Discussion The Average

[Crow_88]

I spent most of my life turning my nose up and railing against the average. Now that it's too late for me I truly wish I would've been capable of capturing it. I was always disgusted by the suburbs, jobs at banks, the trap of marriage and all that. It all just seemed a mechanism of control.

Well, they don't have to swallow poison. They just have to swallow stepping in line and being like everyone else. And they are rewarded by being part of the group and liked. What a great thing. I was just so wrong. To anyone on the fence with the competence to be an average person. Do it. Be normal. Be average. Get a mortgage and a cookie cutter house/partner.

Does anyone else feel this as death stares at them? That what the may have once despised and done everything to stay away from - it looks like a fine life now.

 

[pthnrdnojvsc]

I spent most of my life turning my nose up and railing against the average. Now that it's too late for me I truly wish I would've been capable of capturing it. I was always disgusted by the suburbs, jobs at banks, the trap of marriage and all that. It all just seemed a mechanism of control.

Well, they don't have to swallow poison. They just have to swallow stepping in line and being like everyone else. And they are rewarded by being part of the group and liked. What a great thing. I was just so wrong. To anyone on the fence with the competence to be an average person. Do it. Be normal. Be average. Get a mortgage and a cookie cutter house/partner.

Does anyone else feel this as death stares at them? That what the may have once despised and done everything to stay away from - it looks like a fine life now.

i would never want any of that meaningless garbage

 

[Crow_88]

i would never want any of that garbage , fuck everything

Fair enough. I would have agreed with you for the majority of my life. Now, I'm not so sure. To have a life that goes on with love, friends, and a career. Doesn't matter. Too late. But yeah. The alternative is hell. Just to have some sort of connection to others and a way to keep on living.
Yeah. It doesn't have to be those exact things. Just the whole concept of a house, partner, average life. That's in large part what put me here. Not being able to get it and hating it, too.

 

[EvisceratedJester]

First off, a lot of what you described isn't the "average" for many people. Secondly, if you are going against the norm purely for the sake of going against the norm then of course you are going to end up unsatisfied. There are many people out there who live incredibly unconventional lifestyles but who are content in life because they didn't strive to live the way they do for the sake of "rebelling against the average". They did it for themselves because it's what makes them happy.

It feels like you aren't taking into consideration the fact that your experiences aren't representative of everyone else's experience. Plenty of people end up going against the norm and find themselves feeling much better because of it. Just because that wasn't the case for you doesn't mean that this is the case for others. There aren't any particular paths that you can follow that will guarantee you being liked and a part of a group. There aren't any true paths in general. You may as well just do what you like (so long as you are causing harm to others) and hope for the best. Even if blows up in your face it won't matter in the grand scheme of things.

 

[Crow_88]

First off, a lot of what you described isn't the "average" for many people. Secondly, if you are going against the norm purely for the sake of going against the norm then of course you are going to end up unsatisfied. There are many people out there who live incredibly unconventional lifestyles but who are content in life because they didn't strive to live the way they do for the sake of "rebelling against the average". They did it for themselves because it's what makes them happy.

It feels like you aren't taking into consideration the fact that your experiences aren't representative of everyone else's experience. Plenty of people end up going against the norm and find themselves feeling much better because of it. Just because that wasn't the case for you doesn't mean that this is the case for others. There aren't any particular paths that you can follow that will guarantee you being liked and a part of a group. There aren't any true paths in general. You may as well just do what you like (so long as you are causing harm to others) and hope for the best. Even if blows up in your face it won't matter in the grand scheme of things.

First off, there is no average for everyone. It isn't even my average. It's just an example of one average of many I guess is one way to look at it. I didn't say to go against the norm just to go against the norm. The only thing I really mentioned was about competence to be the average. Oh, I also mentioned capability. I feel like because I said turned my nose against average you then assumed I meant to just do it for the sake of doing it. Nope, not quite. Like I said, a big point of my post looking at it was to warn people against doing exactly that.

