Society & You

Good evening ladies and gentlemen

I read a lot about where ideas come from because I spend so long wandering about what to write about. It plays on my mind, impossible to ignore until i get to the screen or sat with a pen and a piece of paper. The constant companion of trying to think of something meaningful to say in a world so desperate just to say something.

The cycle of trying to fight the cloud of noise and find something you connect with or someone who sees you for who you really are and want to be is endless. It’s a hard thing these days, everybody is so connected, yet so isolated. Loneliness is a parody of life and not something people really understand, considering it’s something so many of us experience on a daily basis.

Being invisible is a funny thing, because it makes you think you’re broken. You aren’t broken, just built differently. You blame yourself because the world tells you that because if you don’t fit the mould it designed for you then you are the one that’s wrong.

I got thinking about how a lot of aspects of our culture could be explained this way.

Take this. I have 2 cars, both of them at different stages of broken, in different ways. One drives, one doesn’t. Both vastly different to one another, if they were 2 people the chances of them ever meeting would be so small it would probably never happen. One is quite small, one is huge. It’s very easy to believe those from these 2 car cultures, even if these 2 cars were living entities, wouldn’t get along.

These cars couldn’t be more different. Both have a following in society who are I’m sure very diverse, open people to loving something and a having a passion for their particular car, be it of the larger or smaller variety. Some of their cars work, some of them don’t. Some look at a broken car is a problem to be solved, an inconvenience to be irritated by, a project to be grafted on or an expression of individual creativity- even if only to be revered by the owner themselves.

The point is, in everything, the noise, the broken cars, the working cars, the big ones, small ones,- is its not dissimilar to people. They are all trying to be seen as the best at something, the nicest, the most good looking, the highest quality, most powerful. Just like people. Cars compete for your attention just as much as humans do.

My cars are broken. Some see that as stupid. “What is the point of a tool that doesn’t work?” and so on.

Point is- who decides what is the best?

Define broken

Define “not working?”

Life, as i understand it, isn’t rational, so looking at the objects and places in your life as objects, will create nothing more than that- objects…stuff. To one person a broken object is an inconvenience, to someone else is an opportunity to grow and learn a new skill. I maintain as i learn more and more about cars i relish the anticipation of the satisfaction of a car not starting, then i figure out what’s wrong and for it to start after i’d fixed it. Not because i want to show anyone, you , my friends or even myself how brilliant I am at mending stuff. No, i look forward to the pride of making something better.

Maybe that’s what our aim should be- maybe that’s what my cars would be like if they ever met. We all are so very different. We are all living entities trying to forge our own path through society in our own way. Society has always been this demanding demon to me, requiring productivity over creativity, just get the numbers on the paper and forget how well you have written them. We are all forging our own path and this will never be rational, not fully.

You think you have to compete for attention. You are only competing for your own attention. The satisfaction of making something better on a car, is how we should feel about people. We should live to make our life better and more enriching. Through this, we are able to do the same thing for other people. Those you love, those you do not understand fully yet and maybe some you don’t even know.

No matter the competition and society trying to squeeze the individual from you- its important to remember one thing.

There is society

and there is you.

Without you, there is no society.

And you are unique. If my cars were living entities, they would know that too. Just wanting to improve. Just as i think we should be. In our own way.

Yours, with love.

D. R Xx