The Lonely World of the Self-Obsession Industry

I'm not going to wash my hands of this whole self-obsession epidemic. Seriously though, what have we become these days? Back in the day, I didn't have a smartphone and GoPro stick, not even a Polaroid camera. Selfies weren't such a thing yet. I looked at my old photo album and my photos were usually with family and friends, that was the idea before. Nowadays, I always think that I have to grab the camera in order to be known, in order to food put on the table. For others, it's for validation, a temporary source of happiness. As for me, it's just another day to survive, I'm still in the lower level of the pyramid.

The influence of modern society came: smartphones, computers, electronics, appliances, and everything else that made our lives easier. The reality is that instead of having more time for more important things in life, the tyranny of convenience disconnects us from the rest. We have switched from being community-minded to narcissistic individualist, more popularized by the west. After realizing that material things don't give real meaning to our lives, we turn into becoming individual narcissists looking for validation and approval elsewhere.

It is quite easier to blame all these self-indulgent tools like social media and smartphones for this epidemic, most people do. These tools just amplified our already given self-obsession. Even though these addicting things exist, our own susceptibility to addiction and self-obsession should also be taken into account. If you were properly raised to become a person who is happy for being who you are and for what you have, you will no longer need for such validation and approval. There's just something wrong with the environment that shaped us.

This self-important bubble might have come from the west but the community-minded culture of the east is now turning individualistic as capitalism and materialism were introduced. Just look at Japan, South Korea, and China, their self-obsession industry is now even more prominent. It used to be easier to point out the contrasts between the two societies. However these days, it would be such an attack to put all the self-obsession blame on the west alone as people are becoming more fragile, the so-called ideological battle never ends.

The individualistic culture frowns at the collectivists, preaching about how they need to improve themselves by making themselves happy first and all that bogus myths. The collectivist society frowns at the self-obsessed culture too, thinking that people are all alone and dying inside. Thinking that it must be sad not to belong, hence, the high rate of suicide and depression.

What is the problem with "You can do anything, only if you believe?" The thing is that we give too much credit for our successes and too much blame for our own failures. It completely ignores human nature - being social creatures. Being part of the community is a thing of the past now and in order to progress in this modern world, we must make it on our own. If we don't, we call ourselves failures and losers. As we stop living up to the high demands of modern society, our descent to mental health problems begin.

Yet we continuously blame social media, smartphones, and other self-indulgent tools for this self-obsession epidemic. We ditch our toxic friends with depression problems because that's what the self-help book says, don't help others anymore. Neighborliness is a thing of the past, a communist thing. Social justice is a mockable term too. Associate only with those who are happy, doing yoga and shit, blind to the outside realities. They color their own lives and beliefs to avoid the social stigma of being unhappy, then people wonder why they die all of a sudden. Oh, we thought they were happy, but that's what we thought! We mourn collectively for a moment, for every suicide tragedy, not even thinking what had caused it all. We move on in no time and continue to live our self-obsessed lives, for it's our own happiness first right? Why get infected by the misery of those who didn't make it. What a fucked up desensitized life in my humble opinion.

We live up to this individualist fantasy that we are solely responsible for who and what we are. The toxic lie that our culture has given us, that we can be anyone we want, do anything we want - even at the expense of others. It has become a massive obsession of trying to be better than the rest, trying to get ahead, trying to have more than we need. Competition on a massive scale brought by the idea of selfhood, that an individual is the prime source of success and accomplishment, that anyone can be a God to his or herself. However, this idea only produced narcissism problems, competitive individualism, a bunch of egomaniacs and a slow death.

The problem with the self-esteem myth is that we were made to believe all sorts of bullshit, starting from childhood, from our parents who were also made to believe all sorts of bullshit, that we can become better and improve more. We thought we had free will. We thought we made our own choices, but really it's just the culture that shaped us. We are nothing but puppets of our own cultures. Now it seems that the solution to the tragedy of modern society is to self-indulge, awww love yourself and all that hey! Pose in the camera and everyone will love you. The big dogs' plan was to promote self-esteem from coast to coast. If they could raise ordinary people's self-esteem, then they would become more competitive members of the economy. Like a 'social vaccine', it would solve all these problems. Forget about the rest, mock those who help others for it is too communistic and old-fashioned. If you believe the myth, then sorry to say that you are sold. Big time. Self-esteem is a big industry, a big fat lie, a lie sold across the world from west to east.

Now is there any solution to this? As for me, I don't really know, I'm pretty much stuck too - and that's fine. There's nothing wrong with my self-esteem however fucked up it is at the moment. I can be good at something and I can become better at it too. However, I don't need to keep up with the rest and beat everyone else. In this day and age, I am perfectly aware that there are far more genuine problems outside my comfortable bubble. I look around and see it every day. Empathy is a good thing, I like to help others and ease the burden of their genuine problems too. Preserving that community-mindedness instead of the high nose up in the air would make us happier. No doubt about that, self-entitlement is exhausting. In the end, I still prefer being part of the small school of happy fish in the tank to being the lonely big fish who eats the small ones.