Society's only purpose is to discourage you from reaching your highest goals...

[FourCrossedWands]

The entire society including your parents, friends and coworkers are all telling you what you should chase in your life to be happy. If you are trying to do it you own way and chase your own goals, they are going to ridicule you and make fun of you. If this doesn't work, they will go much deeper and start to emotionally blackmail you and play various mind games with you. This will very quickly become a psychological terror that is extremely hard to live with.

How do you deal with this terror?

[Oeaohoo]

If you mean this as some kind of absolute philosophical statement then it is very cynical. People can want what is best for each other, and the obvious fact that people often don’t want what is best for each other shouldn’t obscure this.

I remember a passage in Aristotle where he pointed out that if you truly wanted what was best for your friend, you would want them to become a god. But if they became a god, they couldn’t be your friend anymore! So as a friend -  that is, someone who truly wants what is best for someone else - you are stuck in a paradox.

Of course, as long as we are flawed finite beings there is always the possibility of covetousness and all of the pettiness that comes with that. Alchemical texts always described “envy” as the greatest sin… Maybe Nietzsche caught the tail-end of this with his theory of “ressentiment” as the greatest sin.

[Oeaohoo]

Sorry if that all sounds very airy-fairy. I agree with your assessment of present-day society and I have no idea how you deal with the terror, other than just pulling through and recognising it for what it is.

[Leo Gura]

Everyone's just struggling to survive.

[Matt23]

1 minute ago, Leo Gura said:

Everyone's just struggling to survive.

What's not "the struggle"?

[Romanov]

11 hours ago, FourCrossedWands said:

The entire society including your parents, friends and coworkers are all telling you what you should chase in your life to be happy. If you are trying to do it you own way and chase your own goals, they are going to ridicule you and make fun of you. If this doesn't work, they will go much deeper and start to emotionally blackmail you and play various mind games with you. This will very quickly become a psychological terror that is extremely hard to live with.

How do you deal with this terror?

I mean, OSHO was very much against societal thinking and very individualistic instead. It’s true that most people care too much about what others think of them. If you care too much about what someone thinks of you, chances are that the other person is also caring too much about what you think of them.

[Matt23]

14 hours ago, FourCrossedWands said:

If you are trying to do it you own way and chase your own goals, they are going to ridicule you and make fun of you. If this doesn't work, they will go much deeper and start to emotionally blackmail you and play various mind games with you. This will very quickly become a psychological terror that is extremely hard to live with.

Perhaps.  But I'd say probably it's not as bad as you believe.  Maybe a few edge cases will do this depending on your family and social circle.  But I think, largely, sure, you may get a little "downward social tug", buuuutttt... nothing you can't handle or that's totally inappropriate or devastating.  Just like maybe little things, little snippets, little comments or something.  People are supportive as well.  So hopefully you can see who's supportive and not and try to acertain the reality of things from what you believe and think about them (DIFFICTULT!)

Believe people are well-intentioned; or simply unconscious and not knowing what they do.  Or fearful.  

Obviously, if you feel negative with certain people and like they drain you and pull you down, question whether staying with them is totally necessary or to what degree it's necessary.  But also, make sure you're taking all perspectives into account; see if you can step in their shoes === Helps a lot in developing understanding and seeing what's an appropriate action to take. 

It could also be that misreading other people is a thing.  Especially for people who suffer from lack of development in cognitive empathy/mind-reading.  I myself think I've struggled with this lots and it really can disrupt and create an imbalanced picture socially (like what others mean, the degree to which they mean it, etc.). 

[FourCrossedWands]

Well. it's not devastating but I can clearly see that it's all scripted. There is nothing random about it and people do it 100% intentionally. Reality is just playing with you for no reason... Just to piss you off.

[Kanddle]

Society is more of a power / survival game. People don't want you to pursue your goals because it can take away from theirs. Extremely aggressive people & organizations make this more pronounced.

 

I've been thinking about this. The best first step is to get some independence from people. Don't consume as much media, live by yourself, become financial independent, sit and think for yourself for a long while.

 

If you're around aggressive people that want you to be sheep for their own personal gain, prepare yourself for conflict until you can go off on your own.

 

 

[Lila9]

At some point one may understand that society doesn't care about them, no matter who they are or aren't.

Every individual is unworthy as long as they're not doing, thinking, behaving in a way that is expected.

When you realize that society as a system doesn't care about your very well being, your best interest, it motivates you to take full responsibility on your life, this realization is liberating you, and then it's easier to do things you want to do regardless what others may or may not think about you.

You realize that people's opinions aren't really theirs but borrowed from someone else, and that many people aren't even mature enough to think for themselves and have some original thoughts. Ignorance isn't rare at all. 

You realize how stupid and irresponsible it would be to give to people's random, incomprehensible, biased opinions so much power over your life.

A healthy collective can only exist provided that each human take responsibility over it's own life and make the conscious effort to transform from a sheep into a lion/ess and at the same time to encourge others to do so. Then, we would be a collective of awakened emperors, Gods and Goodness rather than sleepy and fearful slaves and beggars.

 

[Tyler Robinson]

Can you please explain some of these mind games?