The Way We've Built Society

Before I actually start this article, I would to lay down that this is not an explainer article, but rather one that comes from a personal narrative I often feel very close to. I would consider this particular article to be about reflection and freedom, with the weight of everyday life and the world around us.

Don't come into this article thinking it's going to be a hopeful and encouraging one, but rather a deep rooted thought piece.

Society often tries in our age to give platforms and promote individuality, all while in the same breadth stripping it away and normalizing basic functionality in society as "amazing." We often respect the arts as much as we do the work and logic in life, yet we have been all but desensitized to it. All the extremes presented to us, so the small joys of life and our experience on earth become... nothing compared to the high of the things we once felt. Information so wildly available that we have no time to feel and think for ourselves. We deceive ourselves by labeling everything as conditions, as deformities, as conspiracies, until discovering and focusing on your own state and discovering yourself through meaningless, pointless names becomes all that you are.

It really isn't AI, the internet, social media, politics, or whatever flavor of thing is happening in the world today that is slowly destroying us; it's the never ending normalization of society through an encompassing void. Do I think there's some elite government cabal or something doing this? No, I don't, and if I did, you could throw this article in the trash, because that's the exact thinking that got us here in the first place.

No. We did this to ourselves.

What are we in this life? Are we the money we make? Are we the time we put in? Are we the creative endeavors we produce? Are we the productivity and change we create? Are we the family and friends we impact? Are we love and hope? Are we vessels for gods and religion? Are we just biological creatures with a unique blend of DNA and thought? Are we just ants on a rock floating in an ever expanding universe? Are we alive and just meant to die?

Better question; why are we so concerned with we are? It's built into our very being to understand value. Whether it be nutritious value of an apple versus candy, or the value of the home you're looking to purchase or rent, it's very inherent that this God given gift of weighing options and usefulness is built within us. We tend to think it's part of who we are, because we take this idea and concept of value and apply it to ourselves. Have you ever been somewhere and seen a homeless man, and some time in the same breadth seen folks who do amazing things? Who holds more value there? I know you may immediately accuse me of something, but that would absolutely prove my point; if you answered this question at all, even if it's challenging the concept, then you've been conditioned into the very issue which I am trying to get across.

Some of us are trying to be the value. We want to be accepted, we want friends, we want to change the world and everyone's way of thinking. Some of us want an excuse as to why we're not valuable enough, only to use that label or condition as value in itself. Others judge value on what you can achieve, what you're worth, or what impact you've made. You may even place value on how kind you are, how much you've loved, or in what placement you are in the grand whole of people. Further deep, a lot of place our own value on how valuable we are to others.

Is the arrogant, money hungry millionaire who treats people like toys inherently less valuable than the mother who spent her entire life caring for her children until her very last breath? What about the innocent child who never made it past 5 years, yet left their family with memories and piece of heart that can never be returned against a drug addict who did nothing but lead people to their death?

May I suggest not asking these questions at all. If we have to ask these questions of ourselves in the first place, it shows something far deeper than just morality, but rather a heart (or soul) problem, as value is based solely on transactional currency. Value can only exist in comparison. Value can only exist upon agreement. Value is not a God given gift nor does it surpass anything beyond what we physically are; value is entirely manmade. We don't need value to exist. Value isn't a requirement of life. Value is a decision. Value is entirely physical.

As a society, we've devolved so far into everything that value is all that's left. Why? Because it's simple. It's a broad and fully accessible highway for all to hop on, understand, and ride out. Those who produce, populate, and love are valuable. Those who complete high school are valuable. Mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, animals and plants, are all valuable in some regard. Society has designed us to grow, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but in order to grow, we must exist and see progress. Somewhere in history we decided that value was how we did this, and therefore inherently adapted everything we do into a value based system.

