I know I've referenced the quote before, but in Fight Club, Tyler Durden tells his space monkey disciples "You are not a beautiful unique snowflake. You are the all-seeing, all-dancing crap of the world!" while shoving his angry, sexist, implausible anarchy down their directionless sheep throats.
This is the first thing I often think when people share things that are genuinely stupid and pointless and expect anyone to care.
Kind of like this blog. Isn't funny what a hypocrite I am?
I'm thinking primarily of all forms of social media, lots of art, poetry, etc, and many conversations. This occurs to me because I was just wandering around the internet, and I found myself getting increasingly annoyed by the amount of tripe floating around. Idiotic posts, crappy art, and generally obnoxious wails for attention and validation.
I think this culture over-values validation. A lot. And it starts young. You have to praise a child for everything it does, and then they have graduations for everything ever. I think it undervalues things that are actually achievements. And if you don't set the bar low and commend everyone for their every attempt at anything, you're a horrible person. Because obviously people need to be told everything they do is gold, or else their weak personalities will collapse and they'll whither away and die of bad self esteem.
I hate to break it to you all, but not everyone is or ever will be great. In all likelihood, most of us won't accomplish anything of real worth in our lives.
You know that song "The Kids Aren't Alright"? That's kind of what I'm talking about here.
You aren't a beautiful, unique snowflake. You're probably actually a grain of sand. surrounded by a bajillion others, made of the same stuff, essentially indistinguishable. There are differences, yes, but the chances of you being actually unique or new are basically nil.
Congratulations. Happy Tuesday, kids.
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