Just some random thoughts from today about life in general. I haven't done any studies and I'm just going to ramble about what I think, which isn't really out of the norm.
Every individual is born in a group. If it's just the mother and father, it's still a group. If it's a single mother with no father around, at one point, there still was a group. A child cannot be created without the "group." I remember as a child one of the rituals to becoming a Weeblo was the three sticks (representing the kid and his parents). One cannot stand alone, two cannot stand, but three can be balanced.
We are born into this life and if we're lucky we end up part of a family. We spend the rest of our lives creating new relationships with people we know of as our friends. Some of our friends are brief, some last a lifetime.
Sidenote: I remember Doug writing something about this (reference to types of people in our lives) a while ago, if I can find the link I'll post that.
We all travel this road and make choices. Ultimately, on some level, we are alone, but the whole time we're constantly creating these friendships so we can share this life we've created. Sometimes we become more than friends and have a mutual bond that is friendship, but much deeper. Regardless of the type of relationship, these people create who we are as people.
Here's where I start to get confused. Society (at least from my perspective right now) seems to be turning away from this. The individual is the important piece. Work hard and achieve what you can. You don't need help. I don't mean that society is telling us to abandon others, but there's a perspective that we MUST be independent.
I understand the need to be able to do for oneself, take care of oneself. But is there a problem with leaning? Asking for help? After all, we create friendships specifically for that purpose.
Somewhere along the way we question our existence or our purpose. Everyone wants to hope that at some point in time, after we're gone, we'll be remembered. That in some way we've created something that somebody else will remember. Most of us will never be famous musicians, actors, or authors, so all we can hope for is that those people that we called our friends will remember us and who we were. I find it ironic that we will try to accomplish things independently, but the only way it will have any meaning after we're gone is if somebody else remembers. That someone else are our friends.
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I may try to clean this up. I just read it (first draft, as always), and I see where it needs some serious editing, but I don't have time right now. Sometimes it's just best to just get the general thought down. I hope it at least made some sense.
Comments...
DB wrote
4-17-2008 @ 19:30:04 (PST)
Exactly
This is, more or less, a point I was making in a rhetoric of political theory class the other day. Our existence is not autonomous, and hyper-individualism is a trait that is tellingly seen only in those already well off. I'm not trying to make this a socioeconomic point, but a more general statement of agreement that not only is hyper-individualism a dangerously flawed theory of human existence, but one with far-reaching implications that run counter to the way society has been and should be organized, even if there does seem to be a trend away from it.
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