No experience is representative of everyone else's experience. (Emotions are, maybe some other things are universally applicable.) Some leeway has to be given for discussions like this. And yeah plenty of people do go against the average and feel better - but not ones that swallow poison because they can't stand it. And it wasn't the case for me and isn't the case for those on this site contemplating suicide and actively pursuing it. And no, there aren't any guarantees - but once again, ending up killing oneself is one extreme outcome. Though, even suicide doesn't guarantee someone is alone and not part of a group. The point being that many people on here just failed to launch. Failed to fall into something of a 'group mentality' thing and are worse off for it.

Well, no. It doesn't matter in the grand scheme. But it very much would matter to the person going through it. Anyways, thank you for the thoughtful response. Feel free to critique my response!

 

[Apathy79]

I figure if you do what everyone else does, chances are your life ends up roughly like theirs. It's not going to be spectacular or horrible. If you go a different way than everyone else, you open up the extreme results a lot more. There's suddenly a decent chance your life could be exceptional or disastrous. And the difference between the 2 might even be subtle (Breaking Bad plays this up exceptionally). If you come out on the wrong end of that, suddenly normal seems pretty good.

 

[Crow_88]

I figure if you do what everyone else does, chances are your life ends up roughly like theirs. It's not going to be spectacular or horrible. If you go a different way than everyone else, you open up the extreme results a lot more. There's suddenly a decent chance your life could be exceptional or disastrous. And the difference between the 2 might even be subtle (Breaking Bad plays this up exceptionally). If you come out on the wrong end of that, suddenly normal seems pretty good.

lol haha this line "If you come out on the wrong end of that, suddenly normal seems pretty good." haha. Yeah well put. A get rich or die trying situation.

I guess it's achilles as he decided to sail to Troy instead of staying home and dying old and unknown. Worked out for him.

That's a lot of what I was getting at, for sure. Better to open up or better to just follow along. If I'd been equipped to follow along, I think it is the better choice. Some level of security and reason to live. Though, I'm not sure many here have that capability.

 

[ForgottenAgain]

I think I understand what you're getting at but have some questions if that's alright. For example, what makes you think they accept being like everyone else and being "in line"?

I think my life could be described as cookie cutter in the sense that I did the progression of job -> house -> relationship but, in a personal sense, my life is quite different from my colleagues' and I wouldn't define what I know about their lives as cookie cutter.
We all need a job and roof over our heads to survive so the majority of people will have that in some fashion. The partner part depends but I think it's more common than not.
We may all have a 9 to 5 and a place to live but in terms of personal life, people are quite diverse. I have colleagues who sew clothes, do rock climbing, play videogames together, draw/paint, etc. Their wants vary wildly and also what they want from life varies a lot. It's very eclectic.

What would you consider a life not average?

 

[Crow_88]

Well.. ah haha.. you kind of got me. I don't really know why I see them as forcing themselves to be in line. I guess that's a big part of this post. It isn't so much about rejecting that norm lifestyle as it is being incapable of operating within it. I do know that was what it was for me. I jumped around jobs and just kind of got sadder and more and more removed from society. Looking back it had a lot more to do with social and professional incompetence that I can only really see now that things are ending.

As for the life not average. I was a writer and an actor and was just so sure I'd figure it out. This was incorrect. And in the meantime I messed up my head pretty badly. Part of this is that me describing it as cookie cutter is ridiculous as what it really seems to be is safety and a good life. Though, you are on here so clearly there is no clear cut delineation.

 

[WatchmeBurn]

I don't know how people can be happy with being mediocre. I say this as someone who is thoroughly mediocre himself.

How can you look at the world today and not conclude that it needs drastic transformation? I guess if you're born rich and insulated from the real world it's comfortable enough, but the vast majority of people alive today are not: the working-classes in the rich world, and about 99% of the global south whose lives are, from a material perspective, even worse than poorer people in the global north are.

