Well, if you are familiar with me, you might also be familiar with my usual philosophical topics about self, void and nothingness. Today I will not go deep into philosophies of self, but I will talk about the daily alienation one feels psychologically in the modern-day. I as a result of this confirm and declare “Death of Self, in modern day”. Day by day we lose ourselves, and one day there won’t be us anymore.
Death of Self internally
Well, this is something that happens internally. It begins right when you join a school or any ‘conditioning’ institution. What these ‘conditioning’ institutions do is preach morals that are generally accepted with no practical evidence. These prejudices exist to create a particular standard in the children’s brain. Schools exist to make this child into a product that won’t complain about running in the chase of money. It is true that schools also educate children and make them rational, but the disadvantages outweigh this advantage.
Somehow the morals, ethics and values that these school fix in the minds of children creates a fine line between what they desire and what they should do. Thus begins the alienation from themselves! They differentiate between desires and reality. They control their passion, likes and interests and follow up other people in the wild goose chase of money. I remember many teachers saying “passion is talk of an incompetent fool, competent people work hard for money”. Since then, whatever desire we get, we compare it with the preached morals and suppress them if they do not meet the societal standards. This suppression goes on throughout life; we consciously alienate ourselves.
Death of Self externally
Of course, school is an external factor, but it acts fundamentally to create this internal alienation. External factors, there are numerous things to speak about them. I will only talk of things that I have personally faced, so if that doesn’t seem like a factor of alienation for you, then it just means that you have a different external factor than I. For me, the most prominent external factor that kills me every day is people! People decide what I should do with my everyday life. And in turn, in their lives, it is someone else that decides for them.
Some factor keeps me from doing the things I like. For suppose, if I wanted to spend my weekend on the couch, doing nothing, there comes an external force that pushes me out in the form of people. Sometimes an empty fridge causes this force to push me out, buy some vegetables. Sometimes it is a friend who felt lonely because he had seen some photos of his friends on Instagram. He saw that they were hanging out, and thus he decides to hang out with me forcing me to spend the day hanging out with him rather than on my couch.
This ‘friend’ analogy is merely an example of how little the problem yet how big the consequence would be. This small act of his can make me do something against my desire to lay on my couch. And these little acts, when repeated, may make me feel alienated from myself. I might feel out-of-control left choiceless.
External yet, grand scale!
The grand scale, the primary alienation that comes externally, is from the morals. They might be the ones that the schools fed you, or your guardians did, or you learned them yourself from a preacher or other sources. When you believe these prejudices, you begin to judge yourselves. You begin to feel guilty if you have done something selfish. It is almost as being selfish is an evil thing. ‘Selfish’ is now a negative term! Preachers push their ideas of ‘selfless’ and kill your self with their judgements.
A white-bearded weirdly-clothed guru tells you that you should not masturbate and preserve your energy. He calls your lust evil and tells you that you are a devil. If that impacted you: if you took him seriously, then you are going to feel guilty whenever you committed the act. The acts that you do for someone else, charity, help and favours have become a business. This favour-giving business makes people think they are great because they have done something that is not selfish.
Unselfish and Selfless!
Little do people know that a genuinely unselfish act is not selfless. “Selfless” doesn’t exist! There is self in everything you do, without self you do not live. The self is nothing but you! The death of self is the death of you. All these preached morals, norms, white-beards and conditioning institutions want you to kill your emotions, desires and passion in the name of civilisation. “Instead of buying a thousand dollar phone, you could have donated it!” they will tell you. You could have also bought a thousand one-dollar-candies, but that is not what you wanted. All you wanted was a phone; you bought it! It is your money; you desired it; now enjoy it! Let no external factor kill yourself!
I’m not preaching you immoral; I’m telling you that it is okay to be amoral instead!
Penfluky 