I find myself not usually feeling angry. The reasons for my suppression of anger are pretty simple, or so I’d like to imagine. I found that my father was a very angry man at a very young age, and because of seeing how he acted, I then did not want to reflect his actions. We take after our parents, but in similar ways, we can take different qualities and aspects of different parents, and not only this, we can totally go against the grain, if we feel so inclined at an early enough age. Anger is something that I rarely feel. This could be due to the fact that I don’t want to scream, yell, or act in a destructive way, or because I don’t want to act like my father, and arguably my mother in many cases. However, when I do feel it, something must have impacted me strongly. My problem with anger is that I almost always view it as something irrational. My association with it causing destruction is not at all faulty, in many cases, this happens, however, it is a matter of what is being destroyed that can either make the anger justified or unjustified.
When I perceive people being angry, it’s usually anger as a result of something, at least in my mind, that I would consider small. An interaction with someone that pisses them off, or a video game, or some slight inconvenience. Yes, I do feel some amount of aggravation in many of these circumstances just the same, but I keep it internal, and it usually dissipates quickly. Maybe as a result of the people that have surrounded me, the medias I’ve consumed, and the ideas I have accumulated, I have now, more than ever, become a person that is focused on anger that can be rationalized and understood, and because it can be, it is prolonged and not immediate, and so the actions caused by that anger can also be justified.
I have a tendency to joke about people with people. How I think certain types of people should be treated, generalizing, and other types of chatter that isn’t to be taken seriously. I think that’s okay, but I want to push that aside for a moment. As I genuinely don’t think any of those things, and I don’t think they should be noted as indicative of my true feelings and beliefs. I think all man is equal, however, not all actually think this way. Some men believe they are above others, and some men want to abuse others, and so they do. This abuse that man does to man is what makes me not only feel anger, but also sadness. It comes in so many different forms, but the human being wants to obtain more, become more, and it doesn’t care what has to be sacrificed as a result of this. My fellow man being abused by something or someone makes me angry in the circumstance that the man is not aware they are being abused or that they believe they cannot create change to stop that abuse.
No one wants to be abused. No one wants to be used. No one wants to be broken down. When I say these statements, I don’t literally mean every single person actually thinks and feels in congruency to these statements, however, that doesn’t make it acceptable. Someone wants to be abused because that’s all they know, and if that’s all they know, they’ll want to continually seek it out. If they don’t know better, they will be used time and time again by all those who want to take advantage of them. Some will not create stable lives because they have not been in a stable environment, nor have they been around stable people, so they can’t quite understand what it means to have a tower standing, and whenever they start making their tower, either they or someone else will break it down. I believe that man has always been abused by man, however, the ways in which this happens changes, and those who want to use and abuse others for their own gain will always find new and sneaky ways of doing so. There has now reached a point where I find ourselves sinking only deeper into grounds that will be far more difficult to dig ourselves out of than we might want to accept.
Many of us, and especially those in a position to read or listen to these words, are not considered a serf, but instead, an individual, a person who can choose to do what they wish to do. This person, you, can learn about anything, take that information, and then use it for action, whatever that action might be. Yet, you can also not learn anything, and not do anything, in the same way that you can choose to do or not do. Something perhaps not realized for many is that, unfortunately, we have been born into a world that simply wants us to not do. By world, I mean not simply a single government, or a single individual, or even a group of individuals. It is much larger than that, and it is not something that has been exactly orchestrated by strokes of intelligence. However, it doesn’t matter, because what matters is your agency, and your ability to act, and what you choose to do with that power, because whether you like it or not, you can do what you want, where you want, whenever you want. It doesn’t matter if there are laws forbidding you from doing the thing. If you want to do it, you will, even if there is a cost associated with that action.
This has to be said because, well, if you didn’t notice already, it isn’t something exactly preached. Maybe in some circumstances it is said, but only as a means to make you realize you can act, but only in reference to some sort of movement relating to the one who provides you this awareness. It commonly is used as a means to manipulate, and if others spread such information that such things happening, to others, it can be noted as signs of someone who wants to cause harm. Others who are unaware will distance themselves from that type of information, and those who spread it. Even if that isn’t the case, it might have been you were taught or made to believe the opposite; that you don’t have your own agency, and that you can’t do what you wish. Maybe friends told you this, your parents, or maybe in media, but this is fortunately a lie. Why would anyone lie about something like this?
