20 Oct 2003 @ 11:02, by Andy Lehman
Huh, well for today I just have to say that the suggestion that a way of life that works for someone has to work for the entire world is absolutely off the mark. I know it's the prevailing wisdom in some circles that there must be a single right way that everyone must be forced into living, whether it works for them or not, but, fascinating little fact here, people aren't all the same. A method that works for one person may very well not work for another. And so long as that method does not try to control other people's lives by force, that's absolutely fine. In fact, it's one of the best things in the world. "Freedom", I rather thought, means that you can go and live in a way that works well for you, even if it's not the same as the way everyone else lives. You know, it's the crazy idea that we don't have to be like everyone else and that we can live in any way that respects the freedom of others to do the same. Some would say that "society", the "normal" way of doing things, holds eternal and absolute authority over the life of every human being, that we may live our lives in that context, and no other, ever, and that if you don't just jump for joy at the thought of being regulated and ruled by "society", there must be something wrong with you, because the only context that will ever be workable is the one of the society that exists at this moment. Supposedly, if something doesn't bow down to that context, it is destined to wither; as if that "society" were some kind of limiting absolute by which all humans MUST exist.
It's the idea that to live any differently requires the approval of everyone on the planet, or of anyone, for that matter, other than the person whose life is being lived differently, no matter how many people the universal, "societal" way of life does NOT work for, no matter how many lives that particular society smashes or wastes with its petty games, and that all any human being could ever want out of life is a car, a house, and a job, and that once they have those things they should just shut up and be happy, but ALL of that is just really REALLY wrong. If society at large can't handle the fact that it does not speak for the whole of humanity, that its games are not absolutes, that its prescribed methods do not work for everyone, and that people are perfectly free to walk away from it if it doesn't work for them, and live their lives in a way that's meaningful to them (WITHOUT being enslaved by the insane notion that they are responsible for finding a way of life/"method" that works for the ENTIRE world, which is probably and hopefully impossible), then said society probably belongs on the evolutionary trash heap.
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