Tuesday, 11 July 2023

Adam II's postmodern quest








By: Jonathan Seidel

Society is encased in various social sectors, fragmented into divergent pressure groups. Insisting on discord to ensure conformity, each is based on valued externalities. To be perceived as part of a scene. Looking alike and acting alike in a nothing short of uniform testimony. Everyone wishes to fit in and thus implement a daring symmetry to behold the wondrous consistency.

Acceptance is a privy form of substantiated affirmation. A feeling of belonging. Most people who enjoy alone time do wish in the absolute. People yearn to be a part of a larger cause. To be regarded and recognised. It empowers the self and raises self-esteem. It is a tranquil feeling of social comfortability. The despair in alienation hurls depressive thoughts into the mind. Loneliness is a powerful adversary creeping on stress with a suicidal lullaby. Feeling empty inside as there is no acknowledgement of the self. One could easily be invisible. There is an expectation to be met. Even a lowly confident individual wishes for some acceptance. There is an inherent gut need for otherness. To be alone is to be missing. It is to be unnecessary and famished of any purpose. Seeking out comrades attempts to rectify that missing piece. Maybe with another, self-meaning will emerge. Yet it is even more troubling when everyone else has an other except you. The expectation of society is readily uninhabited by yourself. The self-acclaimed loner is fighting against societal declarations. This in turn will alienate and break any strides.

Part of a group testifies to a more sustained purpose. An ecstasy of unity to accomplish. Dancing alongside people just like you. In your own egocentric mania, you decide to surround yourself with clones. A few tweaks here and there, but your company is similar to you because they get you. Groups accord with synonymous values. It is a pot filled with congruency. That is the whole point. It is you but it is not. Someone similar just like in geometry is the same shape but a different size. We want to discuss the topics we would say to ourselves if we didn’t believe we would look ridiculous. We need others to tell us what more or less we believe. Yet hearing it externally drastically alters the mind. It is an outsider from myself giving me the answer. Since our clones have their own personalities and experiences their wisdom is warranted. At the core there is almost unanimous agreement but on the surface there is but divergence that is essentially comical to the individual. Like-minded people make us feel safe and validated. Comfortable in our skin, in what is familiar. The stranger at first sight has modified into a nuanced version of the self.

Surface level differences are sufficient to feel like otherness is still evident. Talking to your clone is still a lonely affair. As long as a synthesised effort of likeness and difference is concocted it is sensible. The relationship is a reflection of the self but the nurturing divergencies promulgate a conforming hypnosis. The valued similarities do not necessitate pragmatic similarities. While both may be minimalists, one is a better math student. Values are parcel of the personality but not its entirety. Yet it is those aspects that are widely stereotyped. Cinema places the athletes and nerds in their own groups. While in real life that is not necessarily the case, cinema’s classification harmonises athletic merit as a beacon of status. Each society prioritises something different, while its sub-groups join together to endure the difficult life. Nerds prioritise their smarts while school clubs also find their friendships from common hobbies. To be part of a group is to share passion. It is to unify in a collective endeavour of joy and expression.

These groups provide the equivalent homeostatic necessities for survival. To affirm self existence, an external hard drive or a cheerleader validating presence. Even when in a big like-minded group and passively silently observing the group. The lack of relational acknowledgement may be unnecessary. There is a self-elevation just being there. The others’ silent acceptance is sufficient. As long as they do not bar kamtza the party. If they do not outright reject you from the circle. This is not mental gymnastics or self-deception insofar as neutrality is conceived as half full. Those with greater pride may mistake silence as cruel passivity. Compelling them to disassociate from those who do open up to them. Comfortable joy results from the goals put out for the self. No one is the same. Being part of a group may be solely the spatial aspect whether or not anyone else in the group demonstrates concern for the self throughout the encounter. Ignorance does not measure as disrespect. To fit in is to be accepted into the circle without any repercussions. No one demanding anything out of the ordinary.

Low self-esteem and desire to fit in may inquire certain actions that make one feel distorted. Acceptance is perceived differently. It is not a one size fits all. On the one hand it may be spatial proximity, sitting at the same table during lunch or regal fidelity, bowing as you pass through the halls. Is it the open seat that you sit down at amongst strangers but enjoy the company of the group or is it the crowded table that is opened up as soon as you enter the room. There is an obvious situational dichotomy. One is struggling to enter a group and one is already a group member. The loner looking for a team, for people does not adhere to the same expectations, members have. Just as a rookie is expected to screw up while a veteran should know better. The seeker is ready to lower his expectations and take the scraps in order to enter the group. He is willing to do things for status and for acknowledgment. Whether that begins as silent treatment or daring trials. Groups are exclusive and to break in to them, familiarity and cohesion are vital. People are forced to conform for acceptance.

