Taking Heat with the Agency

Social Media, business, independent thought, and mistake-making

The cult of personality, and effect writing, predates the Internet with examples from literature and journalism. The true novelty of the animated, performance-based discourse style of social media is the ease in which society adapted it. It felt natural to develop a personal brand, and it felt natural to color our interactions with hyperbole, uncharacteristic macho, and faux expertise in just about any topic.

The reward system ushers in waves of validation that suit our psyches to a T, but only in the confines of a delicate balancing act. The gravitational pull of expectation and satisfaction tug their ways about our consciouesness, and vigilantly survey the ever-stacking data points. Opting out has its reliefs, but the grind is plush with potential for capital gain. When the cash roles in, we don't see a loosening of the grip, but a coarsening of the exhibition.

When the preferences of the majority align so often with mediocrity, do we allow ourselves to submit to its interests? It's hard to reconcile common wisdom that says originality grabs attention, when valuable aberrations seldom move past the fringes. The oft-repeated political suggestion for the party: "The people don't know what they want until you tell them." The caveat to this point rests on the delicacy of the maneuver itself. It takes tact to penetrate a wall of monotonous thought, and certain methods need to be present to break through.

You'll notice a list of items that are deemed unserious subjects, for reasons spanning from the perception of threat, to the fear of unsavory association. Opposition to established norms, even if they found bearing five minutes ago, subsist as a fabric of acceptibility from a low-trust community that clings to each other to preserve the illusion of moral certainty. Shaping this monolith proves to be a surgical task, and even then, you'll have lost causes digging their heals into quicksand. One day they wake up and find their kids drafting their obituaries, celebrating the policy victories in advance.

But many go on to hold those parts of their past in silence, withdolding acknowledgement in a state of contrition. We burn through beliefs, and keep a lousy record of our convictions, which turned to smoke more often than we care to admit. This is better than looking around the room on our death bed, and being accompanied only by the tricks we played on ourselves. 

The track record needn't be perfect, but the standard for extracting truth can't become a casuality of complacency. Recognize your lack of skepticism as a possible symptom of insecurity. Understand your righteousness might be a form of chronic self-preservation. Watch your mind mischaracterize the meaning of an event because an unrelated thinking pattern betrayed you. Exercise caution when the clouding connotations of words obscures the dictionary definitions, leaving a trail of cultural vandalism on the ground of a pure sentiment. Be weary of a consensus too hastily reached, and explore alternative answers with a clean slate. Include conflicting methods in your criteria for evaluation, and take the patience necessary to land in the right spot.

Perhaps, most importantly, interrogate your motivations. The cause of your conclusions largely extend beyond reason alone, so ask yourself where your loyalties have found false refuge, and move on to a better home.

The temperature has risen, but we have the choice to be courageous in response to ideological intimidation. While the incentives of compliance tempt the weakness of our character, refusal remains readily available to us. The fashionableness of scorn comes and goes, so cultivate and protect something eternal with unfettered spirit and resolve.