Aimlessness and Affluenza
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about aimlessness. Particularly, I think our culture is somewhat collectively aimless and individuals themselves (especially people our age) tend to be increasingly aimless. Some people find purpose more easily or more quickly than others, but it has occured to me that it wasn’t quite like that in the past. I think a major cultural culprit in that shift towards aimlessness is consumerism and the availability of leisure. The increasingly saturated consumer marketplace we live in today it tends to brood aimlessness. If you think about past generations when people’s lives were more often laid out in front of them- who to marry, what career to pursue, where to live- people seem to have had more of a grip on where they were going. Of course that is a perception seen though the lens of modern culture and history, but it seems to make sense.
We have so many options today. Everything is a choice, and even religious movements increasingly embrace doctrine of choice over fate. Available options are exponentially increased by technological advances that erase the boundaries of space. In other words, things like the internet, high speed travel, and other inventions of an instant gratification culture present us with more and more information and possibilities for life.
We also have affluence. Affluent cultures (I once heard it referred to as Affluenza, hence the post title) aid the development of more leisurely activities and what I would call “vanity profession”. That includes industries like music, hollywood, sports, and vanity pharmaceuticals. (More on the aimlessness in music industry in another blog post some other day) These industries don’t directly contribute to the immediate needs of survival. They come about because we’ve become so efficient at growing food and building houses that there is room for portions of the population to pursue these additional professions, leading to a lack of absoluteness in choices. If I had to be a farmer because I had no other source of food, my choices would be pretty well narrowed down for me.
I think the human spirit wasn’t purely made for choice. I think there’s a large part of us that needs unquestionable direction. In this suggestion I don’t even mean to presume where that direction comes from, only that it does in fact come with certainty.
Perhaps my suspicion in this matter is more attributable to humanity’s tendency to fear, or perhaps its related to the relative-ization (is that a word?) of truth that our culture is proclaiming. I’m a man who appreciates freedom and choice as much as any, but I’m also one who believes in the principles of moderation. The theory goes that every extreme has its pros and cons, some more than others, but that is where I find contradiction to be not quite so avoidable. So I can understand and relate to the fine points of both Liberal and Conservative politics without fully embracing either one, as well as pursuing the positive points of both hippie and career-oriented lifestyles.
Without diving too much more into moderation concepts, I want to say that we as people in our broken hearts, minds, and culture can quickly get lost when surrounded by possibility. This is perhaps the negative point of choice that leads to a need to avoid it as an exclusivity. Freedom and choice is a good and holy thing, but can so cloud proverbial “path of life” that we wind up wandering pathless. Another way to look at it would be to say we’re on a path, but one who’s destination is too blurry for comfort. (see picture)
Take a few moments if you will and examine your own purpose. First think about where your purpose has come from in life. Was it parental? Religious? Self-imagined out of the vast quantity of options at your fingertips? Think about people near you and others you might judge to be “aimless”. What is it that is different between them and you? And for those near you who you perceive to have purpose, where does truth of purpose fit in?
These are just some questions that are often on my mind only in much less concrete ways. This “Aimlessness Theory” as I might call it is just that – a theory, but correlation doesn’t seem beyond its hypothesis. I guess you can consider this one of the many cultural hypotheses I’d like to explore, and that is why I would love to hear your thoughts..
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great post!!!
unquestionable direction? don’t you think that even in the certainty of unquestionable direction…a choice is made? i don’t know your experience in your faith but even in the certainty of direction, God has me choose to trust Him. to follow an unquestionable direction means sacrifice…generally speaking!
i see what you’re saying by “fear” and being “lost when surrounded by possibility” and i agree with what you’re saying about our culture.
“Freedom and choice is a good and holy thing, but can so cloud proverbial “path of life” that we wind up wandering pathless.” – great thought
again…great post. i love your thoughts!
@jordan — Following God doesn’t really fit under “unquestionable direction” because as you said, it is a choice. . When I mention unquestionable direction, I’m mainly referring more to decisions in life that are survival based or have no alternative options. These situations are very rare in our modern lives due to affluence and everything that technology brings right to our door.
Depending on your particular belief about the movement and motives of God, religion brings more choice to the table, especially for those who don’t believe God to be handing them hourly “marching orders”, as it may be called. Even searching for the “will of God” adds countless options because in a way, discernment of God’s “marching orders” requires deciding what they in fact are. Once determined (if it is your belief that they can be), those who have truly already made the choice to follow are actually benefitted in that respect because they then have some unquestionable direction.
you talk about aimlessness. i think we have to learn to find the happy medium between being lost and aimless AND having an adventure. i have a cousin who literally has her and her husband’s life laid out, planned to the tee…the month and year they’ll have another kid, to their eating/exercise health plan to when they build and sell their next house….you name it! and for me? that would be BORING and frustrating. there are def. people who are just lost…but then again, where is the line when we talk about being open and “going w/ the flow,” b/c i think it can be healthy to not have every minute planned nor expected, we just get disappointed b/c life happens…..like you said, moderation.
i think that yes, we were made for a purpose- but we were given the gift of choice so…the “instinct” if you will to find truth, purpose, something worth living and dying for, falls by the waistside b/c of our choices.
AT the same time- for ME, personally, i think the dreams i pursue come from a deep rooted need to break out of the box. i grew up in a home where the box was emphsized and the need, desire, desperation even drove me to get where i am. it’s not all self…it came from a combination of adapting the work ethic of my dad, to the inspiration, “go for it,” attitude from john, to the realization of who i am from master’s commission to learning from the mistakes of my last relationship…..add all that to the personality i have and interests….you get my drive & and openess to whatever may be next.
shrug.
You hit it: AIMLESSNESS! My mom and I were just talking about it and this generation’s direction, or lack there of. It seems that generation after generation are falling, considerably so, farther and deeper into this mindset. I see it hitting my brothers generation so incredibly hard.
Nice!
Good thinking. I don’t want to sound critical, but you have had several ideas and theories on your site that I think you need to flesh out and research. Not that there is anything worng with what you are saying. Exactly the opposite. These are ideas that need to be heard in a fully developed argument or statement.
I have been digging into the Reformation this past week for my research paper. Nothing big 10 pages, but the ancillary reading has been amazing. If anything comes of this degree, it will be the focusing of my aimlessness. I’m really starting to question the need for another Reformation.
I’ll talk more about that soon, but in the meantime, do consider working on your ideas. Ask the questions and then follow them as far as you can.
-mike
subversive..”research paper. nothing big 10 pages”. just made me laugh…that sounds like torture to me and REALLY big!!! :)
amos…LOVE this! with freedom comes responsibility…our culture allows us to believe we can make choices and obtain freedom with no responsibility. which leads to an entire generation on a road toooo where?? great thoughts…i’m with mike…i would like to hear more on this. good read though!