT a flaw) because I've been like that all my life. I used to enjoy rock climbing, but I never could improve enough to become confident and bold enough for free soloing, so I've had to practice that activity with other people. But the bandwagon affectations of the rock climbing sub-culture was just so tedious. If I had the disposable income to 'own'(**) and operate a car so I could get out to the coast, and whatever outlay would be necessary to keep up the hobby, I'd surf. But I'm certain that scene is positively teeming with wankers too. It's a conundrum.
"I love that movie. A masterclass in film making. I sympathise with Kurtz."
One of my absolute favourites! I've been in situations where I've set that film for others, decidedly younger audiences to watch, and though I was trepidatious going in about the prospect of those images and narratives screwing with their minds, I was greatly gratified at the many blown minds they enthusiastically declared and the admissions of having undergone transformational experiences. Most, or maybe even all worthwhile things simply can't be bought with money.
(*) I'm always consoled by Jiddu Krishnamurti who said, "It is no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society."
(**) No one owns a thing if that thing needs to be registered, insured, licensed, taxed, and what-not, just to keep that thing and use it.
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.
Certainly no one in any positions of power, be it government or private enterprise, has the wellbeing of the people in mind. It's a smash and grab nowadays. We just muddle along as best we can in this exploitative and broken system.