These Days

I think it's sad the amount of disregard people have for their fellow man. My theories about this are that all of our technology is allowing us to accomplish things independently, making it to where, since we don't rely on people as heavily, we don't have as much a need to take their feelings or their person into consideration. Now, I guess I haven't lived 200 years, so this could be inaccurate, but as far as I can see, this makes a lot of sense.

Another reason is that we don't have to account for the things we say or do online, so people don't care about people in that respect either. I myself have fallen into being more forward online, or not responding to emails. Maybe people don't really care since an email is so easy to send. Maybe not only the receiver doesn't care, but neither does the sender.

I've always thought that the way people shut themselves into their houses, cut off from their neighbors, was a clear sign that our society was going to hell. Since people used to live in their parents house until they moved in with their spouse and created a new family, I can't imagine they had very much "alone" time. Maybe when doing their chores. So why then is it that we need so much of it now? I guess maybe people in the past needed it to think, but I feel like, more and more, people are using it to recharge themselves so they can go back out and brave the world with their polished masks on.

Another thing that's been getting to me is that people are so depressed nowadays. I mean, they have hardly any suicide rates in tribal settings because I their main existence is survival. I think THAT'S the meaning of life right there. In most larger dominant countries, though, we're just focused on our comfort of living, so now we walk around finding problems because we're all so bored.

And people feel like there's something wrong with them because we all perpetuate this standard. Everyone's supposed to be happy and content and if you're not, you need medicine. But hardly anyone is, it seems. At least most people MY age. Or at least most people my age who are my friends. So they keep it to themselves. And this just exacerbates the problem because then, on top of feeling depressed or anxious, you feel like you're the only one. Like something is WRONG, and so you go to the doctor.

I saw a lot of this among older people too, but they seem better at swallowing it. I saw it when I was a bond trader. A bunch of people who hate their lives and buy expensive italian leather shoes, and BMWs, and big houses. They give their trophy wives allowances to keep looking like a trophy. And they think, "I have the equation right....why doesn't it equal up?" Society told them that chasing the carrot equals happiness, but that's not what it really yields and they find out too late into their mortgages to do anything about it.

A lot of things along these lines have been depressing me lately, but I've been trying to think of the good in it. All of these social networking sites are trying to act as a barrier breakdown. I've been able to keep in touch with a lot more of my friends that way, and it's so easy to contact them. I try to imagine it sort of being a newage version of walking to someone's hut in your village. I thought the other day that a lot of mammals build houses, but only humans build doors. But that's more negativity creeping in.

On a ridiculous note, the next age is the age of aquarius, which is supposed to bring enlightenment, so hopefully all the bullshit that's been happening in our government will be lessened. Or maybe we can follow in Egypt's shoes......