Wednesday, September 23, 2015

Are we to blame for the state our love life?

I read blogs every now and then...and that's it. They never really resonate within me, so after reading them I'd just move on with life without them having any impact on me.
Today I read a blog by an anonymous person living in Australia, (iamunknowing.com) and it had a profound impact on me.
From his writing I understood that he was the kind of guy that had a ton of things going on in his mind with no one to share them with,and it felt as if he was sharing his life with me, more importantly, it felt as if I - a total stranger -  was with him in Sydney, Australia.

I am very much the same. I live in Brooklyn, a land of a million friends, yet everyone is so lonely.
I'm on 20 different whatsapp groups with 100's of contacts on my phone, when I go to social events I meet up with hundreds of my friends and yet - I have no one to share my life with, no one to share what's going on inside.
I'm not gonna go on the clichéd rant against social media, that it's ruining our social lives etc etc.
A: because that rant has been heard too many times and
B: its highly over rated. And Because
C: I disagree with that rant.
First of all, comparing myself from when I was a child without whatsapp to myself now, I am much more in touch with people today than I was then. Then, I used to play computer games, I only spoke to kids my age while I was in school. Now I'm in contact with people pretty much 24/7. (I could go on about this subject but now's not the time and place for it)
I'm also not gonna blame my feelings on 'the times" as many people opt to do because
A: "the world is not what it used to be" is something my old fart of a grandfather would say and ...ironically his grandfather as well. In fact it has been recorded in books thousands of years old, of old men lamenting the 'good old days' when 'everything was better'
Whatever old people would have us believe, I believe that life today is in pretty much every way, better than it ever was, in terms of health, wealth and happiness.
(I could go on and on of the miseries of yore but that's a whole other topic)

I will begin broaching a theory of my own, but don't think that I'm fully behind this theory because I'm not. (In fact I'm not really fully behind anything I say)

I feel that it may have to do with selfishness and having doubles standards.

Relationships require a certain 'give and take'. Its so obvious yet so overlooked.
We expect good relationships to come naturally, partially because we were never taught how to make - or how to be - good friends. We were just sent to the playground and expected to 'have fun and make friends'. When we first learned about the concept of relationships it was in the context of 'it'll happen' and 'just play it out'.
Well, we know what happens when we leave things to fate.
If and when there were mishaps in these pseudo relationships, instead of being addressed they were simply seen as part of growing up - well obviously when something isn't taught systematically, every person has their own views on it, developed over many years based on their many experiences and biases but most importantly - based in their OWN experiences. Which obviously favor them. They'll never think 'I failed at that relationship because I failed to follow the rules relationships'. They'll think 'that person is full if shit and I should have seen it coming'. As long as we're learning how to understand and deal with relationships through our own lives we'll always be selfish about it.

Now about double standards, there's much to speak about on that subject, whether its in favor of feminism or against it. (I.e. that girl who considers herself a feminist still wants you to open the door for her and let her enter first etc.)
In this context, I mean that we have double standards of ourselves versus the world.
Take for example the classic case (it must have happened to you sometime in your life) where someone strikes you. (Like literally hits you on the head)
Naturally, you should want to hit them back - with equal force. But what actually happens is... You want to hit them back harder than they hit you. (This is a fact backed up by science, read about in Daniel Kahneman's book, thinking fast and slow - it's like a bible of the mind) we have a sort of 'double standard', where if u hit me a 'level 5' hit, I'm allowed to hit you a 'level 6 hit.
How many times were u angry or upset at people for doing something that... You did yourself to someone in a different time and place. How many times did you feel betrayed... and how many times did ppl feel betrayed by you?
Do u feel as bad about betraying them as much as when they betrayed you? Do u feel traumatized by the fact that someone else had trauma throughout their childhood because of you?
Well, I can say I was traumatized as a child, by many people. And I know I caused trauma to people, particularly one classmate. I know I'm not the only one to blame - he was bullied in the school that he was in before and he was bullied in the school after mine - but for those two years that he was in my school I not only bullied him, but actually instigated the entire class to bully him. (To end that story, we never spoke since that time until 5 years later, I was about to graduate elementary school and I met him at an after school program. He had grown a lot and seemed to be well connected in that class - I was actually the outsider. After that short time that I saw him - we still didn't really speak much, I met him again about 5 years after that,i actually towered over himk, having had my growth spurt, we spoke as if we were long lost friends. I consider him a friend to this day and whenever we see each other we catch up on the 'good old days' (how fucking ironic ain't it?)
I always wonder how he feels today about that time in his life)
What's my point? That we have a double standard, call it 'cognitive bias' whatever - point is, if we'd truly treat people the way we wish to be treated the state of the world would be entirely different.
Now to get back to the original question; what should we blame this social problem on?

..we have to blame it on something right..?

Well, we humans don't like accepting current events as actual events that happened or is happening unless we can blame it on something first, but, I'd like to break out of that habit.

Without understanding what exactly it is, or why it is so, I do know that I and many others feel that, while we have many 'social' friends we don't have any 'meaningful' relationships with people.
I decided completely on whim-(when I say whim I mean, I was in middle of producing a track on my laptop [fl studio for those who care] and I checked my phone for a second and saw that blog entry which I hadn't been planning on reading, it was just open in my browser, either way I read it and.. here I am)
-to start this blog to get some of my thoughts onto paper and maybe... even reach some sort of acquiescence with myself.

Peace and love, -m

No comments:

Post a Comment