The impossibility of belonging

Subject: FW: The impossibility of belonging.

 

 

"The impossibility of belonging" a Kafkaesque concern in which we struggle to identify our singular nature with the need for the love of others.
Our nature is conflicted with a perfectly natural but selfish desire for doing what we want at a particular moment in time with often an acute conflict with what others, close to us, want themselves. This need to often subordinate ourselves runs counter to our sense of individuality and self awareness and whilst from a social aspect the ability to compromise is valued, the effect is often a diminution of ones actual potential as an individual person.
The word, 'individual' has a poor social connotation in a world where we are supposed to care for others, even more than we care for our self' and the innate sense of self preservation is often in conflict with our social responsibility.
Social responsibility is after all a learnt phenomena and our instinct are more rooted in who we actually are.
It's an interesting thought that our learnt values are more valued than our instinctive ones. In society our identification with others in the society becomes stronger as we begin to distance ourselves more and more from the essence of who we are. This is most evident in the social effect of political correctness where norms of behavior are planted according to the assumption of the greater good whilst subordinating the individual's clamour for their own individuality.
There was a time when individuality was admired, when self realisation was acclaimed but no longer as we are forced to fit a stereotype, not of our own making but of others. Surely an Orwellian provision to ensure harmony, above all else, for the greater good.
 It's never spelt out where and who defines this greater good.
Is it a ploy of 'world commerce' to identify us with some sort of algorithm and exploit our preferences and enable the market to sell to us goods it knows we have shown an interest in, or is it some sort of security modelling where patterns establish our moves and temperament so that the irrational stands out as the enemy.
The intrusiveness of the digital age where billions of bits of information gathered 24/7 construct a picture of the Mr Average and compel us to conform.
There's no place for the 'individual' in this Orwellian 1984 dysphoria and we would do well to question the premise of the social experiment which collectivism asks of us.