Random Musings

I have a habit of going off on tangents, and so too today... There is something about a tangent - it is always more interesting than what you are currently supposed to be doing or thinking about. And even if you don't actually come off the tangent feeling empowered, while you are on it, everything feels great.

The correlation to drugs is fairly obvious - because even if a drug is something which is socially frowned upon (while also being what binds people together socially), it is essentially an escape from pressures that we (and others) put on us.

So, we can escape by knocking ourselves out (metaphorically) or we can do it by shutting off the "MUST DO NOW" thoughts and concentrating on something wildly different. In the end, once the effects of the delusion wear off, we end up feeling worse than when we started. To be honest, this doesn't actually serve as an antidote for repeating the process over and over again - quite simply because in any experience we tend to hold on to the positive aspects rather than the negative side-effects. Call it survival technique, or something, if you wish.

While we all have a habit of internally revelling in the positive aspects of any experience, the majority of us take a lot of joy in concentrating only on the negative side-effects when we narrate the incident to our peers. I am not sure why, but for some strange reason it all tends to point back to the social acceptance rule book, which states:

1. Thou art no better than anyone else.
2. Thou shalt not indulge in pretenses which might make your peers perceive that you are violating rule 1.
3. Thou shalt not share thou joy frivolously, since doing so may violate rule 2.
4. It is acceptable to be a failure.
5. Thou shalt communicate sadness and misfortune to your peers, as this will affirm your adherence to rule 4.
6. Whilst thou shalt not violate these rules, it is your responsibility to ensure that your peers also adhere to said rules.
7. ...

And so on. It is all a load of tripe. However, it is tripe that has been successfully ingrained in each and every one of us as we have been assimilated into society. To break away from this inherent structure is not simple, because you will have the frowning eyes of society staring at you with displeasure.

It is possible to break away, and it is possible to have a more balanced view of life. Whether it is accepted or not, life is full of experiences which have one thing in common - we can learn something from them. The path to learning is not always a walk in the park (or maybe it is - depending on where said park is situated) and while we may come out the other end of an experience with a few more bruises than we had before, we are somewhat closer to understanding how everything fits together.

I think that I need to move off on to something different. However, what I did find earlier, when I started my tangent was the following: Information Overload

Not necessarily the type of reading that exudes sunshine and happy thoughts, but still - very interesting.