deterioration of identity in society

deterioration of identity in society [+ favourites]

Lately I've been feeling run down by the trappings of everyday life and respondsibility. It seems like we're held to these arbitrary standards set by society, taught to value things we don't need and noone realizes it.
I want to break out of the cycle of ambiguous individuality, but i have no idea how to do it.
The whole issue has left me pretty run-down and apathetic. I have no motivation to accomplish anything anymore, schoolwork, social life, material wealth which translates to success and value in our society.
I've taken to drinking most nights and smoking about a pack and a half of Camel filters, just watching TV all day. I don't even like TV, it's the most blatent display of the skewed priorities in our society.

Thoughts? anyone else feel this way?

"The most useful piece of learning for the uses of life is to unlearn what is untrue. -Antisthenes"

Yah, I can kinda understand what you're talking about. It's like everyone around you, everyone you know, expects certain things of you... whether or not you even expect them of yourself. And these things that you're not even sure about make you 'normal.' I personally hate the idea and in the long run it probably kills the soul.

Now I'm not saying go do this but the only way I could think to escape would be to either become a vagrant or leave this country (the problem with leaving the country would be there's a lot of shittier places than this.) You could probably also live a modest lifestyle with a job that doesn't pay too well but gives you a good chunk of your day. Then you'd have the freedom to persue the things you're interested in. Just make sure those interests don't require a lot of money, hehe.

I don't really know what to do man but I feel ya on this one.

"I try my best to be just like I am but everybody wants you to be just like them."

many of the original cynics, the greek philosophers, ended up living as vagrants, returning to a more anamalistic life. This seems like an over reaction because it doesn't allow you to make full use of your human capacity, though it does eleminate the problem with being part of a social construct.

"The most useful piece of learning for the uses of life is to unlearn what is untrue. -Antisthenes"

The apathy comes from the assumption that you are a part of this machine and it cannot be escaped (in a feasible manner).

Going to live elsewhere or moving to a log cabin is escape - the process of running away from this corrupt society. It will achieve your desired goal, but when presented with the same corruption you will fold - this is proven by the fact that you are folding right now.

The only "perfect" manner to deal with this is to stand up to it whilst you are innundated with it.

What is "it"? What is making you lethargic and apathetic?

A lack of freedom. Where did your freedom go? It went into all the vices society uses to get your money - smoking, television, alcohol, fashion, sex etc etc.

Therefore, noticing and complaining is the first step... and you created a thread about it. Lots of people do that. Lots of people complain, lots of people talk.

Few people give up smoking. Few people disconnect cable. Few people refuse to drink. Few people stop objectifying women. Few people walk around in jogging pants.

"Hating everyone protects me from elitism."

what does standing up to it change though? all the same problems still exist, and they will still bombard you from every angle. I don't claim my response to the fatigue to be healthy or curative, though it quiets the symptoms.
how long must one endure the drain of will to become impervious to it?

"The most useful piece of learning for the uses of life is to unlearn what is untrue. -Antisthenes"

I'm intrigued by what Decius seems to have suggested. Why don't you try to change something around? If smoking and drinking do quiet the symptoms, perhaps you shouldn't leave them behind altogether, but maybe disconnecting the cable for awhile will motivate you to look at things in a different light. Have you tried anything like this in the past?

if i disconnect the cable what will i watch while i drink and smoke?

"The most useful piece of learning for the uses of life is to unlearn what is untrue. -Antisthenes"

i think you're missing the point here. I share your list of societal ills wholeheartedly, but for the most part I don't let it get to me in the same way. While there is a lot I'd like to change about our me-first, instant gratification, consumercentric (pick your buzzword) culture, I'm stuck in college and know that there's little I can do about it right now. Instead I try and laugh at as much as I can, even though my gut reaction is often to seethe. Do your friends share the same opinions as you? I've found that taking out my frustration with my friends who are with me on this and arguing passionately with those who aren't is the best way to deal with it.