I've always wanted to make a major difference because I want to help people and to help induce the changes that are so desperately needed, but which nobody seems bothered about. The world is going to shit (climate change, growing reactionary status quo, etc etc) and it was pretty bad before, yet most people seem to be pretty content with ignoring it and/or deluding themselves into thinking this is how things always have been and always will be. I just don't understand it.

So yeah, I agree, I do not know how to tolerate the mundane 9-5 life. How can anyone tolerate slaving away most of their waking hours (including commute, getting ready in the morning, etc) contributing nothing significant to the world and just making their boss's boss's boss richer? They get to live a life of hedonism and luxury (Jeff Bezos only does a couple of hours work a day, most of it is schmoozing and 'networking' in fancy restaurants and cruises and such) while we have to crawl around in the sewage like rats clawing out a living for 60 years before we get maybe 5 years of retirement when our bodies are broken and our minds have declined too much to even enjoy it. By the time most of us are that age there'll probably be no retirement at all for poorer people.

I think if we lived in a world where people actually wanted change for the better, and I could be a significant part of it, then I'd want to live a bit more. But we don't, and instead we're just sliding towards fascism across the west while climate change looms over like a great shadow or, perhaps more accurately, the shadow of a great boulder about to squish us into paste.

But instead most people just work for some rich prick, they don't bother engaging with politics outside voting for status-quo or right-wing scum parties every 4-5 years, and the world keeps on turning the way it was as the unstoppable and intrinsic contradictions of capitalism sharpen towards catastrophe.

If I was somebody great and somebody special actually capable of changing the world I'd be happy. But I'm not.

 

[ForgottenAgain]

Well.. ah haha.. you kind of got me. I don't really know why I see them as forcing themselves to be in line. I guess that's a big part of this post. It isn't so much about rejecting that norm lifestyle as it is being incapable of operating within it. I do know that was what it was for me. I jumped around jobs and just kind of got sadder and more and more removed from society. Looking back it had a lot more to do with social and professional incompetence that I can only really see now that things are ending.

As for the life not average. I was a writer and an actor and was just so sure I'd figure it out. This was incorrect. And in the meantime I messed up my head pretty badly. Part of this is that me describing it as cookie cutter is ridiculous as what it really seems to be is safety and a good life. Though, you are on here so clearly there is no clear cut delineation.

I see, thank you for explaining, that makes a lot of sense. I can relate to what you said about having an artistic inclination, trying to make it work and being unsuccessful. From a young age I wanted to be a painter but as I grew up and realised how hard it would be, it started to lose its appeal. I realised I didn't want to monetise something that was so dear to my heart.

When I was younger however, I thought that anyone that wanted to be a painter and "gave up on it" professionally was throwing their lives away. That they would be forever unfulfilled.
Nowadays, I feel like having a regular life was the right choice as I can paint whatever I want on my free time and my passion isn't tied to paying the bills. Took me some years to realise that I'm not a failure if I don't turn my passion into a job.

Jobs will always feel like crap sometimes, doesn't matter if it is a dream job. If you like what you do, it is advantageous obviously, but it doesn't need to be a passion. The purpose of the job is paying the bills, bringing stability and allowing you to have the means and security to live your life as you see fit.

A creative person can have a hard time with a regular life, feeling like one should do more, live differently. I think you still can even if you have a regular job. For some, the regular jobs are also stepping stones to something different later on. For me, if I live that far, I want to use my job to pay my house and, if I can get rid of the mortgage, figure out what is the next chapter in my life. It's incredibly hard to be debt free like that but, I don't know, it's the only big thing I have right now that I can see would bring be more freedom.

 

[Crow_88]

I see, thank you for explaining, that makes a lot of sense. I can relate to what you said about having an artistic inclination, trying to make it work and being unsuccessful. From a young age I wanted to be a painter but as I grew up and realised how hard it would be, it started to lose its appeal. I realised I didn't want to monetise something that was so dear to my heart.

