More vindication.
For nearly two decades, I have been espousing the harm that our media habits have, where individualism has disconnected us from each other through ever fine slices of identity to make us feel special, without doing anything. And how this has led us to be polarised across every aspect of our reality, leaving us in a constant adversarial position with everyone. We have become less patient, less attentive, and hyper-focused on how we feel, acting on our emotions before we validate whether they are warranted or not. On the "social" internet, this comes through as point-scoring against the enemy, which is anyone, no matter the harm caused, all to get a bit of attention. So I wasn't surprised to read about some of the findings in a new book (in Finnish), written by two psychotherapists and psychologists.
Speaking to a newspaper:
Nevalainen and Kaski told the paper that an emphasis on individualism and one-upmanship in the 21st century has led people to place more emphasis on their own feelings and personal rights. At the same time, they said, people's ability to concentrate has diminished — which might be why they have a tendency to be offended or hurt by others' opinions.
"People are on their mobile phones and aren't necessarily focusing on what they're doing together anymore,"
The result, they say, is that people don't listen to each other but instead focus on their own feelings and experiences.
"The connection between other people is broken."
The remedy they provided:
As a possible remedy to the problem, Nevalainen suggests that people accept that they cannot control the opinions of others and that it's important to stop and think before reacting. They said that learning emotional skills is important for both children and adults — let the other person have their say and then follow up. Kaski said the most important thing is to keep in mind that everyone makes mistakes and that no one is perfect.
Seems pretty practical, doesn't it? Except of course, that in order to develop any kind of skill, whether it be acceptance of reality or emotional growth, it takes practice. And the problem is that people are not spending their time in environments where they are encouraged to develop their emotional state or physical skills. Instead, the majority of us, many now from the day they were born, are in spaces where it encourages the antithesis of personal control and responsibility. We spend our time in digital worlds that incentivise victimhood behaviours, polarised arguments, and fast thinking.
So this is the behaviour that gets built into our habits.
And as we do more of it, it becomes the model of "who we are" and therefore, another point of identity that we feel is part of us, that we cannot affect. That other people have to accept in us, even though we are not accepting of the various quirks of other people. Our negative aspects are no longer traits to mitigate, conquer and overcome, they are things that are the reason we can't. And then we expect to have all the good things in life from people who we expect to act in accordance with our expectations of them, which happens to be exactly what we want with no consideration to who they are.
For instance, I have talked with lots of people who have "given up" on having a relationship, because they keep getting hurt in them, as people do not live up to their expectations. Yet, none of them have ever considered that they are the problem, in these relationships. It is always the other person's fault. Similar kinds of people go into the workplace and complain about their toxic bosses who expect them to get to work on time, and do their job. The gall of managers.
Everyone is hell bent on getting a "victim label" to explain why they shouldn't have to do things, that they expect other people to do. It seems that 50% of people these days identify as having autism, ADHD, or OCD. And the same people seem to apply this quite selectively, where they want to be treated like everyone else when it benefits them, but want to get special treatment when it harms them.
Pick a lane.
But picking a lane would require commitment, and commitment scares them, which is part of the reason so many of the relationships don't have a chance from the start. But, rather than taking a step back and having a look at the situation objectively, then having a look in the mirror at one's own attitudes and behaviours, the victims decide it is all someone else's problem, and the solution is up tom someone else as well. While they take a position of "independence" they are simultaneously looking for a saviour to provide solutions for them.
The irony.
Over the years (and well before writing on Hive), I have made a lot of "bold" predictions about the trajectory of human behaviours. A lot of them were "shot down" at the time because I didn't have data to back it up. But the funny thing is, the data didn't exist, because a lot of the studies hadn't been done. People seemed to assume that this meant that my predictions were invalid, but what it actually meant was they weren't yet validated. An invalidated prediction is just a hypothesis that needs to be tested, but I didn't have the capabilities to do the testing myself, so mine were all just observational and based on my own reasoning.
Useless apparently.
But it speaks to how controlled most people are, because we are constantly waiting for someone to tell us what to think, before we do any thinking for ourselves. We want to have our thoughts validated before we have thoughts. We don't want to be wrong, let alone be publicly wrong by having an unvalidated opinion, so we constantly reference the findings of others as a protection mechanism, because we can be "right" with them and if proven wrong later, we can say that we were right based on the "best information at the time".
Nope. It wasn't likely the best information.
All information is just information that can be right or wrong. For me, I am not going to wait until some psychologist writes a book before I act on what I have already observed. I am not going to wait until the government bans social media for children, before I ban it for my child. I am not going to wait for the health authority to say to limit junk food, or to exercise more, before I do these things for myself after watching people get fat, sick and unable to climb stairs from eating junk food and not exercising.
We have been conditioned to listen to authority.
But what this has meant is that we don't think for ourselves first. This means that we can blame the authority when they tell us wrong and maintain our sense of victimhood. Yet, we do not question what authority we are listening to, their actual expertise on a matter, or whether they have alternate agendas.
Who is to blame?
Take a look around at your environment, the people in it, the strangers on the street, the way people talk to each other, drive their cars, move through a supermarket. Watch people's faces when they are alone, when they are with others, when they are staring at their phone. Look at them at the gym, on the bus, and as they walk past your home. Pay attention to the world, make some predictions, and
change your fucking life.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
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