At this point, I'm honestly not sure if this thread is a series of extremely pessimistic people, or a fairly clever riff on Lovecraftian doom writing.

What part of it isn't true though? Don't look at how it reads, just read the words.

I feel the same way, like you're being stomped in the face every day by an invisible boot except nobody knows who's wearing it, but we all feel it.

We are collectively losing our identities and blending into one due to how hyper connected we are and how available cheap forms of entertainment are.

It's all quite eerie. I still haven't really found a way to articulate it but I'd love to chat with someone more in depth about it.

I'm not sure what else to say besides that none of this rings true to me at all. I don't feel stomped in the face at all. I don't believe my identity is blending into one collective, and I wouldn't describe anyone I know in that way either; everyone seems unique and interesting after getting to know them at even a little depth.

Your experience of life must just be different than mine!

So maybe you're wearing that boot!

Then you are already part of the collective.

Earlier someone said that they want to opt out of the whole thing. Although I'm not you and I can't know precisely what you are feeling, I'm going to make an educated guess that this is the key to your freedom.

This invisible boot is an illusion. I once read an article on privilege. The idea is that if you were a slave owner, you could "promote" some of your slaves to be "head slaves". This privilege creates a kind of vacuum. Instead of wanting to be free, slaves compete to become "head slave". If you randomly promote some every once in a while, it erases the idea that slaves should want to be free.

Even without some tinfoil hat inspired cabal, you can probably imagine how we have managed to enslave ourselves. If you make or have a lot of money, you can use it for privilege. People compete for this privilege instead of considering if they would rather be free. A small proportion of people become rich -- through hard work, or luck (it doesn't actually matter), keeping the system going.

I don't recommend quitting society altogether :-) You don't need to indulge in some self-sufficiency, neck beard fantasy, but I recommend making something entirely from scratch. See if you can borrow some land for a season and grow a garden, or make beer, or sew something... whatever. The closer to scratch you can do it, the better, but don't stress about it. Then, once you have something nice, wander over to your neighbours and give it to them. Keep doing that. It helps to get good at only one thing so that you don't get overwhelmed.

Next, look at how much money you spend. Try to challenge yourself to see how little money you could spend and still be happy. We're trying to break the weird "obvious" rules that everybody else lives by, so try not to accumulate too much money. The more you can shrink the amount you need, the easier it will be to be happy with the amount that you have.

At the same time, stop reading the newspaper and watching TV news programs. Instead, challenge yourself to think about, "What is actually important to me. Do I care that North Korea is creating missiles. Even if I do, is there anything I want to do about it?". Keep trying to shrink the amount of useless drama in your life. Find ways to be alerted to the things that you care about and that you want to act on. It's best that the number of those kinds of things are very small because otherwise you will wear yourself out. Try your best to actually do something positive about those very small number of things.

After that, I think you will find that you are no longer being stomped in the face every day. At worst, some clueless people are tripping over you every once in a while. It hurts sometimes, but it's not something that has to trouble you too much. Yes, you have to pay taxes and yes, evil people are spending that tax money on things you don't like. But, unless this is the one thing that you want to fix in your life, it's just useless drama. Give them the damn money -- you don't need it anyway. Yes, you have to obey laws, even the ones you don't agree with. Fight the bad ones that you need to fight and save your strength wrt to ones you don't need to fight. Yes, there are jerks everywhere you look -- even your neighbours. But the more you get to know your neighbours, the easier it will be to create a mini society where everyone is reasonably friendly and occasionally people drop by to give you home made jam.

In other words, just step off the escalator to weird-ville. It doesn't have to be eerie.

>After that, I think you will find that you are no longer being stomped in the face every day.

Yeah, all of that is all well and good, for you. What you wrote has no effect on me as I've already made the same realizations way way back. They weren't even conscious realizations worthy of merit. I've just always lived this way.

I don't care about anything in my life except my hobbies. Day job -> piano. I hang out with a couple of people a couple times a year.

Currently saving for a remote cottage way out north so I can isolate myself and work on my music. That's all I want to do.

And that's what I mean about the invisible boot. Just to have a modest dream like that here where I live, I need 250k minimum for the land+cottage and all things included in that.

Even the tiniest dreams are straight impossible. Owning any semblance of a property that is close to the downtown core if you're not a multi millionaire? Hahahahahaha good luck. 0% of my friends will be buying property in their life times, which means they will move further and further away.

The invisible boot is the stagnation of wages and the exploding cost of every day things, combined to shatter any and all dreams.

There's nothing to actually live for, and I don't mean folks like me who are in the unique position of being in a highly paid job without any "life strings". But my friends? It's over, working their entire lives just to maybe afford necessities for that month.

From the "eerie" mindset, your comment is exactly on point as Big Brother-type soothing propaganda.

:-) Yes, you are probably right.

People work a lot, are more productive than ever and, yet, the benefits of that are disproportionately funnelled to a tiny minority who owns the means of production. Most of the people consider this arrangement is moral, viable and sustainable and will defend it to their death.

Why would we be pessimistic?

And the only alternative seems to be to swich the guys who get the money funnel. Or some other guys who get the money funnel. Or some other guys...

Yup. Feeling pessimist now.

Looks more like Kafka to me. Not enough "horror" and "unspeakable" to be Lovecraft.

Nah, Kafka is more banal.

Welcome to how I perceive most of the rest of everyone. What weird fear-drugs are they even on?

I have been on both sides of the fence.

I had continuous allergy problems without knowing it for a large part of my life. Among the effects were a minor depression.

When I got rid of the allergies I had a bit of an identity conflict, I wasn't the one I thought. My humour and world view weren't as dark, I liked people more. It is a strange to adjust your self image so much after 40.

Did change in diet play a part in getting rid of your allergies?

I only ask because a great deal of recent research suggests our behaviour is strongly affected by our gut bacteria which are in turn affected by our overall diet.

I was getting a more cyberpunk vibe, but I like where you are going regardless.