It is a precarious situation we find ourselves in today. We are indeed on the brink of adulthood in a world at the brink of destruction. The great majority of us see the terrible injustices and tragedies that swirl around us. I doubt there are very many people at all that can genuinely, honestly, sincerely claim that the world will be fine on the course its on. Nevertheless, there is little actual change occurring in the world. Sure some celebrities do some junk and some charities make nice differences, but where is the actual fundamental change? How come we can’t even fix ourselves? Apathy? Ignorance? Jealousy? Greed? Malice? I have a feeling these are but symptoms of an even more pervasive potent perpetrator. I believe it is our form of individualism. Every institution that helps shape your life and character are focused on producing a particular type of capitalist individualism. We are taught that you have to rely on yourself. Work by yourself. Be yourself. Keep to yourself. It is your life what are you going to do with it? Will you become rich and successful? Will you become something great? Our mentality is that life is a game played alone. It is a do-it-yourself world out there. Sure you have friends and family but they are simply a support to the star…us. Our network of emotional empathetic connection to community, society and humanity is pathetically outstretched barely beyond a list of 50 close friends and relatives.
Imagine now that you were socially conditioned to feel a connection to your fellow human beings. You were not conditioned to compete with each other. It will not be a matter of survival of the fittest individual but instead a matter of the happiness of the interconnected community. You would work hard to make sure you could help yourself and others. The burden of tragedy would be spread across the community and the joy of prosperity would be shared by all.
Our current construction of the idea of individualism is incorrect. It overlooks much of the fundamental make up of the human being. Who we are as an individual is not a construction of internal processes but instead a collaboration of external experiences. Who you are is dependent on what you have done, where you live, and most importantly who you know. We cannot begin to separate the individual from the social. Humans are social creatures. Try physically isolating yourself from people for more then 12 hours. You will become agitated, even angry with angst for a connection to someone. Long term research done by Scandinavian, Japanese, and American institutions show that you are 2 to 5 times more likely to die if you have poor social connections. 2 to 5 times more likely to die of anything! Many studies prove that there is on average no increase in happiness when you get more money above a middle-class income. Instead, many prove that social connections are a source of true happiness. There is a power to a sense of social connectedness and community that our current way of thinking typically overlooks.
Perhaps then it is not a positive idea to believe that if everyone does their best, they will do fine. Work hard for your money. Money is not an end. It is not even a means to an end. So if money doesn't bring happiness then why is the majority of our waking lives spent in pursuit of it or spending it? I believe there is a better way to organize and prioritize the preciously brief lives we lead. We serve our companies like we should serve our communities. We should get to know one another and throw out the idea that we must get more before someone else takes it all. If there was an economic collapse today, what do you think would happen? Would we all get together and decide how we can sustain our community? Or instead, would we all loot and riot and fight to try and scoop up as much as we can to help ourselves and in the process forsake so many? I am thinking in the current mindset, we will do the latter.
What the world needs is a new set of ideals. The world needs for us to start defining the individual more broadly. I am not self contained. I rely on every one of you for an enumerable number of things. We should not have to deal with this world alone. Why not make it easier and work together? This is a very idealist point of view but maybe that is something that is lacking in this world. We are far too pacified. I think of this age as the one of pacifism. We allow the world to control the conditions of our existence without ever genuinely considering options. Let us shift the paradigm of our existence into an age of post-pacifism and create a neo-individual that understands that we are all connected to each other. True happiness can only be achieved through others. Tomorrow sit down and have a meaningful conversation with someone. You will get a glimpse of what I mean.
