False Sense of Belonging

Sense of belonging. It's something that keeps us comfortable and free to be whoever we want to be. That's what I think sense of belonging will cause to an individual. It doesn't matter whether the group is big or small. It could be just one other person; it could be a group of 50 people. It doesn't matter. What is only needed is some "wall" to reflect our ideas upon and be validated. To have a group of people that has the same interest as we do, have the same way of thinking, sometimes even have the same names!

However, what happens when this gets out of hand? Literally out of hand in the sense of physicality. In the modern world where the internet has brought millions if not billions together to meet, to interact, to play games, to share ideas, to brainstorm and many more, it is inevitable that we will meet people that are very similar to ourselves especially in interests, hobbies, beliefs, values, many more that may govern our lives and the way we behave. The rise of internet usage and availability to different areas around the world has enabled us to communicate and break the culture barrier like we have never experienced before. The scary thing is... this is only the beginning.

As mentioned earlier, we tend to fall back into a specific group of people for a sense of belonging. People that have differing beliefs and values as us, we tend not to socialize as much as the people that are similar to us. It may be because of the ease of communication or the fear of having conflict with others, whatever the reason may be, we love our comfort zone. Nobody loves changes. However, putting the ease of access of the world wide web, we are able to broaden our comfort zone to the entire world. International. Wow.

We go to forums that we have interests in and interact with others that have the same interest. Even Though social media websites allows us to widen our circle, I do think that they in themselves are a "clique". People that are heavy users of Instagram would find it easier and have more opportunity to talk to people that uses Instagram religiously. Same goes for Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr... Anything can be a platform for similar people to form their groups and start to "belong". They use in-group specific terms like following for Twitter, Like for Facebook or other lingo that I'm aware of.

This will soon become, if it isn't already, a big issue. When people are only interacting with people that are similar to them it will cause a few things to happen. These things aren't exactly good. In fact, they can bring negative impact to the individual and society too. I'll be addressing two here.

The first is the more obvious one. We are lopsided in our thinking and beliefs. Once we hold firm to something that we deem as true, our constant reinforcement of it's trueness through unceasing interaction with the people that are like us and the lack of healthy debates with other people with differing thoughts will not allow us to grow. We will merely be stuck in the initial stage and understanding of a certain belief with no doubts (mainly due to the lack of opposing thoughts rather than the absence of reasonable doubt). This would also be true for hobbies and activities as well. How so? Shouldn't interaction with other people of the same hobby or interests actually cause our knowledge of that specific field to widen and deepen due to the sharing of ideas? Well, it is only true to a certain extent.

Imagine someone who is interested in watches. This person loves to collect different watches and know different brands and designs. They know the ins and outs of a typical watch and can even list down all the differences between a mechanical watch and digital watch along with it's pros and cons. Up to a point, this person would have to learn about the history of watches, the science behind the mechanics, the ingenuity of the design that results in such precision of the watch. All of these inevitably will need that individual to venture out of the field of interests that they are in and start discovering uncharted "land" (knowledge) to broaden the whole are of watches. Being confined within one's realm is a sure fire way to limit one's imagination and creativity.

The second one is the result of the first one but leads to an entirely different consequence. That is, yes you guessed it, the title. People tend to develop this false sense of belonging. It is true that there will be some degree of sense of belonging while interacting with people online. However, this can never replace the true sense of belonging while interacting with people in real life. How much can one feel belong while online? I would argue a lot, in fact, to the extent that it feels like a real and tangible sense of belonging. The constant agreements found within the online "clique" will lead to an unwarranted pride and distorted view where the world consists of many people that are similar to you.

Once a person leaves the keyboard and screen and begins interacting with the world, they will find that the individual differences found in society is so diverse that they will not be able to deal with it. They won't be able to handle disagreements wisely. They will find it difficult to understand what other perspectives are like. Of course, these examples are extreme cases and chances of it happening is rare. However, it is undeniable that the constant positive feedback online and being surrounded by like-minded people in the virtual world will cause us to think that everyone is the same. Then, the above mentioned problems will no longer be far from the truth.

