Lamentice
Walk without rhythm and you won't attract the worm
- Mar 27, 2023
- 382
I wrote this last night while zoned in with adderall instead of cleaning my apartment, which I can only laugh at cause clearly it helped me focus, but not on the task I wanted.
Also, a lot of this is pulled from personal criticisms of myself too, not just observation or how I feel about people, I'm not exempt.
____
Human social dynamics are irreparable, just so unfixably fucked up. The social credit system people abide by has self-consumed; societies are extremely, radically low-trust. And I really do believe it was accelerated by social media (although it's always been flawed crap), perhaps with intentional manipualtion to nudge people into the most snowballingly inescapable defeatism, but the bulk of it I believe can be attributed to just the generally dissapointing way humans are.
Power dynamics and hierachies, manipualtion and agendas, projections and performance. None of it has to exist, it all results in insincerity and cruelty and harm and exploitation, everyone is constantly scanning for social threat and social saftey. All the players resent it themselves--cause it's draining. But fuck damn if you call it out or don't participate or make yourself an observer, humans have to share their misery and suffering; they need company, they need to compete, they need to be the one with leverage in the competition. For? For winning safety and peace and comfort! It's so twisted.. the promise is always what we could already make: get nirvana in the afterlife, earn your freedom with wealth, protect your stability by gaining control. What's the barrier? Who's the threat? ..Where to pin the blame and toss the burden? (I know sadists exist and they have no pure motivation behind what they do, they get off on the harm specifically, but most humans.. I am told.. do not operate this way and under all the gunk of suffering have a pure-hearted desire for well-being).
We could be supportive, and protective, and resilient! When nature is unyieldingly brutal we could have societies able to mutually stand in discomfort, distribute responsibility, and then soothe and repair.
Instead humans are more often avoidant, generally passive, and devastatingly neglectful. Instead we have valleys of profound insecurity and mountain tops of egoism. We only seem to build communities around tribalism, making "others"; "Us vs Them". Okay.. well now you have these communities at least, there's places to belong.. founded on division.. and seperation.. and contemptful differences; all these tribes just become smaller ponds for people to compete more ravenously, judge more intimately, leverage more intensely; often times you'll discover tribes within the tribe, a russian nesting doll of "Us vs Them", all the way down...
Humans could share and witness and reassure and build one another's fortitude!
Instead humans hoard and withhold, they categorize each other and themselves excessively, no one gets witnessed because at this point in culture everyone is instantly reduced.. and with urgency. Everyone wants to morally peacock from their perches, "Don't dehumanize! Have empathy! Treat me like a humanbeing! See me!", but no one can actually practice it indiscriminately, or reflect on their own hypocrisy. Who is your enemy? Is there a group? Who do you hate? Who do you resent? Do you find yourself justified in your generalizations and reductions of those individuals because of patterns and histories? In the "Us vs. Them" of this narrative do they likely also find themselves justified? Do you resent that too? Because it's really you who holds The Truth, right? And it's clear, indisputable even. ..Every religion worships the "true God"..., that's what they all say.
I won't deny there's real protective value from social scanning, especially in a low-trust society, but it's all a feedback loop. That's the point. It's self-reinforcing. It's important to doubt yourself constructively. Maybe you've been duped, maybe they've been duped, maybe you need to unplug from the personalized echoing rage machine, being wrong doesn't make a life worthless.. Nature is brutal, but it doesn't waste.... Maybe it's simpler, they can't relate to you, so you've decided you're unknowable to them. Hopefully then you're at peace with that conclusion, not pining to be understood by ones you've written off. No one has to explain themself to others, but then they don't have to see you, you've surrendered it to interpretation. And if the original distance was already resulted from inaccurate interpretations, then I guess that's just where humans stay; exacerbating each other indefinitely.
Everyone is the only humanbeing in the world to them, begging to be seen, but blinded by their own fear, rage, and grief. Immobilized by their own exhaustion.
Humans always have the potential and option to be collaborative, curious, generous, fair, sincere. Ya know, mutualistic and supportive. Instead they're en masse tribalistic, conservative, greedy, biased, and obliviously hypocritical. We could balance necessary caution with awareness and accountability, but humans like to be staunchly righteous and unpersuadable. They're forever engorged on the competition of their own hierachies, the spectacle of their own grief, and the currency of their own suffering.
The tragedy is that if 10 million people chose to reject this social framework and participate differently, it wouldn't change the other 7 billion-nine-hundred-ninety-million, and ultimately the world would keep turning into its own hell.
