Breaking Free

Humans are built to depend on one another. I don't care what your views are on anything, but nothing would have gotten you to the point of being able to sit here and read this other than humans. You have been raised, fed, and trained, and if you have any heart, you will try to become the best you can be. Because of this great dependence on humanity, we subconsciously feel inclined to give in to it -- to bow our heads to this great, life-giving force that subdues animals and destroys nature to the point that the sources of our air is used to wipe your butt. Humanity is beautiful, with its success and development and moral prevalence. But it is also terrifying, and controls over your life, my life, our lives, past lives, future lives, the lives of everything on this world. We are growing up in an era in which we have become numb to humanity's destruction of the world, which is depressing. But despite the fact that we can see the trees being uprooted and the glaciers melting and many, many animals dying, we fail to see how we are hurting ourselves.

Individuality is biologically avoided. Human brains are wired through evolution to conform to others, simply because to our ancestors, this guaranteed survival. However, since the 1950s, we have been molding to one another even more. A consumer-ridden society feels a certain necessity to buy what their neighbors buy and stay up-to-date on all the newest products. It isn't on purpose, but everyone who is currently meeting standards is conforming. And because it isn't on purpose is why it is so dangerous. To avoid it, one must actually defy what one feels the need to do. To make a chemistry analogy of the situation, one must first overcome the hardship of reaching the required activation energy for a reaction to tumble back into its natural, new state. In other words, we must tear ourselves away from our current state before we bounce back into a new mindset and see us for ourselves.

Clearly, this could just be avoided. Everyone could simply drift along with the current state saying "I'm good with whatever" and never think about the issues in the world. No one would be put through the discomfort of feeling like they are distancing themselves from others or like they are "weird" or "odd" or just "don't fit in." Clearly, the preferred option is comfort. However, that is exactly the issue that is hurting ourselves. It's a purposeless, unintentional suicide. Being alive and living are two completely different things.

Being alive is breathing and eating. It's waking up to go to school without any heart in it, ticking along the social clock to marriage and kids who will relive your life. It's feeling meh about everything, limiting yourself, confinement.

Living is the rush of doing something you shouldn't (because YOU wanted to, not cause your friends make it cool). Living is going to Macedonia because why not, it's falling in love in something completely atypical like Austria, it's coloring your hair like a sunset and eating octopus tentacles.

Living is doing the abnormal that your heart tells you to do. And that you NEED to do.

Question everything. Live in the way that keeps you the healthiest and happiest. Tear away from the harness of society, and snap back like a puzzle piece that finds its perfect place. Stay logical, yes. But if you FIND yourself fitting in a "social stereotype," run away. Take a breather, cut yourself out of it, and come back as yourself. Because in today's society, individuality is key for all things, and progress depends on one's ability to see all things novel.

The first step that must be overcome is simply breaking free.