Either I'm crazy or people aren't making sense anymore

[00:00:00]So, there was this really insightful video that I came across recently where this girl talked about how she and her mother went out on a hike and they saw a bear and her mom was really scared and her mom was talking about how she hates bears because they're violent. And the girl was like, "Oh, I like bears. I think they're cute." And for the most part, you know, they don't really harm people. And so, for the next week or so on their feeds, they started to get videos of of bears, right? and they would both engage with these videos. But for the daughter, all of her videos were how positive bears are, how cute they are, and you know, probably some videos of like Russians that are wrestling with them and hugging them and not getting hurt. And then her mom was getting the exact opposite where bears were just it was very violent and they were mauling people and like all these terrible stories, right? And so after a week, they had talked to each other and they both like saved these videos the way that the girl describes in the video.

[00:00:57]And she said she realized exactly why the country and the world is so divided because you believe what you consume. But the problem is is that you know people consume vastly different things but they get so sucked into this one mindset because what happens is and it's a there there's some sort of psychological phenomenon where when you're exposed to something over such a long period of time even if at first you don't agree with it eventually it becomes normalized and you accept it subconsciously and it's not going to be like the first 10 times you come across something it's going to be you know after like 100 200 and so essentially what happens is you have a world where everything is for the average person. Their opinions, their beliefs, their interests, all of these are basically curated for them. But what happens is nothing makes sense because nothing is rooted in a real understanding and genuine curiosity, you know, in an identity that someone actually built themselves and wasn't given to them. And what's so fascinating to me is, you know, this this concept is nothing new. If you're, you know, born in India, you're probably going to be a Hindu. If you're born in, uh, Europe, you're probably going to be Christian.

[00:02:12]If you're born in, you know, parts of Asia, whatever religion they tend to prescribe to, Middle East, you know, Muslim. And so, this idea is really nothing new. However, social media has made it prevalent for like pretty much any single ideology on any uh faction of life. You know, it could just be like your sports team. And if you start getting a bunch of videos of prime Ronaldo like edits on your feed, you're probably going to be a Real Madrid fan, but you know, if you if you watch those cool Brazilian edits of Neymar, you're probably going to be, you know, a PSG or Barcelona fan. And I started to realize how, you know, even all of my own thoughts more or less, they just get reinforced by my feed. And it's so hard to like look within and be like, "Oh, you're wrong." Because I still, even knowing this, you still have a tendency to think you're right. I still am like, "Oh, yeah, you know, this athlete is better than that athlete."

[00:03:11]I'm from Chicago, so I'm still like, "Michael Jordan is better than LeBron James." But it's so conditioned into you and it's essentially this belief becomes your identity that it creates cognitive dissonance for you to not in other words you feel like it's an attack on you personally for something that you believe in even if it's harmless like something like sports uh to not be true.

[00:03:33]And so the reason that nothing makes sense in the world anymore is just because nobody is operating from logic or from truth. They're just doing what they were told and fed by their algorithms. And this is so common place.

[00:03:48]And in some ways, this is a tired talking point. I feel like it's it's probably not a new concept to you that people become basically morphed into this archetype that's designed by their feed. But even when someone's not on their phone, when they're just at work, when they're doing something, they let these things influence them without even knowing it.

[00:04:08]And so now our world is just full of vanity and everything is uh all these metrics that we judge people by doesn't make sense. The amount of followers they have, how much money they make as if they're less they have less worth as a human if they you know make less money or you know don't have one 2,000 followers. Like it's just I don't know. It's it's annoying. And what's really interesting, and some people may like this, some people may not like this, is that when you advance technology to such a point where it can be leveraged at such a high degree, people that aren't necessarily the best, they're not the most skilled, the most intelligent, can sort of climb their way to the top um by leveraging, you know, AI or the internet or, you know, whatever it is. And so back in the day, humans were very much like there was a much um there was a distinct difference within the hierarchy of life socially, you know, career-wise, physically, what, however you want to describe it. I mean, humans were very distinct from one another. And as time goes on, this is going to happen less and less.

[00:05:24]Now, maybe, you know, if you're a communist or a socialist, you know, you'll probably like that. that if you're a capitalist or or you believe in meritocracy, you're probably not going to like that. But one thing that it undeniably does that no one likes is it sort of makes the world dull. If everything's evened out, then it's like no one stands out and it's just everyone's kind of boring and it's disinteresting.

[00:05:44]And when that happens, everything falls into vanity. No one cares. No one wants to do anything because if you do something or if you don't do something, the result or the outcome is the same. So people are just going to do whatever is most comfortable for them.

