"" Bleh and Awe: Eat. Sleep. Generic. Repeat.

Thursday 23 June 2016

Eat. Sleep. Generic. Repeat.

Was watching a CGP grey video about how ideas are like a virus, which reminded me about the film Inception. An idea is like a virus, and once it sticks in your head, it gets hard to remove it. It replicates itself in your mind, and you share it via social media, its like sneezing out a flu; you spread the virulent idea.

As I lay on my dormroom bed thinking about this nice rad idea (the video was a virus itself), I was wondering about exurb1a's videos, especially "Oh hello, you're alive" and "and nothing can evre ruin this". These two were one of the most realistic things I've seen on Youtube, and it got me thinking about a hell lot of things.

Its all so fucking repetitive. Everything we do has be done with such high accuracy of similarity that is feels all to well-scripted. Like. everything. From being born, to growing up to adapting to your environment to going to school to discovering new people to hitting puberty to becoming a teen to falling in love to being fucking bored all the time to all that we do as humans till we die. If the events aren't repetitive, the way we experience and react to things are crazily similar. I mean, yes, we're human, and there exists a high degree of similarity among us, but huh? Weren't our lives supposed to be unique and individuality be worshiped like a massive God of talent?
A Shell of mass-manufactured emotions and urges? (Source: Tumblr)



Guess what, We aren't. Most of us aren't. We're just part of this gigantic herd
who copy and follow advertising, social norms and react in a predicted, expected way, but are made to believe that we are truly inspirational and individualist icons, a unique snowflake. Ha ! That's life, tickling you in the funny bone. Thats Sonder and Nodus Tollens to you. Its all psychology. You're not THAT special piece of stardust which advertising and the society around has made you believe. You're as generic as it gets.

For example take Baader-Meinhof phenomenon. If we come across a new and difficult word, like "dilatory" and find out what it means, you could be like "ah, where has this word been all my life?". But as you read more, you'll start to spot this word. Similarly, if a weird event has occured to you for the first time, you could be like "ah, this feels so unique !". But as you experience life more, you'll find that your experience was pretty common and had be felt by a LOT of people. 

"Sometimes I think I have felt everything I'm ever gonna feel. And from here on out, I'm not gonna feel anything new. Just lesser versions of what I've already felt." - Theodore Twombly from the film, Her(2013)






P.S. Check out this Quora answer  to the question "What are some psychological facts that people don't know?" to quench some of that curiosity.

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