It is important that while interacting and using the internet for resources that we do not forget to hear both sides of the story. Even if the opposite side may seem false to you or foreign. It is good to hear what others have to say that are opposing to your idea.

"One must dig deeply into opposing points of view in order to know whether your own position remains defensible. Iron sharpens iron." - Francis Collins 

NICE

YAY! Another post. Like finally.

HAHA, today it's all about being nice.

Nice guys/girls has always been shown as the victim in a relationship between 2 people as being taken advantage of and not being appreciated for what they have done. Well, there are many articles and videos surrounding that topic already. The reason I want to start of with that is because when talking about someone being nice, this topic will inevitably pop out.

What is my take on this topic? Well, before delving into that, I would like to talk about the whole are of NICE.

Recently, through a discussion and a random event that happen, a question popped into my head. Has the word nice been overused? Well, the very obvious answer is yes. So, like everything that intrigues me, this idea has been living in my head rent-free for the past few days.

The first reason why I think that nice is being overused and even to the extent of misused is because of the hypocrites that use them. Just like everything in the world, there will always be the "black sheep" in the "family". What do I mean by that? Let's say there is this "family" that are made up of people that are nice. There will always be people that try to sneak in or they are mistaken as part of the family due to the many resemblance that can be found and seen through their actions. However, this has caused the word NICE to be so misused to the extent that it has lost it's meaning. Now, I think people use nice as an excuse for everything, even laziness. Why laziness? Well, I would like to think the majority of the "black sheep" of the nice family are known as the passive "nice" people.

Passive "nice" people are the ones that seem nice by not doing anything. "Awh, you could have totally insulted that guy but didn't, you're so nice!", "Whoa, you totes could have gone first into the lane but you let the old lady go first!" The first example, the person could be just someone who just doesn't care about anything and has no opinion about anything. Hmm... You might be confused why the second example is considered passive. Well, that is because in the second scenario, that person haven't decided on what to eat for dinner yet. HAHA! Why is he not "nice"? Well, because there was no intentionality involved. I believe that in order for someone to be nice, there must be intentions of being nice. Of letting someone be of more importance than you.

Another reason why these passive "nice" people have become so prominent lately is due to the fact that society has been corrupted to an extent that common courtesy has to be renamed as "rare" courtesy. It is because the holding the door for other people is seen as a "gentleman" act whereas it's just plain common sense. You're going through the door, you have to open it. Why can't you just take a little more effort in holding the door for one microsecond longer for the person right behind you to pass as well? Society has become so egocentric that we have forgotten what it means to be a community. It's a shame to have a society that is prominently dominated by technology that aids us in our communication that we have forgotten how to communicate. It's a real tragedy.

Well, another group of the passive "nice" people are the people who just hates conflict. Don't get me wrong, hating conflict is normal, who doesn't hate conflict. I'm talking about pushovers. Those people that do whatever that is asked of them. It looks like they are nice because they always help people when other people are in need (mainly because they think saying no will cause conflict) or they may seem nice because they will help you do anything that you ask them to even if it may conflict with their principles (if they had any). Yeap, not being able to say no is NOT an indication of being nice. These group of people are cowards and do not have principles that they firmly believe in.

An example of this is nice guys/girls. Well, I'm just gonna talk about guys here. ESPECIALLY those that complain about being the nice guy and not getting what they expect from the girl and curse everything around them when they are tossed in the friendzone. It is because you are a coward. Being nice and all is fine as long as the girl likes you back? Wow. Just wow. It's shameful enough that you aren't strong enough to be direct and just let the girl know that you are interested in her beyond friendship, you complain about it when the girl doesn't get it? Your IQ must be off the charts. Don't play the game of charades, pick up your guts and let the girl know. These hypocritical "nice" guy things will not get you anywhere.

HAHA... can't believe this turned into a mini-rant. :P

I just dislike the fact that nice is being tossed around in our everyday life that it's meaning has come close to nothing.

A final note about passive "nice" people: THEY ARE NOT BAD! It's the people that mislabel them that should rethink of the word nice.

Remember, being nice is all about intentionality. You don't accidentally become a nice person.