The lie can come from ignorance, comfort, or out of malicious intent. In my case, it was ignorance on my parent’s part to believe that one could not live outside of a rural area, and that it would beneficial for me, and everyone else it seems, to stay in isolated areas with very little job opportunities in order to have the best chances of living. If you couldn’t tell, this doesn’t make any sense at all, and they were probably told the same thing, then began to believe it, and went on to share that information with others who then agreed with them, and then the belief became so ingrained that the chances of their belief changing became about zilch. Comfort resides in the idea that, if one wanted to make change, or push themselves, or yearn for something outside of the box they’ve been placed in, they would then experience pain. This might have some truth to it, but not everyone is okay with staying in a box forever, some might be, but that need for comfort is something that we’ll come back to. Malicious intent is usually what people, in this type of conversation, would consider manipulation via the media or other “powerful people.” Being told you don’t have the power to change things over television, radio, or the internet, is probably done out of malice, so that you, the ant in the eyes of the ones who want to use and abuse you, don’t step out of line. A slave who does not work when told is a useless slave.
Comfort is a luxury these days. Being able to live comfortably, not even having to leave your house for food, is quite a big deal. No, obviously this is not accessible to all people, nor even the majority of people, but it is only increasing. More people are able to obtain comfort than ever before, but that doesn’t mean they’ll be able to maintain it, nor does it mean something positive for people in general. The problem with being comfortable is that it promotes complacency. If you’re comfortable, why would you ever want to change that? You wouldn’t, you would want things to stay exactly as they are. I think this alone can give some perspective as to how problematic something so simple as being comfortable could potentially be. When you’re feeling good, you want to keep feeling that way. When you don’t have to do anything, and you don’t feel the need to do anything, then you probably want to hold onto those feelings for as long as possible too. Is it not the slightest bit odd or worrying that more and more people are obtaining comfortable lives, and upon doing so, staying within their realms of comfort? If they don’t feel like their comfort is being threatened, why should they care about anything that might be going on in the world? Why would they care about what services they use? Why would they care about what is happening to their fellow man? Well, they probably won’t, and this is the problem with comfort. Once you get comfortable, you stay comfortable, and if everyone is comfortable, then arguably, everyone is very much docile.
Yes, in the face of comfort, we have the capability to continually push despite being in that state, and then we can fall back on feeling safe and okay again, however, the average person cannot be trusted to do this. Not that they aren’t capable, every single person is capable, however, they have to be told they can do it, and that they should do it, and perhaps even manipulated in such a way to believe this is the case. The idea of manipulating people sounds terrible, and it truly is, but what is much worse is what is happening now, in the present. That same manipulation is happening, but in the most opposite ways; instead of getting people to do things, the messages spread that your average person consumes is doom and gloom, in order to make them feel or think they are powerless, so that they might hide away in their comfort, never striving for more or questioning how they got into such a position of comfort in the first place.
I believe that through the media people are exposed to, the things they learn in school, and the things they learn from other people, individuals are straying farther away from action. It might not be so obvious, because unfortunately, this isn’t something that started yesterday, or ten years ago, or even twenty. I would find it quite difficult to exactly pinpoint when it did begin, but it doesn’t matter exactly when, however, what does matter is that, it has been happening long enough that many manipulative and destructive ideas that were spread via propaganda to your parents, or their parents, or even a generation before that, are now ingrained in them, and are shared with you, and also shared in media. People like to believe they are the creators of their ideas; however, this is simply not the case. Your ideas are from things on the outside world, because the you, the ego, the “I,” is only what you have been accumulated as. You didn’t choose to be you, no more than anyone chose to be them, and just in the same way, you didn’t choose to think the things you do. I’m no different, however, with awareness and time, you can start finding the ways you have been influenced to think in the ways you do, and if you are capable, then being able to change or alter those thoughts.