When I was younger however, I thought that anyone that wanted to be a painter and "gave up on it" professionally was throwing their lives away. That they would be forever unfulfilled.
Nowadays, I feel like having a regular life was the right choice as I can paint whatever I want on my free time and my passion isn't tied to paying the bills. Took me some years to realise that I'm not a failure if I don't turn my passion into a job.

Jobs will always feel like crap sometimes, doesn't matter if it is a dream job. If you like what you do, it is advantageous obviously, but it doesn't need to be a passion. The purpose of the job is paying the bills, bringing stability and allowing you to have the means and security to live your life as you see fit.

A creative person can have a hard time with a regular life, feeling like one should do more, live differently. I think you still can even if you have a regular job. For some, the regular jobs are also stepping stones to something different later on. For me, if I live that far, I want to use my job to pay my house and, if I can get rid of the mortgage, figure out what is the next chapter in my life. It's incredibly hard to be debt free like that but, I don't know, it's the only big thing I have right now that I can see would bring be more freedom.

I think you have a pretty great attitude. That's where I failed. I jumped from job to job and just rejected the very idea of a 'slave wage' job. Looking back, though, I just kind of couldn't handle it. Couldn't hang. I mean it, I really think you have a great approach. I hope things work out for you. Whatever brought you here, I hope it resolves.

I don't know how people can be happy with being mediocre. I say this as someone who is thoroughly mediocre himself.

How can you look at the world today and not conclude that it needs drastic transformation? I guess if you're born rich and insulated from the real world it's comfortable enough, but the vast majority of people alive today are not: the working-classes in the rich world, and about 99% of the global south whose lives are, from a material perspective, even worse than poorer people in the global north are.

I've always wanted to make a major difference because I want to help people and to help induce the changes that are so desperately needed, but which nobody seems bothered about. The world is going to shit (climate change, growing reactionary status quo, etc etc) and it was pretty bad before, yet most people seem to be pretty content with ignoring it and/or deluding themselves into thinking this is how things always have been and always will be. I just don't understand it.

So yeah, I agree, I do not know how to tolerate the mundane 9-5 life. How can anyone tolerate slaving away most of their waking hours (including commute, getting ready in the morning, etc) contributing nothing significant to the world and just making their boss's boss's boss richer? They get to live a life of hedonism and luxury (Jeff Bezos only does a couple of hours work a day, most of it is schmoozing and 'networking' in fancy restaurants and cruises and such) while we have to crawl around in the sewage like rats clawing out a living for 60 years before we get maybe 5 years of retirement when our bodies are broken and our minds have declined too much to even enjoy it. By the time most of us are that age there'll probably be no retirement at all for poorer people.

I think if we lived in a world where people actually wanted change for the better, and I could be a significant part of it, then I'd want to live a bit more. But we don't, and instead we're just sliding towards fascism across the west while climate change looms over like a great shadow or, perhaps more accurately, the shadow of a great boulder about to squish us into paste.

But instead most people just work for some rich prick, they don't bother engaging with politics outside voting for status-quo or right-wing scum parties every 4-5 years, and the world keeps on turning the way it was as the unstoppable and intrinsic contradictions of capitalism sharpen towards catastrophe.

If I was somebody great and somebody special actually capable of changing the world I'd be happy. But I'm not.

Things are definitely getting worse and quickly. The world definitely needs change as things seem to be getting worse. I just wish I would've somehow found a way to create a little space for peace and love for myself. That I would have been ablet o maintain friendships and some sort of position that allowed me stability.

I see, thank you for explaining, that makes a lot of sense. I can relate to what you said about having an artistic inclination, trying to make it work and being unsuccessful. From a young age I wanted to be a painter but as I grew up and realised how hard it would be, it started to lose its appeal. I realised I didn't want to monetise something that was so dear to my heart.

