Negating the Effects of Cultural Pressure.
“Having the bravery to grow and become who you really require a lot of effort.” — Edward Evan Cummings
You may put the blame for your displeasure on poor luck or political adversaries, but the true perpetrator is gravity in the cultural realm.
You have pulled in the direction that society wants you to go unconsciously by an unseen set of forces known as cultural gravity. These forces pull you back onto the path if you stray off of it for an excessive amount of time.
The default route, or the socially-accepted narrative about how to have a happy and successful life, is the most popular and successful commodity that cultural gravity has to offer. This is how it is spoken in many different places:
If you want to get into a good college, you need to put in the effort while you’re young. Have fun in college, but also make plans for a successful career once you graduate. Put through long hours at work, put money down, and keep moving forward.
Spend some time on vacation, have a family, and maybe even get married. When you reach old age, you will finally be able to kick back, relax, and indulge in the utopian ideal of drinking margaritas every day on the beach until the day you die.
default path
Continue to educate yourself, make a living, and contribute to society until it is time for you to leave this planet.
The road that is taken by default presents an enticing proposition: If you play by the rules and put in a lot of effort, you will have a successful life. It delivers on that promise for a large number of individuals. It provides you with a framework to help you navigate the murky seas of life, just like organized religion does. If you find success by following the standard route, that’s fantastic! Put down the book and come back to it later.
But if you’re like me, it doesn’t work. Your feeling of well-being is destroyed, and an existential void is created, which lessens the pleasure of just being alive. When you come to terms with this, you begin to imagine how much better your life might be. And once your creative juices start to flow freely, you have two choices before you.
You have the option of continuing along the standard route, or you may go in a different direction. In principle, this ought to be a straightforward choice.
You are aware that one’s life is relatively brief. You are aware that you should steer clear of activities that are without significance. You have the goal of attaining joy. You’ve probably already heard how important it is to follow your inspiration from influential people in the self-help and creative worlds.
With this information in hand, choosing the alternate route is a decision that requires no thought at all. However, as everybody who has deviated from the standard route is aware, this choice marks the beginning of your conflict with the gravitas of culture.
And the gravitational pull of culture is a tremendous foe. It exerts its influence on the world via the armies of people, myths, and institutions that it controls. As you begin your journey toward a better life, it takes you back to the route that you should have been on all along:
Your parents advise you to give up on your dreams of being an artist and acquire a “real job.”
To achieve forward in your career, many companies would urge you to enjoy the struggle while you’re still young.
When you tell your friends about your concept for a company, they laugh at you.
You are able to put up with these inconveniences since there is another route that is less bumpy. But this is never the case. You will surely run into challenging situations. It’s possible that you’re worn out and having trouble gaining traction.
Or maybe the difficulty of your trade exceeds your expectations. You see that your friends who took the standard route achieved success and garnered the admiration of others.
When you are subjected to a sufficient number of psychological blows, doubt will begin to creep into your head. You begin to question whether or not you have made the right choice. You start to think that you are not deserving of the cause that you are supporting. You are so worn out by the fight that you decide to give up. Both of your parents were correct. Your unrealistic ideal is not worth pursuing. It’s time to obtain a job that pays the bills.
Therefore, you go back to the standard procedure. But despite your successes, you continue to lack a sense of fulfillment. Your spirit is weighed down by existential dread. You resort to sweet foods, caffeine, and alcohol in an attempt to dull the pain that you are experiencing.
You look for solace in many philosophies, therapies, and meditation practices. On the hamster wheel of accomplishment, you make more progress in a shorter amount of time.
You have tried everything, but none of it has been successful. There is nothing that can ease the discontent. There is no way to cure the problem using any amount of money, praise from other people, or spirituality. You are a fraud, and you are well aware of this fact.
But as time goes on, you come to understand that this sense of discontent is really your muse begging with you to give it another go. It’s the stuff that keeps you going and keeps you mindful of what you’ve left behind.
The majority of us choose to ignore this calling, but there are those courageous souls who find the fortitude to listen to their emotions and give it another go.
They are aware of the physical and mental fortitude required to defy the traditional norms. They are aware that they might end up losing a number of the fights. However, considering the stakes, it would be irresponsible to disregard the calling. Either accept a state of constant inner death or take the necessary risks to feel alive.
If you are one of those courageous individuals, you recognize that cultural gravity will persist for the foreseeable future. And nevertheless, you run over the edge of the cliff and into the void below. You may decide to quit a comfy career or terminate a relationship that was just average. You decide it’s not too late to reinvent yourself. You should realize that it never is.
You respond to the voice of your heart and take the first step down the other route. When you do this, you start to feel the tremendous blows of cultural gravity. But it doesn’t seem to bother you. You are aware that this is a normal feature of the game.
So you keep going. And while the happiness of life reinvigorates your spirit, the laments of those who would have you follow the standard route fall on deaf ears. You slowly transform into someone you look up to and appreciate as time goes on.
You are able to get a good night’s sleep knowing that you have rejected the conventional norms.
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