A Value In Turbulence - Ryan Hall

A Value In Turbulence

Our young impressionable youth is on the brink of deciding what their future lives will unveil, specifically in the fashionable regrets of the workplace. We grow our aspirations on the basis and knowledge that fantastic, memorable faces in history texts hold a certain welcoming hand for us at the gates of our untimely and unseen success. These faces urge us with words of comfort that we will embellish on the groundbreaking discoveries they have shown us, yet—as the harsh reality of a generations apprehension take hold of us—we sink to the level of Bait-and-Tackle shop salesmen, or the dejected portrait of an inexperienced “game developer”. It has been said that as a child we have the most aspirations of high-reaching jobs, such as a doctor, a vet, a fireman, however, it seems that our immaturity has only grown as a consequence of age, and our ambition in the field of saving lives—like our parents—or fireman have been snuffed out slowly, until now, at the point where we see this gruesome transition, we hope to become physical trainers or lay brick for those who make the real money. Men and women of a decent age, still drinking, smoking, and losing track of these aspirations, are all hoping to gain the upper hand on their future, “pursuing my acting career, I was pretty good.”, or trying to land an ass-grab on the approval of their superiors. But, no, they won’t, and things will go pretty well for them, until they come to another stage of self-reflection away from the TV-screen to develop a real sense of where they truly went wrong in the long line that appears to last forever. It is this recurring recollection that has kept down the generation for years, forcing the idea of comfort down our throats, to the point where we can’t speak about it. Many of us have lost sight of our true goals because we’ve grown content with a world hinging on isolation. I believe this lack of direction; can be traced tangibly to our level of comfort, and the seeming unimportance of social development.

Comfortably Numb: Our “Balance”

Moderation is the key to a normal life, but a normal life isn’t always one that tips the scale. We are a generation of puppies, most of us the runts of the litter, that grow into dogs, which slowly die without realizing how short our lives are. I believe that the Upper-middle class embodies this apathetic existence, and, true to our dog-like nature, we are frightened by (and, in most cases, choose to attack) the things that threaten our stable lives. The upper-middle class flaw seems to be this; since we are exposed to so much stability, financial and social, we do not feel the unrelenting desire for change, or an interest in making our lives potentially better. This is the balance, the balance that is corrupting our minds, spawning apathy, and a disregard for others. When we can avoid social interaction, confrontation, or things we’d generally consider threatening to our “balance”, using technology, or lying, this is a pertinent example of why comfort and time is a more threatening concept than change.

This “balance” could be an explanation for creating problems out of necessity for social stimulation, and an exemplification of the reason so many financially stable people are depressed, feeling nowhere to go—isolating themselves from “threats” to this stability, while those in poverty—surrounding themselves with people to help them up, see a golden ring close in reach. This golden ring is the “balance”, and represents comfort to the point that we don’t have to worry about feeding our kids, because the food comes to us now, and the kids will know how to eat. We don’t have to worry about what’s bad in the world, because it doesn’t presently, and directly affect us. This golden ring seems to be a burden among the thoughts of upper-middle class families; if we have enough money to live well, we don’t have to try as hard, and we end up living the same life for 30 years, setting up our children for the same exact fate; this fate is possibly a continuous degradation, leading our young minds to achieve less and less; do more so we can do less, meet less people so we have less problems, and learn less so we can sleep more easily at night. This is the “balance”; the crude representation of our apathy, a testament to the less and less important struggle for survival. Could this bring about crime, certainly. With more time on our hands, and less devotion to our work, we experiment more, explore the dark side of ourselves, and potentially commit crimes when our lives get harder as a result, to feed the heart of our pain—the “balance” itself. A direct correlation can be seen, when we divide ourselves from the struggles of the people around us, strictly because of no need for change or social stimulation. One substantial way to counter this, is tipping the scale, adding the reformative power of suffering to the mix, or helping people to understand that each one of them is fighting for the same thing.

The notions of being completely unified in a situation that breaks people down as a group, or brings them up together are equally good opportunities for making people less judgmental of each other. As good things go on and good things get better, people tend to be more interested in being happy and being rid of fears and angers and stress. And in times of despair and anger or stress itself, people are usually very likely to rely on each other for support. So I find that this generation’s flaw, or the flaw of the upper-middle class, is that it is too balanced. Its balance is contributing to its internal isolation. Since there is no conflict, conflict is generated, since there is no reason for inclusion, like fear or negative reactions to stimulus, then there is no real reason for people to rely on each other, or change. So it seems like the light-hearted support, and natural inclination to help each other is diminishing as we run out of real problems, and encounter small problems that don’t pose as a real threat, but pose as a threat to material things. These material things are the fuel for the machine that is our “balance”, and it seems everyday this machine is expanding and polluting the world with its emission.

Solution: Expel Material Dependence

As we have more things, we are more interested in the status of those things. As that happens, people are more preoccupied with those things also, which seems a distraction from things such as self-improvement or self-preservation, and the nature of objectivism. The upper-middle class of our generation is extracting the need for change and reform and is letting people stay at the same social value and height. Because of this there is no actual effort involved, and there is no need for it. For a resolve in a similar situation, there would need to be more pain. (I was actually physically disgusted when I wrote this down.) That seems like the most rational approach to this situation. People need negative stimulation to resolve their issues and reach there potential, and also display a feeling of human emotion, which people can pick up when they’re in the same situation as them. One is generally accustomed to escaping awkward situations or confrontation, or minimizing effort needed to go through their life with technology.

If this were extracted from the situation, it wouldn’t pose these problems. A negative, undesired situation for persons involved in the reformation, because we need our phones and computers to do work, but an escape from the comfort of technology can help us understand the needs of others and the overall similarities we share. Looking forward—this is a gem— it would make us rely more on real people and form positive attributes from those people, and getting rid of real problems. To summarize, if people were less focused on technology and material possessions, then there would be much more interest in devoting time to real problems. And as the veil of pixels is lifted from our faces, we (hopefully) may come to the conclusion that there are more compelling problems in our world, than the ones that affect how much we have. It’s a measure most of us aren’t willing to expose ourselves to, but where others see a bright future of technological fervor, some, including myself, see a shiny backwoods inhabited by people hiding themselves from each other, behind screens, hoping to find a job stable enough to let them continue hiding, until the day they regret it all.

-Ryan Hall

Photo credit: Jenny Holzer

http://projects.jennyholzer.com/