This essay made my skin crawl. The author seems so self indulgent and self involved while grasping desperately for a group identification. But hey, I'm the guy who wanders off while we are all supposed to put our hands in the middle and give three pumps and a cheer. I can agree with almost everyone of the "polling questions," but the idea that this is some kind of new way of living is laughable. Here's a question, do you have a love of learning and an interest in the well being if your fellow man? You do? Cool, guess we can skip this fucking essay. Most the people I know who embody these values the most are on the board of our neighborhood association, a faith leader, an old lady agitating for positive changes in the community or are driving their truck and trailer around picking up garbage from homeless camps and giving the litterers free socks. Maybe I'm being mean and we are talking about a brand new type of special snow flake but probably not.
I'm sincerely happy for you that you know a lot of people that embody these values. I'm only just getting there. I've had to create community, having felt intense isolation that at times bordered on a major depressive disorder. And while a large part of that community is around me in meatspace, a lot of it has taken place excitedly online, over email, on weird link aggregators with people with funny usernames who I give a massive shit about. I say this knowing full well that there was an internet before I was born ('91) with people doing just the same. I hope our celebrating doesn't take away from your strong identity as someone grounded in a community that embodies these values. And yea, the writing is cringey at times.
Huh. Yeah. I can kind of see that framing when you put it that way. In her defense, when we're younger we tend to put more weight on our personal ideas and discoveries and treat them bigger than they might be. Everything we discover is still new, therefore there's an inherent air of excitement to those discoveries, and enthusiasm abounds. Just think of all of the high school and college kids who are just getting into politics, philosophy, etc., and think they suddenly have the whole world figured out. I think its not very well written which doesn't help her come across all that well. Let's face it, pretty much anyone can write something for Medium, so the quality of the content is kind of all over the place there. I got a slightly different impression from it, feeling that she's kind of come to an "A-ha!" moment where she's simultaneously discovered that she as an individual has something to offer the world and that she sees the same out of so many others and is trying to find ways to connect and make those connections meaningful. Which, on the one hand is sad, because I don't think that the realization that people are wonderful and worth knowing should ever be an epiphany for anyone, but on the other hand when someone does make that realization, well it's a good thing. We hopefully get one less person confining themselves with isolating behavior and instead we get one more person who wants to be a part of the world.The author seems so self indulgent and self involved while grasping desperately for a group identification.