When I was younger however, I thought that anyone that wanted to be a painter and "gave up on it" professionally was throwing their lives away. That they would be forever unfulfilled.
Nowadays, I feel like having a regular life was the right choice as I can paint whatever I want on my free time and my passion isn't tied to paying the bills. Took me some years to realise that I'm not a failure if I don't turn my passion into a job.

Jobs will always feel like crap sometimes, doesn't matter if it is a dream job. If you like what you do, it is advantageous obviously, but it doesn't need to be a passion. The purpose of the job is paying the bills, bringing stability and allowing you to have the means and security to live your life as you see fit.

A creative person can have a hard time with a regular life, feeling like one should do more, live differently. I think you still can even if you have a regular job. For some, the regular jobs are also stepping stones to something different later on. For me, if I live that far, I want to use my job to pay my house and, if I can get rid of the mortgage, figure out what is the next chapter in my life. It's incredibly hard to be debt free like that but, I don't know, it's the only big thing I have right now that I can see would bring be more freedom.

Though, I guess part of the point you are making me realize is that even with all those things, it can still come down to suicide. There doesn't seem to be an end to it for some people.

 

[Forever Sleep]

I have a slightly different take on this because I knew from a young age that I wanted to pursue a creative career. Maybe because my Dad had done it, I didn't really see it as something that would be incredibly challenging.

However, at uni, it hit home when one of our tutors seemed delighted one day. That an ex student of hers had finally managed to quit his part time job and earn his living from working in the subject he spent likely 5-6 years learning and paying to specialise in. It was actually quite a horrific reality moment when I realised that working in something you spent years paying to study (especially if it's creative) is actually a pretty massive accomplishment. That horrified me because, I felt like that ought to be the norm! Why the hell else did we bother paying so much to learn it?!!

So, I suppose it depends what you term as 'normal'. But sure, I hated the wage slave jobs I've done. I was perfectly willing to give everything I had and sacrifice everything I needed for the chance at a creative career. I think it was still the right choice for me personally. All the creative people I know who aren't in creative jobs are, to some extent extremely frustrated and unhappy. Whether they have other 'normie' accomplishments (partners, houses, secure jobs,) or not.

So, it's hard to say whether I'd be happier if I'd focussed more on achieving the regular 'normie' things in life. Probably not though. There'd still be a part of me wondering whether I could have 'made it' in a creative career if I'd gone that route. Hard to say though.

 

[Crow_88]

I have a slightly different take on this because I knew from a young age that I wanted to pursue a creative career. Maybe because my Dad had done it, I didn't really see it as something that would be incredibly challenging.

However, at uni, it hit home when one of our tutors seemed delighted one day. That an ex student of hers had finally managed to quit his part time job and earn his living from working in the subject he spent likely 5-6 years learning and paying to specialise in. It was actually quite a horrific reality moment when I realised that working in something you spent years paying to study (especially if it's creative) is actually a pretty massive accomplishment. That horrified me because, I felt like that ought to be the norm! Why the hell else did we bother paying so much to learn it?!!

So, I suppose it depends what you term as 'normal'. But sure, I hated the wage slave jobs I've done. I was perfectly willing to give everything I had and sacrifice everything I needed for the chance at a creative career. I think it was still the right choice for me personally. All the creative people I know who aren't in creative jobs are, to some extent extremely frustrated and unhappy. Whether they have other 'normie' accomplishments (partners, houses, secure jobs,) or not.

So, it's hard to say whether I'd be happier if I'd focussed more on achieving the regular 'normie' things in life. Probably not though. There'd still be a part of me wondering whether I could have 'made it' in a creative career if I'd gone that route. Hard to say though.

So you did manage to make it in a creative career. Congratulations! That is an incredible accomplishment.

