How to Begin as a Common Adversary
Welcome to the pursuit of elevation.
Every moment, we are bombarded with obligations, advertisements, notifications, and fears. Individually and collectively, these drive our daily actions. And every day we hustle and chase. We chase dollars, we chase prestige, we chase physical gratification, we chase that one purchase or experience that will inject us with the dopamine hit we can’t help but crave. We devote so much time to the chase that the reasons for chasing elude us. We’ve forgotten how to ask why and because of that, we’ve lost our identities and our sense of what we want in our pursuit of the prescribed life. We all know the prescription – employment, hustle to beg for more money, more prestige, and more misery, material possessions to demonstrate your importance, and free indulgence in anesthetic vices that cover your pain and your eyes.
Fuck that. Modern life is a spiritual bear trap. It is perfectly optimized to steal our time and our attention and dissuade us from questioning the purpose. Individuals battle every day with algorithms powered by supercomputers to think original thoughts and have original experiences. It’s a sick world out there, and we know it. We know life is more than eating at the hot new brunch spot, and it’s more than signing on to be an emotional soldier in the war against the latest atrocity perfectly packaged and sold to us by the mainstream media.
In a world where it seems people have lost their appetite for truth, their capacity to embrace individualism, we are left to question where we are all headed. Everyone around us unquestioningly follows the algorithms, the messages broadcast from those on high. Happy to take direction as long as the hedonistic party continues.
The hedonistic party has a lot to offer – it fills the bellies of all in attendance, provides shelter from the elements, entertains, satisfies carnal desires, and gives purpose. Basically, the party gives you everything you could ever want or need. Except it doesn’t. If you have the courage to look beyond party invitation. There, one will find that the food is poisoned, the drugs trade a temporary high for a habit-forming vice, the shelter comes at the cost of obedience, the entertainment of gridiron games, streaming series, and social media are time-theft devices, porn deforms the brain, and the purpose is to neuter truth through distraction rather than force. The party is stupendous, far surpassing any extravagance previously known by homo sapiens, but at the expense of individual exploration and legacy.
The common course is to attend the party and indulge, or overindulge, in its many vices and distractions. That is why the common are the partiers blissfully in attendance. But we know we don’t want to join the party or, if we are already there, we want to find the exit. This makes us uncommon, but even more, we are enemies of the common. Avoiding or leaving this party isn’t something you can simply take a pass on. The party is pervasive. Almost everyone you meet and almost all the content you encounter, from popular songs and movies to novels and news shows, will be written by the common, telling stories of the common. Because the common only know the hedonistic party life, that life flows through its products in catchy tunes and popping graphics that all too easily permeate your brain. The pervasiveness of the common and the ease of indulgence are why avoiding the common requires more than desire. This isn’t like passing on dessert. This is a fight for your soul.
If you want to be more than those around you tell you you’re capable of, if you want purpose and direction and truth in your life that yields meaningful results for your mind and your body, then you have to fight for it. The fight may be brutal and lonely. The fight may be unfair because you’ve done all the right things your whole life to avoid just this kind of fight. But our institutions serve to invite and direct individuals to the party, so your previous “rights” may not have been right at all.
No amount of wallowing or fear will change where we are now. We must accept our location and our part in getting here, whether we intended to be here or not. And we have to accept the fight.
If this sounds like work, it is. Yet, through the fight, your body will become firmer, your mind will become sharper, and your soul will become freer. You will rid yourself of that part of your identity tied to talents and stories of hedonistic pursuits. You will discover yourself, who you were meant to be, and your path to becoming that person. You will find a community of individuals from all backgrounds and with varying appearances and stories, each searching for the same freedom and truth as you. And you just might find, as Henry David Thoreau did, that “most of the luxuries, and many of the so-called comforts of life, are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind.” Welcome to the pursuit of elevation. Welcome to your new adventure.