While far from the only example, think right now how important it is in your life to have money. It governs value entirely in today's society. You can't even purchase the basic needs of life without having cash in hand or digitally. In order to get this money, you must trade your time and talent in to somewhere, likely a business, who then returns your efforts, based on the value it's commonly given out which results in a paycheck, and that in itself provides you with shelter, clothes, food, experiences, and material things. You can steal it. You can hold it. You can use it in anyway you want. If you were however, to lose everything... what then determines your purpose? Isn't purpose just yet another value based proposition?

My point here is why need a purpose... at all?

Without a purpose, you feel you have no value. Why must you need value to exist? That's the existential crisis of our world today; that we even need value at all. In fact, as I sit here writing this down, I let go of the idea of value and I feel both free, and completely lost all in the same thought line. I've been conditioned.

However much I may ponder on this way of thinking, it still doesn't change how I must exist in society today to gain my basic needs. From this, I move on to something I've mentioned a couple of times.

We tend to think here in America, we are the "land of the free." Freedom is subjective though. It's a feeling, not a state of reality. If you were born in a prison, constantly on a rigorous schedule, locked inside walls with very little windows, then simply going outside for an hour may invoke this ideation or feeling of freedom. Even deeper on the subject is the freedom of choice. How much choice do we actually have though if we are conditioned? Hence where our society has developed.

Freedom being as subjective as it is, regardless of objective comparison, becomes far more muddy in the waters where only mud exists. Your parents work for 8 hours a day, you go to school for 8 hours a day, you go to higher education for 8 hours a day, and then you intern or work for 8 hours a day, just like your parents did. It's cyclical. For many, this is the idea of freedom; making enough to make that 8 hours worth it to do whatever afterwards. For some freedom is not working 8 hours, but owning your own business or cash flow. In that case, you may actually end up working 14 hours a day to make it succeed, and feel even more trapped than before. Others ideas may be not having to work at all, and just spending every second of every day doing what you want. Even family traditions and expectations and can completely change your idea of freedom.

It may sound objective to you, but depending on where you come from, it's highly subjective.

The conditioning doesn't happen intentionally. Conspiracy theorist unite against me please. I don't believe there's some rich family in the elites that training everyone to be indentured servants. Personally, I think it's been a very natural, yet unseen shift in society over the years. For hundreds of years, teachers, learning, and development mostly happened at home or with trusted advisors, or "networking" as we'd call it in the current century. It seems only natural that we'd see the benefit of education and want all of us to grow as well. We developed schools, we developed work, we developed systems to cater to the majority of folks and how their brain is designed and works. Over time, the conditioning just happens, and fills this lack of development up naturally.

Conditioning however, does not inherently promote creativity and flowing of ideas and thoughts, in fact I'd argue it creates complacency. How many of you coasted your way through school, spending more time with friends and remember all the vacations rather than what you learned? How much of school actually applied to your everyday life? Was the treatment, and the way it worked pretty similar to how it worked in real life? No, it's not a conspiracy; it's a deficit created by complacency.

There is also the internet; the beautiful wonderful world online. This has conditioned us in more ways than one. It's conditioned us to seek knowledge first. It's enabled us to search and be informed. It's helped us have access to others. It's also a great way to share art, creative ventures, findings, and other things.

First off though on the list of conditioned behaviors is that the internet has conditioned us to believe that convenience is a necessity. Order online vs in store. Shipping times greater than a couple of days. Identify instead of seek. Know instead research. None of this is needed. It's all very nice to have.

Second, it's taught us to be competitive and attention seeking. If you have 500 friends, you post a picture and get no likes, you feel a failure in your mind. Beauty is screwed up by filters, angles, and various editing tricks. We've become highly competitive in the way we come off, and competition starts with a fundamental value-driven mindset; comparison. If there was nothing to compare to, would you feel the way you do?

Here's an interesting thought; how many folks have you known that appear to be people that they really aren't? Have you ever been at a job where a director or leader who is clearly not competent gets promoted yet again? Have you ever noticed how happy, beautiful, and amazing people's lives seem on social media?