"Loneliness is the human condition", but it didn't fucking have to be.
Also, a lot of this is pulled from personal criticisms of myself too, not just observation or how I feel about people, I'm not exempt.
____
Human social dynamics are irreparable, just so unfixably fucked up. The social credit system people abide by has self-consumed; societies are extremely, radically low-trust. And I really do believe it was accelerated by social media (although it's always been flawed crap), perhaps with intentional manipualtion to nudge people into the most snowballingly inescapable defeatism, but the bulk of it I believe can be attributed to just the generally dissapointing way humans are.
Power dynamics and hierachies, manipualtion and agendas, projections and performance. None of it has to exist, it all results in insincerity and cruelty and harm and exploitation, everyone is constantly scanning for social threat and social saftey. All the players resent it themselves--cause it's draining. But fuck damn if you call it out or don't participate or make yourself an observer, humans have to share their misery and suffering; they need company, they need to compete, they need to be the one with leverage in the competition. For? For winning safety and peace and comfort! It's so twisted.. the promise is always what we could already make: get nirvana in the afterlife, earn your freedom with wealth, protect your stability by gaining control. What's the barrier? Who's the threat? ..Where to pin the blame and toss the burden? (I know sadists exist and they have no pure motivation behind what they do, they get off on the harm specifically, but most humans.. I am told.. do not operate this way and under all the gunk of suffering have a pure-hearted desire for well-being).
We could be supportive, and protective, and resilient! When nature is unyieldingly brutal we could have societies able to mutually stand in discomfort, distribute responsibility, and then soothe and repair.
Instead humans are more often avoidant, generally passive, and devastatingly neglectful. Instead we have valleys of profound insecurity and mountain tops of egoism. We only seem to build communities around tribalism, making "others"; "Us vs Them". Okay.. well now you have these communities at least, there's places to belong.. founded on division.. and seperation.. and contemptful differences; all these tribes just become smaller ponds for people to compete more ravenously, judge more intimately, leverage more intensely; often times you'll discover tribes within the tribe, a russian nesting doll of "Us vs Them", all the way down...
Humans could share and witness and reassure and build one another's fortitude!
Instead humans hoard and withhold, they categorize each other and themselves excessively, no one gets witnessed because at this point in culture everyone is instantly reduced.. and with urgency. Everyone wants to morally peacock from their perches, "Don't dehumanize! Have empathy! Treat me like a humanbeing! See me!", but no one can actually practice it indiscriminately, or reflect on their own hypocrisy. Who is your enemy? Is there a group? Who do you hate? Who do you resent? Do you find yourself justified in your generalizations and reductions of those individuals because of patterns and histories? In the "Us vs. Them" of this narrative do they likely also find themselves justified? Do you resent that too? Because it's really you who holds The Truth, right? And it's clear, indisputable even. ..Every religion worships the "true God"..., that's what they all say.
I won't deny there's real protective value from social scanning, especially in a low-trust society, but it's all a feedback loop. That's the point. It's self-reinforcing. It's important to doubt yourself constructively. Maybe you've been duped, maybe they've been duped, maybe you need to unplug from the personalized echoing rage machine, being wrong doesn't make a life worthless.. Nature is brutal, but it doesn't waste.... Maybe it's simpler, they can't relate to you, so you've decided you're unknowable to them. Hopefully then you're at peace with that conclusion, not pining to be understood by ones you've written off. No one has to explain themself to others, but then they don't have to see you, you've surrendered it to interpretation. And if the original distance was already resulted from inaccurate interpretations, then I guess that's just where humans stay; exacerbating each other indefinitely.
Everyone is the only humanbeing in the world to them, begging to be seen, but blinded by their own fear, rage, and grief. Immobilized by their own exhaustion.
Humans always have the potential and option to be collaborative, curious, generous, fair, sincere. Ya know, mutualistic and supportive. Instead they're en masse tribalistic, conservative, greedy, biased, and obliviously hypocritical. We could balance necessary caution with awareness and accountability, but humans like to be staunchly righteous and unpersuadable. They're forever engorged on the competition of their own hierachies, the spectacle of their own grief, and the currency of their own suffering.
The tragedy is that if 10 million people chose to reject this social framework and participate differently, it wouldn't change the other 7 billion-nine-hundred-ninety-million, and ultimately the world would keep turning into its own hell.
"Loneliness is the human condition", but it didn't fucking have to be.
