We Are All Special, Just Like Everyone Else...

This topic is getting more complicated as I peel the layers away. It may actually take on a life of its own. :)

I thought about this quote:

Man, I see in Fight Club the strongest and smartest men who've ever lived. I see all this potential, and I see it squandered. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off.

(Thanks to Jen for allowing me to use this which is on her blog banner. :)

Putting it into this frame, it raises some good points about individuality, how it is defined and how it manifests.

Recognizing how our individuality manifests in community is fairly easy. We come to know that our individual traits become a part of our immediate community and how we contribute. We forge an identity from that. That, in my opinion, is the core of individuality and how we recognize it in ourselves and others. It is how we find meaning.

But there is an external system that leads us to believe that our individuality is dependent on how we stand out, how we can be different than others, how we can create a peak experience. When we can't find that peak experience, we begin to feel we have no purpose.

Charles Eisenstein says it best in the book I've been pushing lately. He says: "The result is that we lack the means to establish a strong identity. No one knows our story. Human beings have always defined themselves in great part through their relationships with others, building a common story defining each of its actors. Now these stories have splintered themselves into tiny four person units [...] Unlike the small village or tribe, where everyone knew your story and you knew everyone else's you had a context to create a solid story of self. Today we interact day-in and day-out with outsiders. We maintain our private lives and know little of the lives of [others]."

This is a result of money-based culture, the commoditization of time and relationships. This isn't just about the little pieces of paper that represent specific amounts of value. It's not about money, per se. It is about monetizing. It is about seeing energy as investment. It is about seeing our lives as increments of time which must be used for production and results. Interaction has become focused on what we can get, what we need and what investment (energy) we must exert to "make our dreams come true."

This attitude causes our interactions to become superficial and hollow. That is what brings about the "Blink" response as we immediately evaluate how an Other may be part of our goal or not part of it. Our limbic instinct for survival and the ability to determine safe from unsafe has become perverted. Individuality is lost in a sea of unrealistic expectations. That, again, makes us question our importance as individuals.

Realistically, in my opinion, until we give up the fantasies of what we should be and what others should be, we'll remain in this position. Nothing will ever be enough. Finding our own individuality starts with accepting others as they are. It comes with accepting that fantasies are fantasies for a reason. It comes with accepting that all of us are fundamentally good beings who are fine, just as we are.

Consumer culture will continue to take something we already have and sell it back to us. It will convince us that fantasies are reality and that if we just own the right things and know the right people, we will achieve the peak experience of "finding ourselves." Just buy my book and I'll hand you the answers on a half shell. But it's a lie. There is no book and the knowledge is free.

We're already found.

We're already valuable.

We're already special. We are special to the people whose lives we touch, however lightly, and we are special because we are human beings with all of our good points, our bad points, our questioning, our inherent desire to share (each in our own way) and our inherent capacity to love.

But we have to learn to frame that differently than the culture has framed it for us.

Am I making some sense here?


(More to come. There's a lot more to peel back on this topic.)
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