The Age of the Herd

Everyone derives their value from stuff like social media and their status within a group and not on their own achievements (or lack thereof, in some strange cases). I’m not some hyper-individualistic person that hates the concept of community, there is value in community but I’ve noticed that people tend to derive value from being in a group more than actually being a human being and having this one life to do what they truly need to do to make the world a better place and make themselves truly happy along the way (looking at it from an idealistic point of view, of course).

I believe in certain aspects of social etiquette and in natural law but I also believe that there is an over-abundance of vestigial social norms that have caused more harm than good by our continual insistence on them to climb up the social ladder, like the seniority system in Japan and the American way of trusting the government thinking they have their best interests in mind (especially nowadays). I think people need to be a bit more flexible in their thoughts on these matters. We live in an ever-changing world, let’s not pretend that society is a constant that will remain static and will give us any real input.

You determine what your achievements mean, if you want to make it about seeking status, that’s ultimately your choice. However, many individuals dedicate their lives to achieving something for reasons that are outside the realm of the status-seeking. Individuals like Dirac, Godel, Euler, Galileo, Newton, Huygens, Feynman, Cauchy, Riemann and Gauss were working towards expanding our knowledge of mathematical beauty in this world and its dynamics in the physical world. That one guy that built a video game for 20 years literally did it because he felt like it, even though when it came out in 2017 it was out of date to an absurd degree. He was on a list of people that were overtaken by a need to do something great, the point being people make their own lives drudgery via slavery to their lesser passions instead of seeking higher ideals. This goes for religious and non-religious people alike: they both find reasons to be a slave to the rule of the mob rather than taking initiative and living their own lives.

Again, people allow themselves to be slaves of the mob rather than have any sort of self-initiative. This is why I don’t like large groups, they naturally suppress the true genius of the individual and his true potential. I prefer smaller groups where I can balance the fact that I am an individual with my own hopes and dreams and self-actuation, with my need to comport with other individuals who are like-minded.