 Most people won't argue the fact that the majority of societies on this planet are sick. From rampant pollution to the comodification of all things. From greed driven fractional-reserve banking to profitable war. From paranoid xenophobia to terrorist-generating drone strikes. From billions of people suffering from propagandized Stockholm syndrome to unsustainable and tyrannical state-driven politics. From rampant homelessness to overfilled, for-profit prisons. From 4 Difficult Truths that Will Shock You into Awareness to 4 Hard Truths that Will Jolt You Awake. The list goes on and on... It's a veritable smorgasbord of ill-health. The misery of it all is that we are more or less aware of this sickness, but we don't know what to do about it. We see how rocking the boat just agitates everyone on board and causes more waves that nobody wants to deal with. But there comes a time when we say, "F$%k it! Screw everyone's delicate sensibilities. I'm going to do something 'crazy' in this sick society that doesn't realize it's a crashing plane. I'm going to put the oxygen mask on myself and lead by example."  Eccentricity is essential toward curtailing conformity "In this age, the mere example of nonconformity, the mere refusal to bend knee to custom, is itself a service. Precisely because the tyranny of opinion is such as to make eccentricity a reproach, it is desirable, in order to break through that tyranny, that people should be eccentric. Eccentricity has always abounded when and where strength of character has abounded; and the amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigor, and moral courage which it contained. That so few now dare to be eccentric, marks the chief danger of the time." John Stuart Mill. Being healthy in an unhealthy society necessitates eccentricity Sometimes in order to think outside the box you've got to flatten the box. Sometimes you've got to rise above the ill-health of it all and shout Stockholm-syndrome-shattering diatribes into a bullhorn through a gasmask while doing pirouettes on the Wall Street Bull...  So crucify conformity by capitalizing on your quirks... Embrace your own weirdness. Being eccentric is being interesting, and what makes you interesting makes you valuable. Especially in a sick society with backwards values.
Be a measure of health despite the sick society. It will drive them crazy... Like Edith Sittwell said, "I am not eccentric. It's just that I am more alive than most people. I am an unpopular electric eel set in a pond of catfish." "Our highest truths are but half-truths. Think not to settle down forever in any truth. Make use of it as a tent in which to pass the summer night, but build no house of it or it will be your tomb." The Earl of Balfour The badge of (dis)honor worn by a profoundly sick society is "having all the answers." Ironically, a sick society believes it is the best society... It raises and praises its flags with fierce idolatry. It wields its nationalism like a bludgeon, clubbing the rest of the world's nations with its xenophobia and fixed thinking. The only thing thicker than its patriotic caprice is its utter obedience to authority. The authority spews out "answers" and the hooked-on-having-masters populace, the longing-to-be-ruled statists (or royalists), soak it up without question. But an unquestioned truth makes the whole world ignorant... Unless, people learn to question authority. Which can, and will, make you seem crazy to those hooked on the answers. But the only way an "answer" can become prestigious and valid is if is put through rigorous scrutiny and circumspect inspection. Otherwise it's just the blind (conman) leading the blind (bamboozled). As Bertrand Russell said, "Have no respect for the authority of others, for there are always contrary authorities to be found." The heart is greater than money I found most of my friends quite content to be used as tax-material, even though the sums of money taken from them were employed against their own beliefs and interests. They had lived so long under the system of using others, and then in their turn being used by them, that they were like hypnotized subjects, and looked on this subjecting and using of each other as a part of the necessary and even Providential 'order' of things. The great machine had taken possession of their souls." ~ Auberon Herbert In this world of 'competitive one-upmanship,' it's "crazy" to have someone come along with the understanding that cooperation is primary and competition is secondary. People get all bent out of shape when you suggest interdependence is healthier than independence is healthier than codependence. Especially when it comes to money... This is because, in a sick society, people are conditioned to hoard things. People are brainwashed into competing for material possession, usually at the expense of other people. People are soft-wired to be codependent on an unhealthy state, which creates unhealthy codependent relationships: To include financial relationships... It's a vicious cycle that only ends when the "crazy" individual rises up with a full heart and turns the table on their own codependence, thus becoming independent in order to self-actualize interdependence. Being contrary humbles |
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