Also... have you ever been online and dove down conspiracy rabbit holes and noticed how garbage you feel? Have you ever been uploading a social media post and realized you spent over an hour of your time editing while your kids are asking you to play? Have you ever spent more time getting ready for something than you wanted to? Have you ever felt like everyone lives a better life than you?

There's a key to all of this and it's perception.

Let's say you go to a dealership, and pick out vehicle and then suddenly notice it is everywhere. It's crazy how when our mind is able to know and focus on things, it becomes painfully obvious that it now exists. This affects our idea of perception. This is how marketing works. This is how people get overly recognized for their work. It's all just a control of your own perception and the way people perceive you.

As a people, we've somewhere along the lines based value on perception. If you can get people to think a certain way, you can achieve your results, make your money, or gain your fame. It is neither difficult nor hard to achieve. The interesting part of perception is that it is very surface level compared to value. As a value based society, our perception of value can be changed at any time. What would be considered, I'll call it true impactful value no longer has to necessarily facilitate or be judged by anyone anymore.

There's a really long winded way of saying society is self-centered and focused far more about our image than our lives. Which is the ultimate point I was working towards; because perception drives everything, we as people become so absolutely wrapped up in ourselves, that we don't work on the world around us anymore.

You might think... "hey, that sounds pretty extreme" and you'd be right. It's very extreme and it's happening all over society. Everywhere from religion, politics, businesses, friendships, and sometimes even family, we're all slowly being torn down of our very existence everyday.

No, all you conspiracy theorists, I don't think this is elites or aliens or lizard people trying to weaken or control humanity.

You have a single termite in your house. It ain't gonna do too much. Make a few dents in wood here and there until it dies. Now you have a 100 termites in your hours. Well, depending on how organized they are, you may develop some problem areas. Okay, never mind, turns out you've got a whole colony of termites in your house, and your very structure is beginning to collapse.

When I say extreme, it isn't because there's 1 single entity or issue that's just completely and grossly destroying us, but rather the idea of the termites on society. This is in my mind as a very weight-filled subject with multiple points to think about, so the rest of this particular section is broken down.

Does it surprise anyone in today's world that the amount that you'll spend, or the amount that you cost (in the case of employment) is constantly how you're seen? We think less and less about people, helping each other, and how we can live together, and more about how you can make money off of other people, or make them cheaper so more money comes in.

I work in tech, and I have been for over 15 years, for businesses of all sizes. One key thing I notice is after businesses start evolving out of that sweet medium size into large or enterprise, the language starts changing ever so silently. Instead of people, it's resources. Instead of teams, it's stakeholders. Instead of responsibility, it's ownership. Then what quickly follows after that is innovation is replaced by systems. Process instead of relationship. Management instead of expectation. Over time, what this does to people who aren't paying attention, is it slowly takes the humanity out of the work you're doing, and you just become a tool to reach a result.

Why does this matter? If you subconsciously are always tying yourself to value, then your self-worth and purpose also becomes value based. You slowly lose the identity of the inherent thing that you are in place of what you can do. If you aren't producing, you feel like you are nothing, which couldn't be further from the truth. Then you unknowingly treat other people on this value based system, and you become completely devoid of your humanity.

This doesn't just exist in tech. Social media influencing is another great example. You build an audience, you sell to them, you make profit. Most people see it as a way to capitalize off a platform. It's not that you have 1 million people that admire, care, or really invest in you, it's that you have "followers" that provide you a living. We play this off as almost a charitable act, but folks are doing this systematically every single day. Would you stand up with integrity when the times comes... or sell another 300$ vacuum, even though you're a drum channel because the cash flow is gone and your 15 seconds of fame is up?

It bleeds into every ounce of society. Adults scalping Pokemon cards or concert tickets. The never-ending platforms to sell things. 3D printing. Digital marketing. Digital products. Affiliate links. You could probably go on and on. It's all about the profit, and people chasing value and freedom where there is none. Emptiness comes from within. Nothing you do physically, will ever solve that problem.