My desire to pursue a creative career came later in life. I manage to write and self publish one book. As well, some film producers were interested in me but it didnt go anywhere. It's just good to hear someone managed to put a creative career together that still comes to sites like this. What's your medium that you work in?

 

[Forever Sleep]

So you did manage to make it in a creative career. Congratulations! That is an incredible accomplishment.

My desire to pursue a creative career came later in life. I manage to write and self publish one book. As well, some film producers were interested in me but it didnt go anywhere. It's just good to hear someone managed to put a creative career together that still comes to sites like this. What's your medium that you work in?

That's really impressive that you've self published a book and have had film interest. Congratulations!

My job is fairly niche so, I don't tend to discuss it on the main forum but broadly speaking, the visual arts.

It almost feels like recovering alcoholics though- I have a friend who suffered. They don't really like to call themselves 'recovered' for fear of tempting fate and how easy it is to lose it all. I'm kind of the same with my job/ career. It's so unstable, I kind of doubt I'll ever feel like I've 'made it'.

It definitely used to be everything to me though. Art became kind of crucial as a coping mechanism for some shit in my childhood. So, I'm so grateful it's helped carry me through my life. It's an odd relationship to it though because it also kind of reminds me how maladjusted I think I am. So, any achievement isn't straight forward. It would be like congratulating someone for breaking their leg and wearing a cast for decades on end. Plus, it's given me less of a sense of fulfilment the past few years- hence, the ideation that began in childhood is a lot more forefront.

Are you planning on or working on more books? Was it enjoyable to write?

 

[Crow_88]

That's really impressive that you've self published a book and have had film interest. Congratulations!

My job is fairly niche so, I don't tend to discuss it on the main forum but broadly speaking, the visual arts.

It almost feels like recovering alcoholics though- I have a friend who suffered. They don't really like to call themselves 'recovered' for fear of tempting fate and how easy it is to lose it all. I'm kind of the same with my job/ career. It's so unstable, I kind of doubt I'll ever feel like I've 'made it'.

It definitely used to be everything to me though. Art became kind of crucial as a coping mechanism for some shit in my childhood. So, I'm so grateful it's helped carry me through my life. It's an odd relationship to it though because it also kind of reminds me how maladjusted I think I am. So, any achievement isn't straight forward. It would be like congratulating someone for breaking their leg and wearing a cast for decades on end. Plus, it's given me less of a sense of fulfilment the past few years- hence, the ideation that began in childhood is a lot more forefront.

Are you planning on or working on more books? Was it enjoyable to write?

I lost my ability to write. One day, everything was fine, and the next my ability to imagine left me. It's like my entire reality collapsed. And from there it's just been a downward spiral. So as much as I like writing, I can't see doing it at that level again. Even just typing here is nice, though. Just the act of some kind of creation brings some level of connection.

 

[Forever Sleep]

I lost my ability to write. One day, everything was fine, and the next my ability to imagine left me. It's like my entire reality collapsed. And from there it's just been a downward spiral. So as much as I like writing, I can't see doing it at that level again. Even just typing here is nice, though. Just the act of some kind of creation brings some level of connection.

I'm so sorry that you lost this. I hope it's just a temporary lapse. But yes, I can relate to it feeling like your world was collapsing. I've had multiple times in life where it was clear my creative dreams weren't financially possible. So- I've had to quit or, seriously consider quiting multiple times.

People will always try to placate you- saying you can still do it as a hobby. Pretty difficult on top of a full time job! And, they don't seem to understand that wage slavery tends to suck the soul out of a lot of people. So, you even lose some of the desire to create.

Now, it's not so much that I've lost the ability. My stuff doesn't always entirely rely on creativity. It can be fairly process led at times. Still- my enthusiasm has been waning for years now. Which can make it feel like a chore now. Which is kind of disasterous really, because it still requires so much effort to do. Effort is so hard to put in when you don't have motivation.

I'm glad you are getting something from writing here though and I'm so hoping it returns fully to you one day.