Wednesday, 20 October 2010

Instant gratification: Root cause of emotional ineptitude?

     
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    The human race moves into a position where they are used to being instantly gratified, the text message connects lovers instantly, perpetuates arguments, allows people to be late, gone are the days when a horseman would take love letter from one end of the country to the next while the lady in question sat in waiting for the response of her betrothed. Who has the stamina to do this in this time? Few I imagine. Individuals have been conditioned to respond instantly to resolve uncomfortable emotions by whatever means, there is a sense of over load if feelings can not be dissolved instantly through help from another. Imagine, the lovers again, a quarrel ensues and a door slams on the argument, leaving each with things unsaid and emotions running wild. There is no need to resolve before this point because with one text the whole thing can be reinstated, continued, perpetuated. No time for cool down either as turning off you r phone is alien to you or instils panic in the other. The need for instant gratification and the inability to endure uncomfortable emotions have come together to create a heady mix that makes an emotional life unbearable for many. So how do they cope. Burying heads in the sand, filling the feeling world  with 'noise', blocking out the pain, frustration, anger or confusion or even blurting the whole sordid truth onto that social network of which we spoke, using cryptic prose to not quite disclose the truth but gather the intended reactions non the less. Responses, not from the one you love but from anyone who is on there at the time, scouring the 'feed', click happy to 'like' or 'comment'. Comfort is borne from the ramblings of faceless individuals that claim to know you.
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    Pop psychologists talk about emotional maturity and the ability to control emotions such as anger or stress. I think they've missed the point. Its not emotional maturity society wants from us its immaturity and an ability to squash emotion as it arises, there is no care how this happens, as long as it veers towards a patch, a band aid to prevent leakage in that moment forbid man might act on his passions. Why do you think negativity is rife in the world, why do you think men fight and scrap, relationships break down or the ability to converse is waning?  Displacement. Lashing out at another because you can not meet yourself head on and convert the discomfort you feel internally into something that feels good. Denial. Running away from how we feel in the first place or even running away from the reality that you can not make peace with the fact you are an emotional being. Repression, suppression, sublimation, the list goes on. Why do you think it would be beneficial to the dictators in this world if their subjects were struggling with emotion, or keys into the need to be instantly gratified? Why do you think a world full of emotionally dysfunctional beings is useful, or even preferable to the system that 'supports' us? There may be many reasons or I might just be blowing hot air, you decide. 
    A nation of individuals that are being bombarded, heavily influenced by a high level of noise are less adept at sitting in silence, or with themselves and their own thoughts and feelings. By this I am talking about factions within society providing its inhabitants with devices or external influences that serve as entertainment but also service the need in humans to feel emotionally satiated, instantly gratified. Examples of this in my mind are services that attend to primal needs including, hunger, sex, personal safety,   the need to reproduce, self esteem, self,-actualisation, need for social contact, recognition, family, stature, among many more. Hunger is attended to by pre packaged fast food, home delivery, take always and so on. No longer is there a need for humans to go hungry as long as there is a telephone or means of getting to a shop or take away. Eating does not for many involve preparation or even a knowledge of the ingredients within the products they consume. Think of the lads on a Saturday night, watching footie, beer to hand and a take away in transit on speed dial for the extra people that might turn up. 
    You can sit on a  social network and forge friendship without even leaving the house or speaking a word, its all achieved by creating  a desirable profile with pictures, comments, music and the like that fits an image of ourselves that boosts out self esteem without the risk of the other meeting our true selves of which we may feel is not up to the task of making friends. We allow ourselves to be programmed into thinking what is desirable in the other sex by watching or absorbing the content of advertising campaigns and beauty products or even the hype of popular sex symbol celebrities. Youth is key, anti age this that and the other, lift, boost, erase, feel younger, look better, be more desirable. We actually buy into the possibility that a jar of cream holds the answer to extended youth at £19.99. What about personality, aging gracefully, the cycle of life?
    If our primal needs as individuals are attended to in such a way, we are being shown what we do and don't want by an external source it stands to reason that we start to lose the capability to choose for ourselves. If we can reassure ourselves by creating a false image through products that improve us by faking perk boobs, fuller lips, a massive friend base and the ability to provide for ourselves through credit then why would we even want to sit with the possibility there is a real us in there a thinking feeling person pure and un-programmed by society. We are from birth in my eyes set up by the external influences brought to us mainly by the media to project emotions and a way of being onto us. Materialism is key in this world, its about what you project and does it fit the image of being successful and desirable.
    In my mind this all unravels if you take it all away. No music instantly provided by stereo or online downloader, no TV or magazines, in fact no electronic means to connect with others or information. If we all had to rely on one on one interactions with fellow humans, the walk to a super market to buy ingredients for food we had to cook ourselves, to write letters to one another, have conversations, meet for company, socialise to find a mate then we would have to rely more on ourselves than allowing the falsehood of society land what they think we need in our laps. 
     

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