[00:06:00]And I I think we're entering this space as humans where entertainment is replacing meaning. So you can just consume, consume, consume and you never create and there's constant simulation that's available to anyone with very little fulfillment. You don't have to do much. And you know before when you would have to like actually smoke a cigarette the act of smoking a cigarette is very physical. Everyone can see it. You get you know people will kind of judge you and that shame and also it costs money to buy a pack of cigarettes every time you want to back buy a pack of cigarettes and you get you know chemically addicted. The phones it's so much more a part of the culture.

[00:06:40]It's normal. You know everyone can have a phone. A 8-year-old can have a phone and you don't look like you're addicted. It doesn't look like it's frying your health, but I would argue it actually hurts your health more because this literally rewires your psyche and tells you what you should believe in.

[00:06:58]You're not in charge of your own beliefs anymore.

[00:07:01]What you're being fed is. And it's dude, it's really interesting cuz I've seen people from my same hometown, even in my family, like have such different beliefs. And it's like, wow. like this really was ultimately because you know it's the algorithm and the algorithm with more serious matters it it rewards outrage. The more that people are pissed off the better a video does. If you are very negative these videos tend to do very well and it creates for a world that is just full of conflict constantly and I call it like metaphysical conflict where it's not real. It's not person to person.

[00:07:41]Often times a lot of the a lot of the interactions you have with individuals in real life is actually not that bad.

[00:07:49]But then you go online, you just see a lot of hate and you're like, "Wait, what the heck?" And so you're you realize that people are just really bitter and in person they still feel this way. They just mask it. You know what I mean?

[00:08:04]And you know, kind of pivoting here, but another way that nothing makes sense is that contradictions are, you know, self-evident everywhere. Even with me, you know, it's like you're told to be yourself, but then you sort of need to fit in because you humans are social creatures and you need social interaction. Uh you're told follow your dreams. Uh and then in that same breath they're they're like but you want to be realistic you know and you're supposed to work hard and give a lot towards your work but have have balance you know care about others but focus on yourself there's just contradictions everywhere and especially while you're young this is very hard to understand but I think what's interesting is I thought that when I grew up when I hit a certain age you know 18 was kind of always the age I always thought like things would just start to make sense and they would click and when I was like really little, I always thought that adults had the answers and they knew what they were doing. Uh but then I realized that everyone's just sort of performing and everyone's just going with the flow because you look like a weirdo. If you, you know, don't, if you acknowledge how the system makes no sense, how this world that's been curated for us by ourselves does not serve the best interest of the people.

[00:09:26]I don't know. It's like reality feels artificial. That's really how I feel.

[00:09:29]Like everything is AI generated. Um, not even just just online, but even in real life. You know, when you have conversations, it seems like it's rehearsed. It just doesn't make sense.

[00:09:40]Why am I having the same exact conversation with 50 different people from 50 different backgrounds and, you know, they grew up in different places?

[00:09:48]It's just, it's annoying. you start to see why, you know, certain people are viewed in a very negative light. You know, they just don't prescribe to this sort of monotonous, dehumanizing norm that exists.

[00:10:07]I'm I'm getting to a point where I'm more or less just kind of realizing, you know, maybe life was never supposed to make sense.

[00:10:14]I I think what's hard is it's human nature to crave certainty, but the nature of the world is uncertain.

[00:10:20]Reality is not always fair and logical.

[00:10:22]In fact, often times it's not, you know, so when you search for this perfect answer, oh, I want everything to make sense, it it creates frustration.

[00:10:31]Frustration that doesn't need to exist.

[00:10:34]If you guys ever seen that TV show Lost, it's it's, you know, about this island, like this plane crash and these people are trying to survive on an island. And I'm not going to spoil it, but there's this one character in the show who uh as the season progresses progresses, they show flashbacks of like the the guy who he was before he ever got on that plane.

[00:10:53]And he was a very angry person. He was constantly wronged by people close to him in very negative ways. Um and he just lived this very tragic life. Uh and on the island, he's completely calm all the time. and they were facing they face you know so much uh you know conflict and like life-threatening situations and he was always so calm and this girl like asked him why are you calm and he's like you know I got to a point where I realized that searching for the answer of like why things don't make sense is in and of itself what drives you crazy and what causes your pain. If you learn to let go and just accept that you won't know then your life is all the better for it.

[00:11:35]And I think that's kind of similar to Albert Kamu's philosophy of like absurdism. You know, it doesn't really make sense and it's never going to. So, you got to you got to create what you can out of it and live your best life and push for the heights.

[00:11:49]And that's what I'm starting to like I just think optimal game theory the best thing you can do is find something that interests you and is beneficial to both you and society and just relentlessly pursue that and don't look back and don't listen to other people and do this. But I know it's a lot a lot harder said than done or it's a lot easier said than done. But at the end of the day, you can uh you can stay the same and die inside or you can, you know, evolve and live the life that you want.

[00:12:23]Those are my thoughts. Thank you guys for watching.