I have a strange difference in the way I feel about my actions when I’m alone and when I’m around others. Alone, I almost feel less empowered, incapable to do what I have chosen to do. Say for example I choose a certain way to solve a physics problem, the way that the teacher would not have solved it. Starting along this route (because normally my feelings overwhelm me so much that I cannot finish) causes my content with life and my surrounding to disappear almost as if a warm, soothing, carefree, assuring aura is replaced by a cold, hard, uncertain, and frightening one. This latter aura had many effects on me. It can cause me to be forgetful, disapproving, extremely depressed and hopeless, etc. of anything I have chosen which is outside the group decision. Now if I am alone for a prolonged time shut away from such social dogma, I am forced to become accepting of what I think and do. This in turn forces me to have faith in my own values, he ones created by me, from my own cognitions. Instead of thinking that whatever I’ve set out for myself is definitively NOT the way the people I stereotype as successful in life have gotten there, I take pride in what I do and learn to recognize and appreciate life right now.
When I don’t appreciate life in the moment, I am usually haunted by this same cold aura which is usually undermined by expectations and plans. Say for example a plan to see friend later in the day, or receive a call from a friend, or be somewhere, anywhere, but where I am right now trying to fight this on my own. This seems like an attempted escape from fear to me, since it constitutes of strong negative feelings toward the situation and longings, almost irrational ones, which can and have caused me to perform actions I normally would not in order to achieve them; they are an infatuation. They are longings to give myself up to the power of others, allow others to control my life and tell me what do to, where to be, how to act, what to wear, what to think even. Support of this comes by the doubtful feelings I succumb to when I choose by myself, or the fearful reactions I have say when I’m breaking the school code of conduct and am called into the principal’s office. They might show a fear of rejection, because I know I’m not afraid of being punished, however I am terrified of what others will think of me once I have been punished, and how their stereotype of my personality will change.
Now I attempt to reverse this dependency on others in any way possible and live life only the way I see fit, unrestricted by others opinions, and customs. Someone once said: “What is life if you don’t live it for yourself”, and I agree. The transition is however very difficult because of the ingrained reactions, expectations, and immediate stereotypes I have developed over the years. Those reactions, most of them are not my own. Most are other’s people’s view on what’s occurring at the moment, and how they would react. And even those thought they have of the situations may, and most likely, are not of their own making, but are the thoughts implanted in the consciousness by others, similarly as they are implanting them into me. The reason I began this entry was to write the specifics of such habitual actions, but I cannot recall them now, but am hoping to later include them and reference this section for the abstract behind the situations.
These situations not only limit being, but ability, creativity, imagination, and most of all acceptance of the new and different. Every person is themselves prey to their own habitual beliefs, and cannot hope to advance himself or herself any if he or she is subject to ancient prejudices and beliefs. For what is a human who is not willing to change and adapt to new and changing situations and times? This is why humans have come to dominate the planet, because they are the best in all of the kingdoms at adapting quickly and effectively. True, as always, is that there needs to be a balance between the rejection prejudices and their use in order to achieve something practical, but it is also true that when people age they are less likely to accept the new, and will live in the old times. Grandparents are a prime example of this kind of transformation. They learn once and are open to change and development, but once they shut this down they are not willing any more to change or risk their values and morals for new ones, perhaps because of the same fear of not belonging to a classification.
It is hypocritical of people when they most times openly detest the idea of being classified into a group and labeled because they feel they are independent, but when they are given an opportunity or asked to forgo their values and morals for new ones, they reject them and say the same, they are independent when they are actually openly, but unknowingly conforming to a group standard. They fear the new values, not reject them, because of this fear of rejection, but to themselves they cannot truthfully say: “I am an X”, not without the approval of the members of the group X the belong to and usually not until someone else is the first member to propose such a classification will they admit their classification, and then reluctantly until most of the group does so. I cannot limit my being, my ideas, my life, my cognition to what others will think acceptable and I cannot feel guilt, as I usually do, when I think on my own inside of a group for fear of rejection.
It seems all of my emotions which are counterintuitive toward my own ideas occur because I am afraid of social rejection.
It is simple to give others advice that you wish you could follow yourself (Lord Henry). Parents often do this. They try to cover up their own insecurities and shame by trying to change their children into someone they wish they were. Shame never creates change (Psychologist from Oprah).
I see the topic Oprah is discussing in three different ways. If I am on my own thinking about his subject, my conclusions and reasoning to those conclusions would be prone to many doubts, and in the end I would not remember the path I took toward them partially because I feel sine they are dubious they cannot be true. If I am discussing the same topic with a group of friends in English class as part of a novel, these doubts will be gone if a majority of the group support my point of view. Thirdly, if I watch the same discussion and same reasoning as the previous two situations on Oprah, I will have no doubts about the reasoning and the conclusions, and will remember the conclusions well and for some time.
