Rediscovered this song which I love. It seems that spirit/soul is rare now. Maybe that's why vampires and zombies have been romanticized so much in pop culture to reflect our neglect of meaning and inspiration. Starting with school, we enter a society based mainly on mass management. For a normal orderly society, we conform, learn how to be normal until we discover no one is really normal.
For that which is most special is by definition not ordinary so therefore not normal. But our factory-like social design pulls us to reject the extra-ordinary to make room for predictable and safe society. Sounds reasonable except when societal direction is wrong.
When what is correct is defined by what the masses believe, we could end up jumping off a bridge just because everyone else is. If you look at the equations below, most are based on physical world experiment. They have led engineers to develop good and bad products that define our technological age.
The last one is about investment. Hedge funds, derivatives, more and more convoluted financial instruments are based on the probability theories which are useful for studying trends in nature, but are now used to predict the future. So what is normal now becomes the direction of investment and development. It is just hidden in "sophisticated" words and calculations.
The abnormal is needed for change. Human nature tends to resist change by embracing what worked yesterday to secure tomorrow. But this ignores the environment, learning and new information,
Most algorithmic studies tend to continue this trend of framing what we know today as standards. Even software for marketing and translation takes the most common to predict what is correct.
When our common belief is wrong as we were when we thought the Sun revolved around earth, or that our world is flat, or that our leader is a god... we really are just following the folly of crowds.
The spirit, the soul, the extra-ordinary that drives us to passion is the best of our humanity. Not normalcy.
There was a time when I didn't need to belong. My family provided shelter and home. We moved across an ocean when I was 7 to a strange place that spoke a different language but I still felt at home. Although I needed my family to feel safe, I felt free to be myself because I did not see any conditions for that safety. I did not need to perform or comply with oppressive obligations in exchange for shelter and home.
I felt like that man in the hat looking at a Hong Kong 100 years ago. Compare it to the jungle of buildings today and you can either be amazed or disgusted, depending on your criteria for success. These standards to measure success which seem like good motivation for progress, can also become the limits of growth. I'm sure that non assuming man could never imagine that Hong Kong can become an oasis and then a jungle in the future.
Along with the progress, obligations also multiplied. He had no credit cards, luxury villa (which probably replaces the humble bench of brick and stone now), no career path... And that's how I used to feel before I needed to belong.
Hong Kong culture is about "埋堆-being in the pile" (part of the group or go with the flow), In fact this is the easiest path in any culture. Unfortunately when the flow is in the opposite direction of where your heart leads, the need to belong becomes like a sentence to prison or even death.
As adolescence set in, the need to belong outside my family naturally took over. School, work, church, clubs, cliques, performance, looks... became obsessions. I began to need approval or proof I was valued or that I belonged. Being me, I tried everything. While I enjoyed all of it, there was always a need that drove me to the next thing.
Like everyone, there were falls, embarrassment, trophies, celebration and tears. I didn't keep count until now. The apparent lack of kindness but plenty of silence around me seemed to judge me. No, there was love in my life but it did not dispel my loneliness. And this solitude could not be solved by the social contact or achievement that managed to cheer me up most of my life.
After years of this silence, I finally see that the proof I sought is not about trophies, applause or even a thank you. Many have comforted me thinking I was feeling worthless. I accepted this view too and continued to try all known paths to restart a new mode of life.... But silence persisted.
Like coming out of a dark tunnel that took years to endure, I see I never belonged to crowds, clubs or even a family in an institutional sense. It's like the poor looking man in the had sitting on the Peak observing a young undeveloped world, all that is needed for feeling safe and at home always existed. It is possible to feel at home in a rural back waters or urban jungle, in poverty or riches.
It's great to see so many have gathered in this little area of Hong Kong. All the bling, technology and opportunity cannot change the requirements to be safe, to feel at home and to be strong enough to face tomorrow. It existed when I was young and foolish, but also as an older fool.
If you think I'll end with the glib cliche that I belong to me, then I'll correct you and say:
"I still haven't found what I'm looking for".
