Can't tell which way is up anymore

I've been feeling increasingly jaded lately. The world is in such a strange and confusing place right now, and I don't know what there is to do about it. The political game that runs the world seems like it's headed straight for mass destruction, and the psychology of people in the modern western culture is reverting to elements of tribalism. What's an average person supposed to do? My experiences with pain and struggling have taught me so many things about being grateful and empowering myself, but I just can't help feel more and more every day that the forces at work that disempower me are winning. I have all of these philosophies about how to be a good person and how to share that knowledge that almost haunt me now. What am I even trying to do here, writing this confession? What good is it really going to do? Who is it going to affect besides me? My understanding of the world tells me that it's easier to find solutions when you're more aware about the elements of a problem. Communication is the most effective mode of directing awareness, so here I am, hoping that saying something will lead to a path I didn't see before.

I'm a "big picture" kind of person - to a fault, often. I know a lot of people might read this and tell me that I'm putting too much weight on my shoulders, I just need to help the people that I can around me. And they're right. I don't do enough of that either, but I guess that just doesn't do it for me though. I want to see that I'm actually making an impact and setting the world on a better course, but it really seems like it's going downhill no matter what I do. We have war, overpopulation, and disease hanging over our heads, despite it seeming like millions are blind to these issues.

The scariest thing to me is the ideologies that are at war now. I guess a lot of it can be boiled down to "left" vs "right", though there's also the capitalists vs the communists, the radicals vs the centrists, comrades vs fascists, individualists vs collectivists, ugh the list goes on. People aren't just ideologically polarized about politics though. Some people are worried about whether they're cool or not, or beautiful or not, maybe about being too friendly or too cold, whether they coddle their kids too much, whether they're a productive member of society. People cling to this binary type of thinking in terms of purpose and existence. Not just about themselves; it's normal to just categorize the people you meet into those that are either philosophically aligned with your "primary beliefs" like the ones above and those that aren't. Of course this isn't always discussed at length, being agreeable is favored, and people's conceptions of belief, morality, etc. can vary wildly. On top of that, we live in a rather tame society where most of the time, most people are safe from harm and political persecution, so deep philosophy isn't always a "primary belief" in many social contexts. That's why we can end up being friends with and defending people we don't really align with while, from a distance, condemning others acting or thinking the same way.

Where do these binary beliefs come from? Is it something in our genetics? Is it something we're taught by our culture? Is it fundamental to the universe? I could easily believe it's a little bit of all three of these things. The study of formal logic and computer science is based in binary. True or false, on or off, yes or no. Not only can we breakdown just about any type of information into digital code, we can diagram arguments into large tables of what is basically binary code. As far as human objectivity can go, these studies show that binary code works at a fundamental level in our universe. But we're not computers or entirely logical.

As far as genetics and evolution go, we've been selected for at least a few things that might play into this type of thought. The first thing that comes to mind is the way that people see their social status as a part of their survival. Obviously, social status is and has always been relevant in terms of survival, but it's changed how it works quite a bit over time. In prehistoric societies contributing to basic survival needs and engaging in the people's mystical beliefs and rituals ensured that you remained "in" the group. It could be illogical, and it was often brutal. Today, things are just strange. There's levels and levels of groups to be in or out of. People's survival needs are overwhelmingly met better than any time in history, but social status still has a huge bearing on people's happiness and behavior. We have a deep desire to be in with the people we think are right or good. As far as whether we're enculturated into this belief somehow, it would make sense if it's been a prevailing psychology in humans. We've found ways to organize ourselves productively with this mentality and so we keep teaching what we know works.

Maybe this isn't really how most people are thinking, but it certainly is how things are framed in the news and movies, and when I scroll through social media I can't help but see it everywhere. Maybe I'm just a crazy pessimist, I really hope so. It just appears more and more to me every day that people only really care about themselves. I'm one of them too. I'm by far mostly concerned with my happiness. Sure, I want my partner to be happy, my family, my friends. But I only want that cause I'm the one who will be upset if they're not happy. At least I make a conscious attempt to break away from the polarized mindset. Why is it so hard to see ourselves and each other for what we are?

How did everything get so complicated? Is this what growing up is? When I was a kid I thought losing your innocence was something that happened when you first had sex or maybe when you really became responsible for your actions or something. When I reflect back, it's really hard to tell where it dims into non-existence along the way, but I think it happened at some point when I started to truly be aware of bad things happening around me and didn't do anything about them. Whether I didn't care, was afraid, or didn't have the time. We're all seeing evil things happen in the world today, but we just carry on with our lives and wait for the person whose job it is to fix it comes along. We know the best way to help with issues like hunger in the world is to organize effectively, not just show up in Africa alone attempting to feed people right? Well that might be true, but it's a truth that keeps us complacently unhelpful, and leads to our guilt in the matter, and consequently our loss of innocence. Or at least my guilt. I can feel it weighing me down constantly.

Rereading this now, I see my thoughts are pretty scattered, but I see some shreds of continuity here. I'm sure someone will find value in what I'm saying.

Thanks for reading

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