individuality overdose

Stan was like every other boy his age in that he wanted to be just like everybody else but still retain a vague sense of individuality. In all other ways he was totally different from other boys his age. And if you say that the other boys are also boys, then I'll remind you 1) you are talking to a story that has already been written, you won't convince the story to change now 2) you are not allowing the story to unfold naturally like the petals of a flower, a soggy accordion, or the pages of a book.

So back to the story...

Stan was keen to be influenced by peer pressure but was hard pressed to find a peer that was forceful enough to influence him. He was the equivalent of an autistic savant who only understood his own need for social acceptance. His comprehension of his own isolation was so profound that people would come from miles around to see just how lonely he could be. One and all, they were impressed by Stan's stark portrayal of loneliness. Comments ranged from, "looking at Stan is like you're drowning in his own sorrow", to "staring at Stan was like being microwaved to death in a sensory deprivation iron maiden".

As the years wore on, many other attractions were added near and around the Stan exhibit. A slacker exhibit which blurred the lines of slack by its use of coma patients rather than actual slackers was a particular hit. Examples of displays that never quite caught on were such flops as, Dudes with Suds, Jocks with Zubaz, and Turd Flingers. The Turd Flingers debacle was a shock to the parents who arranged the showing. They assumed that since monkeys were so popular, humans with the same antics would be a boon. The reality was that most families weren't willing to pay great fees to see the same things that happen on a daily basis in their own homes.

A stark comprehension of a singular petrifying reality was still worth coughing up some serious bread. Anyone who knew anyone knew that they could never be as alone as Stan. Seeing him suffer in his chronic involuntary detachment remained a great comfort to many. The thousands of onlookers somehow intensified and focused his already obscene estrangement.

One day a particularly depressive dental school dropout decided to walk through the displays because he had a few minutes to spare before killing himself. When he got to the Stan exhibit he was shocked by what he saw. A single hand movement. Was that a wave? Again, there was another almost undetectable movement of a hand. ExPreDent waved back and saw what appeared to be a smile. Although ExPreDent had never visited the Stan exhibit before, he had heard about it and seen Stan on all the magazine covers. He knew this was Stan, but he was acting so different, and even though the communication was minimal, Stan was expressing himself more than ever before.

Having been there to see all of this, made ExPreDent change his mind. He climbed down the steep concrete wall using a piece of a sturdy vine to lower himself to Stan's level. He said to Stan, "Why of all people did you pick me to communicate with?" Stan replied, "Because I knew no one would believe you."

Stan and ExPre sat up all night talking and laughing about uninteresting thoughts they had throughout their lives but never felt like sharing with anyone else. At least that's what appears to have happened. Both Stan and ExPre were found dead the next morning lying in a pool of their own sarcasm. Shards of crystalized thoughts were found as far as 30 meters from the corpses, and the fragments seemed to make up complex hyperbolic allegoric palindromes written in some hybridized variant of pig latin, esperanto and calculus.

Without Stan the exhibits seemed pointless, because there was no longer a clear benchmark for isolation and sadness. The loneliest person in the world could be just about anybody.

On the subject of everyone’s awesome beliefs...

People believe stupid things. Generally this is due to a lack of education, stubbornness, or actually being raised in an environment that insulates them sufficiently from reality that they create a foundation for a system of beliefs based on these bogus “realities”. Once such a foundation is created, the accepted “truths” reside on that platform and the conflicting viewpoints (true or untrue) have no place to stand and so are easily discarded or even vilified due to the the obvious lack of harmony with already ingrained “truths”.

People argue about stupid things. People feel the need to argue their points to make others believe. Most arguments are a construct of the denial a person with unimpressive views must rely on to keep from eroding the foundation of their unreasonable beliefs. Each argument creates a new platform very close to a trunk or branch of the person’s system of beliefs. These platforms -based on either winning an argument or based on how mean (and thus wrong) the other person was- serve as a much needed structural reinforcement to the precarious system of improperly developed beliefs. Personally, I love arguing. But I think arguing should be about comparing logical processes as a fun mental exercise. Whether you have the correct or incorrect view should be properly established beforehand so that you’re not wasting everyones valuable time. Sadly, most people get into arguments totally unprepared and not really knowing whether they know anything or not.

People pretend to believe what they believe. There are many times that people must make a concession on a certain level yet wish to retain the system of beliefs they have grown to cherish so. Thus they develop another type of platform. These new ad hoc platforms serve to stabilize the precarious structure while bridging gaps between other beliefs that must be at least partially assimilated due to scientific, sociological or psychological necessity. This works well as a coping mechanism because one can retain the unstable system of “reality” that has been nurtured while allowing other philosophies to support the structure, yet never needing to examine the core or foundation of these other logical structures.

People go with the flow. The well known phenomenon known as the “mob mentality” is a great example of people going with the flow. But let’s look at it from another angle known as the “bandwagon”. When mob mentality is treated in this way it is most often considered a standby marketing tool. “Everybody else is doing it, so will I.” But this way of thinking has been nurtured so much throughout the world that there is little chance that more than a handful of people out of any group would balk at committing any atrocity endorsed by the next guy over. Everyday people who wouldn’t steal a pen from work, will torture, burn, rape and kill as long as everybody else seems to be doing it. Most likely, you are one of those people.

So people kill for their beliefs. On a certain level you can understand it. They are merely protecting the core foundation of their system of beliefs. Murder is an extension of the argument. And let’s face it, if you’re dead, you can’t possibly be right. But it is odd how they never seem to think, “murder is wrong, so some core belief of mine must be wrong”. Rather, the reasoning generally takes the form of pretending that the opposing side is more of a jerk than your side. A war could just as easily be fought with a debate and whoever has a better argument wins, but wars are always based on totally stupid ideas that have no comprehensible basis. Since both sides know deep-down that they couldn’t possibly win an argument, they decide to argue with body count. Whoever kills the most usually wins the argument.

Now I don’t want anyone to tell me that murder is okay. If that is your firmly held belief, then that’s awesome in my book. Everyones beliefs have their own special kind of merit.

Why not just use the honor system? I propose a system where everyone just looks at their own system of beliefs and honestly analyzes it. We can’t all be right about everything so it isn’t that big of a deal when you have to back down from your outmoded framework of existence and build a new one. If you learned something that negates past understanding that’s a good thing. Why feel like you have been hurt by learning? Tear down the logical structure that has become your prison. Sure, some people would prefer not to think about life in a calm rational way. But once everyone else is doing it...