tribal mechanisms

I had a great conversation with an Uber driver this week. This man has been persevering his own niche project of promoting underground musicians for eight years now. While that stood out to me with an immense amount of fascination, something that caught my interest even more was his long running battle with alcoholism. Out of respect and privacy for him, I will call him Fred.

Being in and out of rehabilitation for most younger years of his life, Fred told me he’s managed to stay sober successfully now entering his middle aged days. He told me his adolescent days were like every other young adult: aimless and thrill seeking, except he really lost his own grip. In any case, Fred told me that upon spending so much time with other young folks at these rehabilitation homes, the number one phrase stated when they first begin treatment was this, “The worst type of drug that can do damage on an young individual is not alcohol, drugs or nicotine. It’s the need for acceptance.”

I think that Fred, as well as these folks in the rehabilitation center, is right when the context of acceptance is placed in a social, economical and even personal level. There is so much confusion and darkness for any young person attempting to tackle adulthood. Taking the Pandemic for a great example: most graduating class after 2018 has been set off on a wild joyride to nowhere. The nowhere in this case is referring to social, leadership, academic and even occupational skills. These adolescents were forced to stay isolated during the most crucial developmental stages of their mental and emotional maturity. It’s almost like there is a skeleton or carcass structure to sprouting into a successful human being that everyone knows they must follow but no one knows the: how, where, when, what, why to do list. That is why there is a growing need for people to purposely achieve in order to feel accepted in all forms aforementioned. No one achieves for the sake of doing it for themselves, but rather accomplishes in order to feel like they are doing the right thing or staying on track.

Let’s talk about Greek life and college. Most of the people coming into college expect a new beginning. Being so ignorant leads to a lot of optimism for independence, free will and most importantly bonding. Like I said before, homo-sapiens are inherently in need of a community in hopes of not dying alone. Taking advantage of this desire, people are so willing to enter Greek life with a need to form new familial ties. Of course, by saying this, I wasn’t making a satirical remark but rather just an observation statement. Like how sororities and fraternities are advertised, it’s a family beyond your actual family. The point that I want to bring up is solely focused on how these families are formed. Or more over, the process of joining into these families. Yes, the hazing. I’m not trying to take a stance on pros and cons but rather just pointing out why there is a need for this process. Rooted from the adolescent’s need for acceptance, hazing can go from memorizing names to eating a raw goldfish while strapped into an electric chair. Or worse, death. The people who duct tape pure vodka bottles on both hands of these pledgers were duct taped themselves. Everyone just disguises their needs with words like pledging and rushing. Tradition is projection. Acceptation is exploitation.

I believe this point also just stems from a human being’s innate need to feel connection. Being social species, humans need at least one other person to form their cooperation skills. I’ll give an example here, I am a mediocre writer that is said to strongly resemble the app medium. Medium is an highly open platform for writers around the world to share their thoughts and opinions. Like the application advertises “where the ideas find you.” To be a writer, my instinctive goal isn’t to jump out of normality or create a specific cynical language that is solely used by my cult that I will definitely not start, it’s rather to be myself. Similarly, there’s a lot of people who are trying to be themselves but also wishes to find connection on this journey. We mimic what life has taught us and push each other to move forward by connecting, sharing and bonding over ideas. The problem here is that, no one ever wants to admit to that need for others. Everyone wants to be the most unique writer in the world. Look at me, I’m a writer admitting to writing about being a writer that stands out from other writers because I don’t care of being categorized when in reality I do get bruised by the slightest when people try to generalize my style. The single evidence here is my refusal to get on the Medium application and instead having my own self publishing website which you are reading now. Very meta if you ask me.

What I’m trying to say is that, the need for acceptance is the worst type of drug among young people because no one wants to admit it. No one wants to say that they just want to be accepted. Instead of saying and or feeling these things, most people want to act like they are functioning. Living up a total facades for everyone else who are also faking a good life. #social media! Now, theres also a difference between saying things for the sake of attention versus the saying things because they don’t get attention. Another great example here would be clothing. Here’s why they are expensive: conformism and nonconformism. I’m talking about the need and the not for attention because the newer generation seems to be heading into these two polar opposite directions. Some people seek acceptance because it’s part of their personality while others become outcasts for the sake of being an outcast. When manifested in the outfits that we chose to attire ourselves, some people dress to fit in while others might dress to stand out. One thing in common though, both of these are termed. By being termed, everything is inherently categorized. By being categorized, there is a need for acceptance. See how this all cycles. By not belonging, they are belonging to the non-belonging.

Although everything I said feels very easily and commonly acknowledgeable, I so dearly wish that people would act under this impression. Everyone is the same. Stop trying to be quirky when no one is quirky. By saying this, I’m not encouraging communism. Rather just that people shouldn’t feel so anxious about someone being “different”, “better” or “worse off”. Since, at the end of the day, every single person has a category. Honestly instead of comparing yourself to another human being, find an alien instead. Since they don’t identify as a human being, it is okay to feel envious, upset and motivated to become one since humans can’t shoot light beams out of our eyes like that. That’s my ramble for the day, have a great day folks.