Of Ebbs and Flows

I've spent a long time away from my blog, having gained next to nothing in experience, but having lost a lot of time to things I'd rather have not done. Life has a weird way of dragging you along, even when you have no intention of so much as being there. Mine, though, seems to have been a tad more thoughtful; I've not been "dragged" into anything per se... But eh, it's been rather bland and dusty.

I've been noticing this trend among the youth to move toward more rebellious and dangerous pursuits, not to mention irresponsible and unnecessary ones. They also seem to have little patience in anything. I guess this has been the case all through history, but it's only caught my fancy now, because I find myself in the middle of it, and honestly, it feels weird. I'll tell you why I made the remarks I just did. I assure you, it's not half as random or out-of-the-blue as my other tirades.

My chief complaint is the increased impatience among them. Sure, it's "young blood" and what not, but I've seen my peers and I'm watching the ones now, and the one thing that sticks out is that they want the results that my dad's generation achieved at none of the effort. They want the world to serve them the goodies on a virtual platter snugly encased in their smartphones. I have complained about humans being excessively religious, yes, but I do agree that we need some sort of ideal to keep us in check and watchful of the consequences of our actions. I don't want them running scared of some spiteful guy in the clouds, but if that's what it takes to keep them from bludgeoning me to death while I'm eating my cheeseburger, so be it. But this new batch of "energetic" teenagers is more psychopathic than the guy from Psycho. They don't see discipline as a means to the achievement of greater ideals, they see it as a hurdle in reaching their comfy couches so they can sink their fat heads into fatter reservoirs of fat.

The way relationships and family are approached these days is bizarre, at best, and downright disgusting at worst. Look at all these people that can't sort out their differences and apply for divorces on all sorts of grounds, like not walking the dog on time, to name one. Whatever happened to just telling them! And kids, getting into relationships even before they can so much as spell the word, only to break up later over some obscure mode of communication, like text messaging or IM. You can almost blame it on bad parenting. The other day, I was at a shopping mall and I overheard the mother telling the kid she can't have any more Coca-Cola that day because she'd already consumed her quota of 900 calories. Such is the pathetic state of affairs that an underground market is booming in the underage gastric bypass department. Every parent wants the next Tom Cruise or Pamela Anderson, with few takers for a Bill Nye, and I can't blame them. The society prefers a round cheekbone to a working cerebrum, any day. And this, I think, is where technology went wrong. We all talk about the two faces to it: the good, and the bad. The good side has been the obvious rise in life-expectancy and confidence in healthcare; which is good, if you're building a sample group of mice for your next experiment. It's a horrendous disaster if you're looking for more innovation and relentless efforts toward scientific inquiry. By granting everyone the gift of extremely good health, we are denying nature the opportunity to choose its own path, we are removing natural selection out of the equation, and pushing our species closer and closer to being dodos...

Sorry, I flew off on a tangent there, and veered dangerously close to a conspiracy theory. I promise it won't happen again.

The norm isn't meant to be celebrated, but it does need to be acknowledged. The society's ideas of normal behavior aren't always sensible, but with the big picture in mind, nearly all of the unsaid rules in society boil down to a simple rule, which, according to me, is the first rule to survival: self-preservation. Although individual preservation seems to be contradictory, it quickly becomes apparent that societies can only preserve themselves so long as the individuals within them remain civilized. Freaks are important now and then, to hone the rules and tweak them a bit, and also for individuals to be reminded of the consequences of wrongdoing. That is how societies function, be they bacterial cultures, wildebeest herds or human civilization. We cannot call ourselves civilized unless we observe a certain norm, a somewhat rigid stance about what the society in general will be able to accept without undermining individuality.

I'm not saying don't be different, not at all! There's no fun in fingers of equal length. What I am saying is that don't be different for the sake of it. Be yourself. If yourself is a refreshing change, people will love you for it. Find satisfaction in being yourself, without needing to constantly remind yourself of the norm. Many times, being normal isn't so bad. You get more approval from people, you have a large social circle, a lot of friends who actually care and a very easy and effortless family life.

The grass is equally green everywhere.