Trying to fit into groups is cynically considered a social climber. To be one of the cool cats. Seeking acceptance is bending the knee to someone else’s expectations. Relationships are not about one-sided alterations. It is about mutual compromise. If the other is unwilling to adapt for the self, it is an unrealistic gamble. Sooner or later the seeker will realise his outsider vibe, his unwelcomeness and cause self pain. It takes an incredible amount of pride and possible delusion to maintain a false hope. In our uniqueness there are other outsiders looking for groups. It is these people one should seek out. Not to get caught up in societal visions of cinematic drama and instead find those who will reciprocate. Low self-esteem will only further potential as well as foregoing a possibility of rightful acceptance. Instead of seeking those who will not reciprocate, find those who will give back. Who do care and will drop everything for you. Those are true friends who respond to your cry or to your laugh. Who wish to be around you. The relational attitude is mutually enlightening and developing. In this formulation there will evidently be a “classicist” formulation.

Once a group is established it needs to be eclipsed by empathetic otherness. There is much to learn. Yet never get caught up in the group’s identity. It is a part of the self but not its entirety. The relational attitude towards the group is one of harmonious tranquility but is also one aspect of life. Genuine mentors and advisors. Having a group is a foundation but it should not muddle attempts to break into other groups. One should not go to terrible lengths to do so. Nor is it relevant to beg for acceptance. It should be a natural reciprocation. Yet the best model is one of gradual entrance. Seeking out individuals. A nerd befriending a jock. One assisting in algebra and the other in basketball. It does not need to be a trade and more an enjoyment of the other’s company. Getting caught up in labels and not personalities decries any assimilation. On the surface both designate varied patterns but they do not need to be separate. They can coexist as friends. As long as one is willing to dignify the other and accept him, an existential synergy is magnified. Stereotypical titles divide humanity. The search for community is regulated but divided ever so divisively.

Modern individualism was supposed to eclipse this paradigm. Groups are necessary but one devoid of stereotypical attitudes will create autonomous communities. Abandoning archaic classist attitudes would blossom personable relations. Strides have been achieved but we still get caught up in exclusive groups based on externalities. Religious association holds less power but political and material sense holds more status. We have not superseded the external problematics. We simply replaced one institutional identifier with another. Individualisation only prompting people to seek those old groups, subtleties shifted to find other identifiers to associate. It did not breed the autonomy of ethical yearning. External relation remains the barometer of association. At the same time the radical individualism forces people to seek groups that are not initially ingrained. Concerned for their own isolating depression they will bend for acceptance. Aloneness is tough, finding any sort of social consideration is sufficient for the loner. Without the valued transition there is little hope for a transformation. A new object of concern. It is the object that is concentrated upon not the subject.

Individualisation fostered autonomic group setting. Mark your own destiny instead of fated to an unwarranted group. Yet the groups maintain their valued listed obligations. Meeting certain criteria for acceptance. Hurling the self in all various shapes and sizes to muster the obligatory aspects. Gentrifying for self actualisation. A wounded animal looking for shelter. The shelter has a secret code. A formula for entrance. The individual begs for the code and then adopts the necessary markers to be accepted. A tendency for realisation through conformity. Autonomy only inquires the illusion of a clean slate foundation. Yet due to the groups preconceptions and socio-political elements in the predestined faculty there is little genuine autonomy. The sole autonomy is seeking those like-minded. Those who fit the same mould repudiating anything beyond that. The group search is immediate and lends itself to single related priorities. Individualisation only bolsters stressful anticipation for longing acceptance. It is the mere dash for ruin. To be embraced quickly and swiftly.

Yet at the same time, this individualisation prompts the personal search for their own destiny. Longing for a group, they try to form their own or join another. With a plurality of options, there is a great deal to choose from. There is a limit but the freedom, the ability, to choose who associate it with is new. This new liberty stalks the individual to pursue his own interest at the expense of his own dignity. At times foregoing his group for another. Instead of searching for individual relations, he attempts to intercede a forged group. For social interest and accompanying status associated. How the external makes him look. In the nerd-jock binary example, A nerd is immediately placed amongst the nerds and vice versa but each can attempt to waive it to engage another group. In the cinematic drama the jock is elevated in the social hierarchy and the nerd lower despite their need for one another. The jock bullies the nerd for his expertise to cover his weakness. The nerd trying to engage with jocks will be ridiculed. The jock who engages with the nerds will be teased. Stereotypical elements prevent even individualistic association due to social pressures involved.

As a combination of nature and nurture we are complex beings. We are part of multiple backgrounds: religiously, politically, economically and attributes. Each of these divides the individual. Even at a time of secularisation, there is a widening gap amongst the autonomic search. Liberty is a guise for preordained facilitation. Only those willing to pursue individuality absolutely can bridge the stereotyped division. The external dicta marginalising people is the visual rationalisation of difference. Comprehending the embryonic crystallisation advances to a mystifying derangement. The secularised outlet wished to avail the ideological armour plaguing human egocentrism. The materialistic transparency suffers in its inadequate equity. Fashioning a matrix derailed by ideological manifestation. Difference is unwanted and repugnant. With the greatest leap for exceeding the exclusivist diorama, the economic society politicises relations to pressure division. With possibility of great change, polarising elements have maintained their steady hand in continuing to separate along arbitrary lines.

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