(no subject)

[lupagreenwolf]

There's a quote going around Tumblr right now from Frank Zappa:

If you end up with a boring miserable life because you listened to your mom, your dad, your teacher, your priest, or some guy on television telling you how to do your shit, then you deserve it.

No one deserves or is entitled to anything. However, this is a really callous, judgmental attitude in this quote.

When we’re young, we look to the adults in our lives for guidance—it’s not just choice, it’s human instinct. Young mammals ALWAYS look to their adults to learn what the world is about. They have no other frame of reference.

If a young person is mistreated or fed a particular set of social norms and mores, and that’s all they ever have access to, and they don’t know that it’s possible to have alternatives—and especially if from a young age their sense of curiosity is crushed repeatedly—then they may end up like the person in the image above. If they’re raised, from a young age, with the idea—and examples thereof—that not conforming is a risk too great to take, that taking risks is so unsafe that it’s life-threatening to even try, then that locks into basic survival instincts.

Finally, there’s trauma. In some families, abuse and other traumatic events are used, whether consciously or not, to keep people “in line”. Or it’s simply arbitrary. If a person is traumatized, especially repeatedly, from a young age, that can affect the very way their brain is hard-wired, particularly the limbic system (fight or flight).

So you know what? It’s not as simple as Mr. Zappa would have one believe. I see a lot of counterculture people use this quote as an excuse to feel all superior over more mainstream people—and yet it’s bullshit. Adhering to some counterculture ideal without critically engaging it is just as sheep-like as the image of mainstream adherence they rail against.

You want to be truly revolutionary? Try compassion. Try thinking—believing—breathing—what it’s like to be someone else, especially someone who’s nothing like you. Do that, and then maybe you can talk about nonconformity.

Comments

[sidheblessed]

I couldn't agree more. I find the kind of attitude spouted by Zappa is all too pervasive in our society, even in otherwise compassionate people. There's an idea that everything we do is solely down to us, and people's treatment of us or the lesson the adults we trusted when we're young imparted, should have no effect. If we did "let" (I don't see how young people have a choice but to be effected) them effect us or acknowledge their role in our early decisions, well we're just immature and have a bad attitude. We're just blaming our parents for our own mistakes. Like you said, it's not that simple.

You want to be truly revolutionary? Try compassion. Try thinking—believing—breathing—what it’s like to be someone else, especially someone who’s nothing like you. Do that, and then maybe you can talk about nonconformity.

Exactly!

[brushwolf]

Yeah. Where my life is boring and miserable it's because of 30+ years of the USA being systematically dismantled to the point that financial prosperity just isn't there. While I live with a certain amount of fear and self-loathing thanks to internalizing stuff that happened to me, I don't quite think I can take credit for Reaganomics and everything that followed.

[moonvoice]

Compassion is harder than just putting the onus on the blame on everyone else and then dismissing the issue. A total shame, and so many people are like that. :/

[brock_tn]

Thank you for writing this. I hope you won't mind that I've added it to my Memories list: I think that it's that important that I want to be able to find it again in the future.

Compassion. Yes, it's the human trait we so often seem to spend the least time cultivating. And yet it is in many ways the most important trait for us to possess if we are ever to achieve a truly just society.

Old Frank missed the mark by a good bit, if you ask me. Because if I've learned anything in 19 years of working as a priest it's that people, (or at least, nearly all people,) have to learn to make their own choices. They have to learn that they can make their own choices, and they have to learn how to make their own choices. And before they do that, they have to come to some understandinng of their own worth, their own value. Because if people don't see themselves as having worth, as being valuable, they are less likely to make good choices for themselves. It is part of compassion, I think, to learn to see value in others, and then to help those others see themselves in the same way.

+1

[thejeopardymaze]

The problem with so much of the counterculture is the fantasy that everyone can have complete control over their lives.

Despite some of my annoyances with the traditional astrology community, at least there is an allowance for the belief that life really isn't fair. My chart clearly shows most of my success in regards for what I want to accomplish will be later in life, which I now accept. Many out there are much worse, so I am lucky in comparison.

[laughinglotus]

I agree that not all the responsibility is owned by the hypothetical individual who is leading an unsatisfying boring life. I'd say for someone who is 20 and has experienced say a very strict religious upbringing is not fully responsible for being a fundamentalist, for example. Having said that, I think there is a point where a person does shoulder most of the responsibility. What that point is, I don't know. I think what matters is that individual try to get to a better place than where we were. Of course, genuine self reflection and genuine changes take time and effort, and this is where the compassion comes in.

You are right that many counter culture people are very quick to just blame the "mundane" people. It's a form of snobbery.

I completely agree with your remarks about compassion. Having compassion for those unlike ourselves is truly revolutionary. It's leading by example, and this takes introspection and work on our part. It's easy to say what others should be or do, much harder to lead by example.