I'm not cut out for manual labor - though doing it reminds me what humans can get used to.
Yesterday, after a darkish joke was made, a conversation started about black humor and someone mentioned how they had heard that it was common in the concentration camps as a way to cope with circumstances. I think this makes a lot of sense, as dark humor tends to face and accept the perceived reality of the situation whilst still putting some kind of positive spin on it - if there is enough will to joke, there is enough will to hope.
I think that humor is being rapidly lost in the world and it is probably due to the internet and how it has encouraged the deliberate misrepresentation of what and when something has been said to be used to punish people indefinitely. Not only that, the internet has simultaneously encouraged safe space mentality where everyone should be siloed and protected by anything that might upset them, which is anything that isn't aligned with their own thoughts or feelings.
It is incredible to think that with all the advancements we have made as a species, we don't seem to be much better at managing our emotional states. Yeah, there is probably less murder and violence in some ways than say, in the dark ages, but we still tend to find outlets for the same kind of emotional violence against others. The internet is perfect for this. What else is interesting is that the incentive to inflict pain on others seems to be getting lower as is the connection to the person we are going to attack.
Imagine back in the day with a sword or knife, it was all very personal and required close proximity to do damage - this meant that the target was either random (like a robbery on the road) or had a relationship that was close enough to warrant an attack for a slight. There was also a payoff of some sort - some gold coins in the robbery, or a problem relationship ended in the personal attack.
From the safety of their screens, people attack strangers across social media platforms that they have never had a relationship with in any way prior, and use whatever information they can possibly gather and skew into some kind of weapon to inflict some kind of pain. What is even more interesting in my opinion, is that they have no incentive to do this other than likes and stars from their "peer" group, other strangers who they have never interacted with and actually have no idea what kinds of people they are. There is something highly perverse about this and those who partake in it - people who take some kind of pleasure in hurting strangers, sadists.
The internet is a strange place when one looks at what incentivizes the interaction on social media platforms and what gets the majority of the transactions. People love drama, people love inflicting pain, people love to feel powerful - digitally. Maybe those who enjoy this side of it are compensating for a lack of attention, possibility and power in the real world where they feel like victims of circumstance, rather than agents of their experience. Lonely people who have some unsatisfied need and no way to fill it, so they "act out" against others.
I would predict that people who enjoy inflicting pain on unwilling targets are probably not the mentally healthiest among us. It has little to do with intelligence however, I assume that there are some kinds of unresolved psychological/ emotional issues that they are unable to overcome. I think there is a reason that people feel better "at peace" than angry - yet a lot of frustrated people will look to mitigate their anger through violence, rather than find peace through acceptance. Right or wrong, I believe that in general, we as a society are becoming emotionally weaker as we protect ourselves from conflict by curating experience or having it curated for us, whilst simultaneously finding unhealthy outlets for our frustrations from the protected position without physical consequence.
We are out of balance because so much of our interaction is outsourced to systems and while we feel we are getting stronger due to the support we receive, that support is actually making us weaker, like wearing a brace so that the muscles no longer have to work and start to atrophy. I think that we have been encouraged so heavily to seek emotional support, that we have become reliant on it and no longer have the emotional strength to stand on our own two feet.
When things don't go our way, we feel victimized and then, we become the aggressor to inflict pain on strangers to make us feel like we have some control. And this creates drama, moar drama. And it drives transactions and fills news feeds and articles, it gets broadcast and repeated, shared across the globe and pulls more people who feel powerless into the mix to gain back their control by attacking those who they think have wronged them in some way, even though they are strangers.
I don't see this driving society in a better direction, I don't see the individual improving themselves through this - So, who does this benefit?
One thing I love about manual labor around the house is that it is me doing it, me shoveling the gravel or hacking through the wood, and I can see the results of my work and the progress I have made. Not only that, I know why I am doing it and I know what what incentivizes me to do so, I know what I am aiming for, I know what the expected result is, I know when I have failed or succeeded. I think a lot of people interact on the internet blind to why they do what they do and likely mistaken in what they actually get out of it. The benefits are there, just not for who is doing the work.
Funny.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