This is the underground termite mound that no one is willing to look for, but rather knows it's falling, and their looking for some sense of a way to know that they exist, and they are something. Nothing represents this more than social media.

Influencers

They demand attention, they utilize that attention as monetary value, and live life as if they are famous. Fame in society nowadays is completely subjective and relevant to the situation. They aren't people, they are influencers. They tout it as a badge, as a personality, as a genuine level of humanity. An identity of fame, if you will.

Mental Dysfunction

There's nothing wrong with being different. You don't build houses in the sand the same way you build houses on dirt. There is a problem though, when all you know is how to build a house on sand, but all you have is dirt. You must live and operate differently than the vast majority of society. Our brains and minds are all built a little differently, and the rise of discovering why has been astounding in the past decade or two. The problem that then occurs, is that label, take for example ADHD, becomes your entire personality. You can't work because ADHD. You fill your time with ADHD content. You're introduction in the first 3 mins of meeting someone contains the knowledge that you are ADHD. You require the world to cater to your ADHD, because ADHD is now who you are. That can be said about any of them - regardless of how it affects your everyday life, if it's your personality, you are no longer {insert your name here}, you are the label you've given yourself.

Acceptance of Self

Back when I was younger, I was a weird kid. I had long hair, baggy clothes, I barely talked, and I was one of the smarter kids in the room typically. I listened to weird music, I played video games (which at the time wasn't a cool thing yet), I liked anime, you know... a weird kid. The difference was, as a kid, I didn't hate who I was. I didn't feel the need to change. I didn't have to blame anyone. It just sucked. Life sucks sometimes. As we move through life, this is bound to happen, yet most of us feel the need to have external validation. So the calculation in the brain eventually becomes that if we aren't receiving external validation, that there must be something internally wrong. This develops into identities that almost contradict our physical realities.

My problem here is that we aren't trying to help people accept themselves for who they really are... which is what they often say. "Celebrate" each other. I have no problem with that, when you understand what and who you are. When you start celebrating people for things that they want to be rather than who they really are, you encourage this weird syndrome of becoming something that isn't true, and that identity becomes you.

There are more examples, but this is enough for now. It all still loops back around to identity being a problem.

Technology has been the single greatest advancing thing in the past 30+ years. Everything grows and evolves. Things get more efficient and cheaper. We have the internet, smart phones, streaming platforms, and social media to name a few. Whether it be software, hardware, or general improvements around society, technology continues to grow, advance, and become wildly available.

One of the ways technology has made our lives easier and more accessible is simply communication. Email, text, chat systems (MS Teams, Slack, Discord, etc.), social media, DM's, voice calls, video calls, pictures, and even audio only messages. It's fantastic stuff. Always stay connected.

However... it is a different world. Almost like a game to an extent, where you can fully control your image and who you are by any way of communication that isn't in person. It's not like we don't do that in person too, however in person there is a filter. Not just "danger" per say, of rejection or harm, but also in the emotional weight of what a physical interaction is. Body language, eye contact, human touch, real time facial reactions, and the slow roll of comfort that sets in over time.

You might be asking yourself at this point how this dehumanizes us. It's a little deeper than you might think, but let's keep it pretty surface level. Without that physical filter, most people (maybe even yourself if you reflect on it a bit), doesn't act or treat people the same way they would in person. In fact, that sort of mentality tends to make this sort of shield between the physical world and the online world. Because of that, a lot of your opinions, fears, and thought processes develop online, and track into real life.

The ultimate result is a life lived online, and a lonely physical life, which degrades the mentality and emotional intelligence of you piece by piece. You are no longer a human, but rather a presence on a screen.

Before you immediately think "I am being targeted?!" - it's not like that; it's about you as an audience, potential customer, listener, watcher, etc. Marketing was once just companies trying to find the best way to sell products. If it's a general product, put some good looking dudes or chicks in there, and boom, there's appeal. Put something in there that tugs on your heartstrings, so you feel guilted to do whatever it wants. Scare you into purchasing something. Put your heroes and celebrities in an ad to make you want it more.