I'm sorry it doesn't roll off my back so easily. A lot of people seem to think they know what i'm feeling or talking about, and tell me to buck up and get over it. Well it doesn't seem like something you just get over.
This is all beside the fact that i don't think this is something you SHOULD get over. It's something to be wrestled with and if you can solve it then great, if you can't thhen that's how it goes. So far i can't solve it, and my declining health and grades reflect my inability to cope with the problems i see in the society around me.

"The most useful piece of learning for the uses of life is to unlearn what is untrue. -Antisthenes"

I think that excusing a dependency on vices (the very ones you complain society is plagued by) based on the fact that it's a hopeless situation is the same cop-out that permits everyone to believe it.

I'm not saying get over it in any way shape or form.

One factual part that may intrigue you is that even though your hopelessness seems to present itself from the perspective that the world sucks and there's nothing you can do about it, I suggest that this is not true at all. I suggest that you are so attached to the very vices you fall victim to that the hopelessness is actually a means of perpetuating them so you don't face the hardship of overcoming them.

This is proven in my experience by the unique feeling one gets when they actually savour the freedom one achieves when free of societal vices... In addition, you really should only be concerned with your own freedom, and the rest of the world's afterwards.

You can't possibly hope to even grasp the situation if you yourself are not free, which you most certainly are not if you smoke, drink, and watch tv.

It may sound critical, but I'm assuming you're not here to masturbate and are actually interested in useful information.

"Hating everyone protects me from elitism."

[  Edited by Chiron at   ]

"Few people give up smoking. Few people disconnect cable. Few people refuse to drink. Few people stop objectifying women. Few people walk around in jogging pants."

Give up drinking altogether? You think that's absolutely necessary?

"I try my best to be just like I am but everybody wants you to be just like them."

[  Edited by Chiron at   ]

At such a young age its sad to see someone feel like they are giving up.

The good news Circus is that there is hope.

The very fact you have realised the trappings around you, and have become aware of just how lulling and insidious mainstream society is, has shown you aren't without hope.

Its like the alcoholic first having to acknowledge they have a problem before they can even begin to try and solve that problem.

The only things you need in this world are:

1: Your mind
2: Your health.

If you have them, your laughing. And if you have them and aren't laughing then something is wrong and you need to find out what and fix it.

You will never change the dull society that you describe. Not even the most powerful man in the world can do that. Society is like an ever evolving living entity and no man has ever been able to change it singlhandley overnight.

So first thing you have to do is realise that while it seems hopeless and you cannot change your surroundings. You can change YOURSELF.

That is the secret. Your way of thinking and your way of doing things is what is important.

The idiots and brain-dead will still waddle around wherever you go giving you dull looks of incomprehension. But you need to totally forget them and focus on you.

Right now i think you're looking at society and thinking : this is how it is and always will be and I am trapped in it. So I may aswell use that as an excuse to lay back, smoke, get drunk and pass my time with those I despise as one of them.

Wrong! DO NOT follow the old adage "do as the morons do."

This is a very brief post, and I dont feel im that good at advice. And it isn't made to tell you what you should do right now when you read this and your life will suddenly work.

But its something to let you know that there IS hope. And that by seeing things as hopeless because everyone around you is a certain way, is a sure way to stay on the couch and drink another six pack.

And what you have to do is truly realise that while you cannot change society in all its consumerist mundanity, you can change yourself.

YOU are responsible for yourself, not them. And you must first realise what I and the other ppl here have posted before you can take any positive actions to getting on the road to self happiness.

Change your way of thinking first. Realise that by being unhappy with your life and those around you is the first step.

Next step to follow...

"When I was a child I flew! Then as an adult- I watched others soar."

You don't have to give up anything absolutely as long as you know you can resist the strong temptation that comes with worldly vices.

However, if you are overcomming a vice, you cannot do it at all. Not for a very long time. Not even once. Your mind must forget about it. If you do something for a long time (like play basketball) you need to not play it so long so you actually forget how it feels to play. That takes a good deal of time.

My general rule is you have to forget almost entirely about it. It takes an external voice to remind you of the age old vice.

"Hating everyone protects me from elitism."