What is the motive for the modern human?

November 13, 2016 12:34 AM

This will be a bit stream-of-consciousnessy but bear with me. Mostly I just want to gripe about the state of affairs. I am sure none of you are feeling the same. I feel an odd apathy not rooted in consumerism or ignorance but rather a desire for something different. I read a book called Travels with Epicurus by Daniel Klein and it took my Feminism to a new level. Not only have we inherited a slave driven capitalism but we have all but forgotten how to be okay with ourselves. Maybe we never knew how. I ended a long term relationship early this year, tried another over the Summer, and have recently posted on a dating site. I notice how much we are simply trying to fit our cultures definition of success and its notion of what makes a valuable human being for each other. Ram Dass put it best, "In most of our human relationships we spend much of our time reassuring each other that our costumes of identity are on straight." And so I wonder what it is I am wanting. What would it actually be like not to be with someone for egotistical purposes. Most of us probably think we're above such superficialities but you wonder if we're really more than peacocks. At the core of this rant is simply the feeling of being alone and while I hope it's more than simple projection, it might just be. At the end of the day I just want someone to love me and not only believe I am okay to be around but function from such a lens of positivity that they see how much I've got. I'm making this about me but lets extend it out. What if we looked at everybody and immediately saw how amazing they are? Not in a pollyanna way but like, "Wow you're super logical and analyze things really accurately, that's so cool. How does that come in handy at work or with people?" Or maybe, "Damn, you're super emotional and you speak to it with such self awareness. How's it been feeling this deeply all the time?" You know, just spending more moments initially finding a positive and not reducing someone to whether or not they are of value to us. Sometimes the only reason I want to pursue grad school is to find a partner that has. That's it. I literally want to meet a stable, intelligent woman and I know my odds go up if I go to grad school. How fucked up is that? Not only that I want to go to grad school for that reason but that I think you have to have done so to be stable and intelligent. Yuck. Fucking yuck! Slavery. We are slaves to a historical trajectory that chained our spirits to arbitrary notions of value and it is the most pervasive thing. And when we don't uphold these standards we find ways to ostracize, belittle, and gaslight each other. One must be crazy not to function from the norm of utilitarian production in all things. I long for something different to be the all encompassing mechanism of human function but what would it be?

What is the motive for the modern human? Modernity in retrospect, what are we doing and why? I want to know why we even go about living and if we can begin to own our historical trajectories.

posted by AdjectivePanda to Society & Culture