It is only getting worse; the idea that you don’t have agency or the power to change things, with the new types of media being used to spread information. Misinformation is rampant, disinformation is increasing, and ignorance is becoming normalized. You are not taught in school to question, because if you were taught such a simple idea, this whole capitalistic-caste system would be flipped on its head. Why would this be the case? It would be because the people being abused would realize their abuse, question why they’re being abused, and then question why they should continue being abused. Yes, some will stay down on their knees, this is always the case, but others will bite the hand that feeds them.
This wraps around to anger. These things make me angry. I don’t want people to be abused. I don’t want people to be hurt. I don’t want things to get worse than they already are. I don’t want people to be ignorant. I don’t want people to think ignorance is bliss. I don’t want people to stop caring. I don’t want people to give up. I don’t want people to stop pushing. I don’t want people to be submissive. I want people to have strength and a willingness to fight back. I want people to believe they can make change. I want people to believe that things aren’t alright as they are, and I want people to believe they are the means to making things right, because they have that capability, and I want them to know that, and I want them to believe it.
I am not angry at people for not having these qualities, I am angry at those who have stripped those qualities away from the mind of the person who believes they don’t have them at all. I feel anger and hatred towards those who continually mock the average person for their inability to do anything whilst, in the same stroke, stripping that same person of the capability of obtaining those qualities, or more truly, obtaining the awareness that they’ve had them all along.
I don’t feel anger towards those who brainlessly scroll social medias, however, I do pity them. I pity them for not having the awareness of their addiction, of their complication, nor of their growing issue. However, I feel great anger towards those who initially built these social medias, those who continually maintain them, and those who make them only more addictive and harmful. Even within these social medias, I mostly pity the ones creating the brainless content, but most of all, I am upset by those who do so intentionally. Those who play the same game as everyone else; vomiting up garbage for viewership because to do anything more would lead to less viewership because the taste of the average person has declined so greatly that they will consume any slop presented to them. It hurts to know that it isn’t their fault, but many point at the consumer of slop in mockery. In response to this, I would tell them that they are pointing in the wrong direction, and not only this, they are thinking in a harmful and idiotic way.
Not only has media and information in general taken away the agency from a large amount of people, it also has separated the average person significantly. Many are told what to believe is good and bad, right and wrong, and what should or should not be. There is no questioning of this, because of what has already been stated; they were not taught how to question. Therefore, we are stuck in this loop of hive-minded individuals being told what to think, why to think it, and then their opposition. There is always at least one opposing side created, which serves a different flavor of average person. This then leads to conflict between two groups, or perhaps even greater numbers of groups, instead of questioning what groups caused the average person to think their fellow man is the issue. Your brother or sister is not the issue, the issue resigns in the individuals who want you to believe your fellow man is the problem.
This angers me greatly, too. It makes me furious to see people fighting each other over literally nothing. They fight and fight, because they are told to fight, and once they’re done, they keep their ears open for the next thing to be told to fight over. It isn’t their fault, and it makes me upset they can’t exit their programming, but what makes me all the more upset is this continued orchestration of events that stop individuals from breaking out of their preprogramming and actually fighting back against their abusers.
As mentioned already, media, is one the most significant means of spreading information. It used to be the newspaper, and while that is still significant, we are now focused mainly on the internet. There was a time it was more esoteric, and any type of idea could be spread and shared without a large quantity of individuals shunning someone who thinks differently, but thanks to the ease of internet access, anyone could share their thoughts and ideas. For the most part, it started with the smartphone, probably the iPhone, which allowed anyone to get on the internet and state their ideas; ideas which, were forced into them, and without their knowing, they continued their groupthink to another extreme via social medias.
Technology gives everyone the capability to do tasks that otherwise would take much more time and effort. The internet enables everyone to learn anything they want. You would think with these things, individuals would take advantage of them to the most extreme, yes? Well, the unfortunate reality is that, unless they were taught to do so, they won’t, and for what benefit would they be taught that? For what benefit would it be to those at the top for you, me, or anyone else, to think they should learn what is wrong with their world and then a means to fixing it? The answer is obvious, and this too, makes me angry beyond belief. I enjoy technology, not as much as in the past, and my interest has only been declining.