Society though, has developed itself into a business minded monster now, trying to appeal to the most broad denominator they can. Marketing has now pretty much invaded every ounce of your life, and it has an affect on you whether you want it or not. It's just... a lot sneakier than it used to be. Ads become currency in games and streaming services. Every page you visit online likely has a banner or little box somewhere. Your habits, voice, and even history online is tracked and refined. The people you watch online sell you things. Everything you do on most platforms targets you with algorithms - and despite how they claim it's for you, it's ultimately for profit.

In addition, if you are a millennial or older, you likely remember crazy colored cars, explosive color on buildings, and how bright everything used to be, especially compared to the net neutral colors that make you feel a little more at home and are less offensive. Buildings are taking a "modern" form, that feels more like classic shapes with a little design. We turned from a house full of memories to minimalism lifestyle, and houses feel far more empty than they ever did before.

Why? A targeted society inherently feels this, it's not silent and it doesn't go unnoticed. Minimalism is a response to overwhelm and defensiveness. These designs appeal to a broader audience. We become more disconnected, and we get catered to it.

Thing is - you are a target for someone, some business, or something. For example, I play instruments and I like metal music. I get catered content for that all the time. It's just the society we live in now. The only way to change it would be to reject it in a revolt of consumerism; but we're too comfortable to challenge that.

Finally, in this far too long of an article, I'll hit my final point that society in itself is beginning to fade away. We're not getting together like we used to. We're not all fighting for the same things. We're not all exposed to the same things. We all have wildly different lives and interests. It's no longer safe to travel streets and go places alone.

In addition, we're all losing our ability to connect and think. No, it's not being stripped away, but rather we're not using it the same way we used to. When something in your brain isn't being used, your brain starts to shut it off. We have Google, documentaries, AI, automatic, and convenient technology that does most of the hard work for us. A great example of this is music; there's nothing inherently wrong with making AI music. I'll just state that up front. Part of the reason though, that it doesn't quite hit, is because it's not human. When you make music, this art style, there's a lot that goes into it. Whether you sing or play an instrument, there's practice, there's decisions, there's growth, there's ideas, and there's a ton of learning. A lot of tools and especially AI, are slowly draining away your ability to do any of that, because it is doing that for you.

In addition, communication is becoming more and more just... well technology talking to technology by way of humans. I am willing to be you know, if you aren't the one who has been in an argument, a tough conversation, or a situation where you really didn't know what to do... so you Google'd it. You had AI type you up a response and made it "sound like you." Emailed a vendor a carefully curated email that pays attention to tone, formality, and slightly aggressive wording. How many marriages and friendships are falling apart because we are all emotionally at the level of a child, because technology enabled us to be? Let's also be real; this is also part of the reason most of society is turning introverted. It's draining because you can't have a real conversation without technology anymore.

Everything being monetized is also silently destroying our ability to make true art, and to reproduce. People are having less and less children, and there's a lot less to appreciate despite the fact that it's flooding the internet. How does monetization affect that? Well, it affects the value of everything around you. If everything is twice as expensive, that's less memories and more work. Next thing you know, you're doing what your parents did, but instead of flourishing, you're broke and having to work 60+ hours a week to maintain rather than flourish and advance. Not to mention that jobs want you to basically be the thing your advancing into before you ever get into it. In that regard, why then, would you want to bring a child into the world or work on a cool project when everything feels like it's falling apart around you?

Finally, we're fading simply because of the lack of ability to connect with those around us, by way of there being just too much choice in the world. We're not watching the same shows, following the same bands, or even remotely interested in the same things. Like even in technology, someone could be passionate about development, and another about SRE, and they won't get along because their interests are too far apart.

We essentially forget what it's like to be human, and we've replaced it with technology, work, and goals. Our very existence is justification enough that it's all we need to be.

I just pray for my kids at least, that this is where the world eventually circles back around to. Actually having a society of people, not just a bunch of identities, resources, and technology.