#sorta spiraled into me realizing how self-absorbed we really are in western society and online

[salix-triandra]

Thinking about how crazy it is how far we’ve actually come away from a collectivist society and how individualistic we all actually are, even though we don’t want to admit it. 

So much of the "self care" rhetoric that cycles around Instagram and Twitter advocates for “you doing you regardless of what the people around you think or say about it.” And, within reason, that’s fine. 

“You gotta stop doing things that don’t make you happy. Stop doing those things, stop interacting with those people,” and that’s fine…. within reason. You see where it can begin to get dangerous? 

“Happy” is an emotion, not a state of being. You being polite to someone you don’t really like very much is not a thing that inhibits your ✨growth✨, it’s not stifling you in any way. Sure, it’s a social nicety, which is performative, but we need those. Do you not appreciate smiles in a hallway, the holding of the door, a greeting of ‘hi, how are you,’ even if it’s often emotionally empty (we notice the lack of them, don’t pretend you don’t feel a bit offended when someone doesn’t greet you)? 

When we uphold this sanctity of self as the end-all, be-all, taking the “This life is mine and for me alone to enjoy” attitude so far that we don’t go through at least a few motions for the betterment of another person’s day… no wonder we’re so lonely. No wonder. We’ve decided being frank and blunt with those around us is somehow more respectable and good for us than being polite and socially delicate every once in a while.

Don’t let people mistreat you, stand up for yourself when it’s necessary. But this whole thing of bowling people over, making them uncomfortable in the name of ��what, I’m just being honest”… You know how we talk about our own boundaries? I think we forget that other people have them too. Respecting those boundaries isn’t being weak-willed, it’s just being empathetic.

(This started when I thought about Victorian mourning practices and how no one is given an opportunity to publicly grieve or be accommodated for their pain nowadays. Then I thought about how we do this thing now where being ‘nice’ or socially performative is demonized as inauthentic, and it sort of spiraled into me realizing how self-absorbed we really are, in western society and online, and lacking in collective empathy. I also believe it’s bled into the privatization of all sorts of services that should be public, like healthcare, and why people are often imprisoned instead of rehabilitated. “Why should you care about these people? It’s their problem, not yours.” Well… is it so hard to ask that, if it were your problem, wouldn’t you want someone else to care about you?)