Of Individualism

If there are a million people saying blood is blue and there is only one person that says it is red, does that make him wrong and the rest correct? Would you stop breathing just because people say that the air is dirty and it would kill you? What are they breathing in, in the first place? Water? Would you be afraid to travel by sea if people tell you the world is flat and you would fall off the edge if you wander too far? If i cut myself, who bleeds? Is it proper to alter your moral judgement just to accomodate ignorance, double standards and most people's warped sense of right and wrong?

There was once a farmer and his son who were walking home from the field alongside their trusty carabao. On the way, they heard some people saying, "Look at that farmer letting his poor son walk with him when he can let him ride the carabao." The farmer looked at his son and said, "They're right." So he let his son ride the animal. Some distance away, they heard another group of people saying, "Look at that ungrateful son riding the carabao while his old father is walking. Has he no respect for elders?" The son immediately got off the carabao and allowed his father to be the one to ride the beast. A few meters ahead, a number of people saw them and said, "Look at those two idiots taking turns riding the carabao when they can both ride it." Hearing this, the farmer and his son both got atop the carabao and continued home, now riding the beast. A short distance away from their own house, they passed another group of people saying, "Look at those two ingrates riding the carabao after they had worked it on the field all day! Have they no pity for the poor animal?" The farmer and his son looked at each other and in exasperation, carried the carabao through the remainder of the way.

Who is foolish?

Everyone is gifted with intellect, judgement and a conscience. Each of these is not in perfect proportion with the others but each person definitely possessing all three. Thus, everyone is capable of making their own decisions for themselves. They do not need others to do it for them. If you get burned, learn from it. Seek advise for sometime, but not always. Follow some advise you are given, but not all of it. Life is a lesson. We can't have others learn it for us. Others can show us the way, provide guidance, offer some help, but it is we who would walk it, we who would live it.

It is true that people are social beings by nature. Man is inevitably connected, one way or another, to others. From the moment we are concieved from the intimate union of our parents, to the time the doctor pulls us out of the womb, to the time we encounter our first childhood friends and sweethearts, to the fulfillment and disillusionment of our dreams, to, even, the silent mourners by our deathbeds, we are social. As such, our actions have social repurcussions. Society judges our actions by the measure provided by norms, mores and values laid down by eons of experience and co-existence. There are instances that written laws are not needed to determine the validity of certain actions. This is a generally accepted fact in human society. It is one of the basic foundations of sociological structure.

Yet, this is not absolute.

Man has a weakness. He is not infallible. No amount of experience, technology, knowledge and power can change the fact that man is not, by any stretch, perfect. Thus, his standards also are, by no means, absolute. Fact is, that all accepted norms of behavior started out as an extraordinary act. History teaches us that not because we don't understand something, makes it evil, not because we can't do something, makes it impossible, not because people say something is wrong, makes it so.

Yes, man is social. But he is also an individual. Truth of the matter is that the individuality of man defines the quality of the social structure. the diversity of human beliefs and motivations, purifies and characterizes any given society.

What is the point, then?

One can not live his life in the perpetual shadow of another's existence and beliefs, much less the society's. He must live out his life as an individual in an interconnected society. He must follow societal rules, only as far as his own individuality dictates. He must never compromise his own standing on issues that would nullify the veracity of his own intellect, judgement and conscience. Bandwagonism, gossip, malicious intrigue and singularism are the enemies of individualism and, in effect, of defined social structure.

Let a man live his life. Help him if you may. Guide him if you can. Offer advise if you have it. But let him live his own life. If he gets burned, let him, and hope that his scars would remind him of the lesson he should have learned. This is not abandonment or exercised apathy. This is the essence of applied democracy. In doing so, not only are you keeping yourself in your proper place as a peer, but you are also taking part in the process of strengthening his character, like gold tested and purified in fire. On the other hand, never compromise what you believe in to be true, just to give way for meddlers. Stand for what you believe is true, and dear and pure. If you fall, accept it, learn from it and stand and move on. Never let your individuality be unnecessarily clouded by false exhortations of what is socially acceptable, and morally upright. Half of the people saying this don't even know what those terms truly mean.

We all live interconnectedly in this world, but our interconnection ends where another persons right to live his own life, begins. After all, you wouldn't want others to tell you how to live your own life, nor would you want to be the singular authority on how people should live their lives, right?