Although all of the above about fear of rejection may be true, there exists another layer of hypocrisy in humans, they cannot help themselves when it comes to expression their own opinion in groups which are less than say two or three. One will indubitably assert himself or herself as the leader because of some self justified reason through his or her own morals or values. Neither member can stand to be told how to act by the others in such a small group and will greed for power, but if the group if larger and has already formed an opinion, he or she will be afraid of the power of such an opinion. As I’ve mentioned in a previous journal entry, it is much easier to talk than listen. This concept directly applies to this situation of offering advice to problems not of one’s own when in a small group. It would be more beneficial if not wiser as the saying goes (and its based, I believe, in much experience or I could be just following another social moral, which I will not need to experience myself to prove, as I have proved others to myself. But perhaps those are only proven because I have seen them as proven based on yet other social views?) to listen to others and critically and disconnectedly give one’s own opinion, in no way influenced by the group opinion (which is extremely difficult and demanding to do) than to offer immediate solutions to any problem in expectation (this is a topic itself and dangerous; it has a separate journal topic devoted solely to itself) of acceptance and reverence by the group (which in small groups is most times unnecessary if one of the members reasons within himself or herself that they are deserving of this position and muscles his or her way pompously into a ruling position [this type of determination of an almost “divine” right can prove very dangerous in life and limb], but in large groups is much more needed as to reduce the size of the group to that having the equivalent threat of a smaller group and thus allowing for small group assumptions as above, and more)
For example, right now I know that I feel the need of acceptance and love. Humans are selfish. Being a human and selfish, I wish to join a group right now to remedy my feelings. The group will only accept me if I can benefit them in some way, perhaps with knowledge I have. Assume that I have K amount of knowledge which I can offer. I proceed to join the group and am relieved, but give up all of K knowledge to them. I come home with prejudices of the group which leave me unable to initiate anything on my own, thus I can only increase my knowledge by J amount this week because of previous habits I’ve formed for studying and gaining knowledge. Additionally, I am content and I like the feeling, so only naturally I give myself time to relax and feel the good feelings, assuring myself that this will not have any impact on my own ideas of what I wish to do. Next week I feel the same, and having seen good results in the group selfishly try to remedy my feelings again. This time I am rejected because they feel that L << K and not enough knowledge fro them to allow me to be part of the group. My mood, already depressed, becomes more sullen, and I spend three weeks at home, introverted and stuck to the TV not increasing my knowledge from L, and gaining fat F. After three weeks I realize what a waste of time this has been and what little reason I had to waste it, so I decide, reenergized to increase my knowledge L. However, since I’m out of practice my rate dL/dt is halved, but the amount of time it takes me to become discouraged from overworking and not enough social grouping is the same. After a week (as was the last time) I become aware of the same feeling, so I decide to visit the group again, thinking that I have knowledge to offer now, and feeling somewhat better about myself since I’ve gained it by myself. However, it turns out that since dL/dt was halved L < K, still, thus I am rejected again. This rejection, not only does the exact same as the previous, but creates a longer lasting depression time because I feel that my own effort are not meeting my beliefs and expectations (even though these are not set by me but were imparted on my by the group). Thus the cycle continues, lengthening my depression times, further decreasing dL/dt, and never allowing me to become again accepted into the group. Perhaps sometime in the future I gain K somehow, and am accepted at the group. When I come home I feel good, and reassure myself that feeling good will not detract any time from my gaining knowledge and continuing my life as I see fit. However the lack of practice does do just that and next week J/K!! The process restarts as above.
Now perhaps I seek another group since this one is rejecting me so often, but I still need to change my feelings of loneliness. This group is one where the prejudices say that gaining knowledge is OK, and is even encouraged. When I visit the group I not only satisfy my feelings, but I gain L greater than K knowledge. During the week I, being unable to initiate anything on my own, only gain J knowledge. Next week I feel as though I should go back to group 1 because I miss the fun old times there, and am somewhat morally bound to it, plus there is a girl I very much like to see and fantasize being with. I go, am accepted, and have more fun, but my self initiative is again drowned. The following week I only gain J knowledge again ( I’m not really keeping track of total knowledge now, so don’t take this too literally). I continue to visit group1 because, group 2 seemed “not cool” according to my group 1 morals I’ve become accustomed to (because I satisfied my feelings of loneliness). Eventually I am rejected by group1 again because my knowledge is less than K. I become depressed and spend the four weeks (3 by the TV & 1 normal one) until the next meeting. I try to join group 2 again b/c group1 has rejected me again, after only accepting me back, so I don’t feel as though I’m truly loved. However, since I’ve neglected seeing group 2 and I acted contemptuous around the members in school I am rejected. Now I am severely depressed, cannot do anything on my own to gain knowledge b/c I’m truly dependent on the groups, and am outcast from both groups. After seven weeks (2X3 of TV + 1 normal one) I decide that the waste of time was silly, and try to find a way to feel better b/c I feel much more lonely b/c I’ve spent almost 2 months alone, thus I need much more group visits to satisfy my feeling (perhaps I could call it feeling addiction, but I won’t), however my dL/dt has plummeted, I can gain practically 0 K by myself, and am not accepted by any groups. This leaves me with thoughts of suicide, which I eventually, after months and moths of agonizing brooding commit.
I shouldn’t gain knowledge only when I’m in the presence of group2, b/c they favor doing that, and disapprove of self initiative. This disapproval comes from the greed for power of people in that group who feel it is their right to be leader, having final say on issues, thus forming the group to mold to their opinion, AND to have the acceptance of the group on top of that. But I hypothesize that they will eventually become bored with this group since all of the members are followers and offer no challenge to them and will unknowingly have ruined the lives of weaker members they have rejected!
If I am going to have fun, I cannot greed fore more fun at the same time. If I do, I will try to achieve something which I did with concentration, which I do not possess b/c I’m having fun, and will not be able to do it, not gaining any of them fun I was greedy for and at the same time lowering the amount of fun I’m having b/c of the frustration during my attempt.
I’m beginning to see the two sides of my feelings which I will need to balance in the future. The depressed part comes for example when I read a solution to a physics problem from the solution’s manual, and I feel so very low because the ideas do not make any sense. Perhaps I feel this way because I think that since I do not understand them the ideas which I have compiled are useless and in no way progress toward these ideal states of solutions presented in a book (this reverence of the problems is similar to looking at people as ideal people, like the people on Oprah). The elated feelings come when I have solved a problem and wish only to feel the pleasure of solving that problem, however I also want to feel this indefinitely so I reject my previous vows and commitments to myself for this addictive state of being. Achieving this feeling is why I vow to myself in the first place.
