21st Century: A World of Chaos and Confusion
Written on February 10, 2021
Many people today are stressed. They are not just anxious, they are stressed. That is to say, they are pressured. They feel that they cannot cope with the pace of today's society; they feel that it is beyond their capacities. And yet, this society is a creation, directly or indirectly, by those people. While on the one hand people often express their dissatisfaction about how modern society is, on the other hand they seem to be unable to do without it or, at least, endure it. What is happening?
Today's society reminds me of the story of Frankenstein. What is the essence of Frankenstein? You create something that you expect will benefit you and it ends up being harmful.
One day, in a small library, I was reading a small book by the famous zoologist Konrad Lorenz. The title of the book: The Eight Deadly Sins of Our Civilization (1973). In one of the book's chapters, Lorenz refers to the ability of human to adapt. The world, however, he writes a little bit later, is now changing at a faster rate than the time that it takes humans to adapt to those changes. What results, he wondered, would such a situation have? Remember, all this in 1973! How is it today, regarding human's ability to adapt, when the world has become quite complex and complicated?
Today, due to the modern means of communication as well as the greater connection and interaction between people and states, the world seems to be changing at an even faster pace than it did in 1973. Even if that wasn't true, we can at least claim with certainty that, precisely because of these modern means of communication, we are exposed to those changes and to what is happening in general much more than we did before. And that is what matters — what we see and in one way or another interact with; not what may be happening in the world without being aware of. Humans today, undoubtedly, receive much more stimuli than in the past.
If that is true, how comprehensible is everything that a human receives today, on a daily basis? What we used to perceive, till yesterday, as “the useless information of the day”,1 today seems to be the rule and not the exception.
Freud's famous phrase comes to mind: where id was, there ego should become. In other words, and very simply, try as much as you can to reduce your unconscious (which, of course, is not static and is constantly filled up and emptied) and be conscious. However, this process takes time. Moreover, inevitably, it also requires dealing with not many things or, at least, with as much as one can manage. What do we see today? People being exposed to one piece of information after another, with very superficial assimilation — if any at all. The criteria by which a thought, an event, a piece of information in general is filtered, have been distorted a lot. Everything happens on a hurry. It is like working out clumsily, without any breaks, without proper technique, without rest days, without a plan, doing one exercise after another. In fact, there is even an impression today that if you do not do this, that if you distance yourself from all those things, you will be left behind. Just like the hamster that starts running on the wheel feels that it cannot stop because it is afraid that it may fall, so, too, we end up thinking that we cannot stop.
So, I have to ask: is the current structure of the world really to our benefit? Moreover — especially in case the answer to that question is no — what is preferable: to adapt ourselves to this structure of the world or to adjust our stance towards the world and, more importantly, to design the things around us according to our own needs? In other words, do we want the human being to be a means or an end, in the sense that what we build around us should serve us instead of us serving the things around us?
However, the world today has been created — or, at the very least, is maintained — by the humans themselves. Despite the fact that this world often causes anxiety, discomfort and various other problems to people, at the same time, they do not cease to derive a peculiar pleasure by living in this kind of world. Otherwise, they would not want it. If it did not satisfy any of their needs and was only creating problems to them, they would stop maintaining it.
The human being today is in a constant state of multi-tasking. However, the human being, as he and she has been created to date, is not suited to this state; especially to such an extent. However, the temptation to continue is quite great.
When I think of the matter more carefully, I see that many people resemble a person who is in denial and tries to do everything in their power to occupy themselves with anything other than what they really want and desire or deal with the things that really bother them. That is why they turn to so many meaningless things that cause so much noise and make the world so complicated. That is why they constantly seek distractions. To confirm this, I wonder: how many people today can take a distance from their daily lives without being significantly affected? What percentage of people would feel only a justified boredom and not serious frustration, if they stopped doing many of the things they do now for a month or two? After such a period, would most people simply say “I did almost nothing of what I usually do. It is true that I did not like the last month very much, and the main reason I did not like it was the fact that I got bored” or would it bring to the surface many frustrating and usually unbearable things that the person was not aware of?
Of course, I am not claiming that everything we do is unnecessary and that we should stop doing it. There is a difference, however, between doing something because we really value it and it is the thing itself that fulfils us and using something as an escape. If the latter is true, it is probably a problem, because it never stops. You will constantly look for new things to be distracted by, because you will quickly get bored with what you are doing and thus constantly look for something new, since you are not doing what you do because you truly like it but only because you need something to keep yourself occupied.
If there is some truth in the previous lines, then much of what people do today, which make the world quite complex and complicated, would prove to be unnecessary. I actually dare to say that it may not be entirely arbitrary to go so far as to characterise the entire period of modernity as the result/symptom of a peculiar collective neurosis.
In any case, the important thing is to realise the necessity to take some distance from the things we do and think about why we live the way we do and, most importantly, how we would like to live. And, after doing that, to try to pursue how we would really like to live and start living accordingly, instead of wasting ourselves on vain and meaningless things.
At least, that is what I am trying to do. Whether others will do it too, that depends on them. In my opinion, however, it is worth it. Because, as banal as it may sound today, we do live only once. We should take care to make it worthwhile.
Further reading:
A Greek saying