I used to enjoy playing around with computers, learning more about them, and for some time, I was very serious about getting into a technological field, but as time passed, my interest also passed. It faded away, but what did not fade away was my awareness of the power that something like technology could have on people. The cognizance only became more prevalent when I was seeing, in real time, that impact. Whether it might be an individual sharing an idea online, or another starting a witch-hunt, or maybe a news source spreading propaganda which some believe with all their heart. With something like the computer, the ability to manipulate, spread misinformation and disinformation, was only magnified to an extreme degree. If we were to suppose, oh, I don’t know, combining this with something like comfort, what do you believe might happen?
Being in a state of comfort means a lack of change, and if you stick around in the same places, you’ll eat up the same information. Linux users love to obsess over how evil Microsoft and Apple are, and that’s fair and reasonable, but the problem is that people are comfortable being abused by these companies. It doesn’t bother them, or if it does, they’ll complain and then move on. If the company does something else they don’t like, they might pout or complain, but because they’re submissive and will take anything thrown at them, it doesn’t actually matter what these companies do; they’ll keep using their products and services. I understand to some level, I use Mac OS, Windows, and Linux, but you would be silly to think I’m giving Apple or Microsoft money directly, and no, I’m not paying for Ubuntu Pro or whatever. I can turn off all the telemetry, set up a custom DNS to stop queries that would send my data off to these companies’ data servers, and essentially act like a parasite upon them. If they acted in accordance to what I cared about, perhaps I would act differently, but this is not the world we live in. The problem is, people will complain, but then continually give these corporations money. Or, if we’re slightly more fortunate, they won’t give them money, but they’ll allow for their data to be collected, therefore having money being made off of them anyway.
There isn’t any specific importance to operating systems. Another example that’s easy to mention is VRChat switching to Easy Anti-Cheat. At first, people started leaving the game, leaving bad reviews, making videos online about how much they hated the update, and then moving over to alternative platforms. However, as you might have begun to understand, all these individuals weren’t able to give up the game; they went back to the game. They might have hated the update, and it might have been terrible, and they might hate they have even more spyware running on their computer, but they couldn’t give up the game; they couldn’t give up the comfort it provided. If we are at the point where individuals cannot give up a game, shouldn’t one be a little worried?
If you stopped for a moment and thought about how people are acting, and how they have acted in the relatively recent past, how do you think people will act in the future? Probably just about the same, unless something massive or dramatic happens. However, things usually happen slowly and in increments, and that has been happening with technology. Windows continually gets worse year after year, but it doesn’t happen instantly, and that enables Microsoft to get away with a lot of the things they do, and still maintain their users. Sure, right now we might be talking about operating systems, and that would showcase things are pretty safe, but for how long will it simply be that? What is the point in which we, the people, say that enough is enough, and we can’t keep pushing in that direction? How much abuse is too much abuse? This is no longer a conversation about computers or operating systems, but instead, a conversation about our own need to self-preserve, because if we don’t fight back, we will be eaten alive by those whose mouths only grow larger by the day.
I want people to feel the same anger I do. I don’t want them to be angry about little things, or angry about the person who said something silly, or more inconveniences to their day. I want people to be angry about the things that are taking away their agency and urgency. I want people to be upset at the state of things. I want people to think they can do something about it, and then ultimately, actually do something about the things that tear them down. I want people to feel hatred not towards their fellow man, but instead, towards the corporations that want to abuse the average person for every dollar they can obtain. I want people to feel hatred towards the government that wants to take away their freedoms. I want people to know they can work together, and that ultimately, we all want the same thing, to feel okay, and I want everyone to be reminded of the ways we are being stripped away from that feeling. For me, anger is a terrible feeling, but it is a fire, a fire which burns its user until there is nothing left to burn. Perhaps you would rather die a soaking wet log, but I would rather die burning, because at least I would die knowing I have done all I could do, and really, what more could you ask out of a person? I don’t have all the answers, and I don’t know of all the nuances of how we’re being abused, but what I do know is that we are only getting farther away from having control over what we wish to do with our lives. Human beings might be silly creatures, but I think us silly creatures need to consider how we are being enslaved and indoctrinated. We all have the capability to act, and if there is anything to take away from this, it is exactly that. You do what you want to do, and you can control your wants.