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I hate modern society.

[INTP] 
8K views 49 replies 38 participants last post by  DustOfShard 
#1 ·
I'm currently working my way through college to be an electrical engineering technician, I'm seriously starting to question the point of it all, it's like an endless cycle of work and school all to chase the all mighty dollar.

I'm currently a computer technician at a local store, I don't particularally enjoy it, it's just a job to me.

I feel like a slave to societial standards, It just seems pointless, I don't give two shits about money yet I decided to get 40,000 dollars into debt so I can make one day make 20-25 dollars an hour. (half of which will probably go to pay off student loans for the next decade.)

I feel like an indentured servant, forced to play a societial role, forced to play this fucked up little game called "life".

It seems to all revolve around money, which I don't give two shits about.

I would be happy living in a small home in the country, growing my own food and living off the land, occasionally creating works of art or maybe even studying the universe (independently, not for money.) but in our modern society all of those things require this "energy" we call money.
Which in reality is worth absolutely nothing but everyone is content with living the lie, so the lie continues, simply based on a mass mindset.

The Majority agrees on a set of rules and we are all expected to live by them, even if they make absolutely no sense, I absolutely hate it. I recently had a dream, where I was talking to the spirits of my dead relatives, they told me I would be dead before 2019, in my dream I was quite elated, almost as if it was a release.

I am doing all of these things but I am not fulfilled, I am not happy, it is just a depressing cycle, I can't quit my job because my family relies on me to bring home the bacon, I just feel forced to live by a set of rules that I did not agree to, almost as if from birth I was forced into this world and to live by it's rules, it's almost as if living on an alien planet.

I know I'm rambling a bit but It's getting close to my bedtime so I'm a bit tired but I wanted to know if the rest of you feel the same way?

Does it seem unfair?

Do you feel like you are forced into a life of unhappiness only to satisfy others?
 
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#2 ·
Don't complain about it and then stick with it.

I completely agree with your views and opinion, however I was 'smart enough' so far to not being obligated to bring anyone any bacon but myself. I dropped out of University and instead went with a classic apprentice ship within the IT field and am soon done.

Afterward I'd preferably work only half-time rather than full-time and live my life happy-go-lucky.

I'm not indebted, either. Fortunately.

If you play along any more than you absolutely must, then you can't blame the system but only yourself. You can use the system in place to your advantage by giving it only the bare minimum.
 
#8 ·
You're halfway through, might as well finish what you started with the amount of student debt you've racked up. I had a crisis during my first year of university.

What in the hell am I doing here? Is this it? I'm going to get a nice tidy life and live by a nice tidy set of rules and everything predetermined for me? It felt like I was following a script. At the end of the school year, I did a runner. I still lived in England at the time with an EU passport and grew up with my parents moving around western Europe, but never had the chance to see the sights. I already knew people who lived in all these different cities. I decided to visit them on pocket change. I wandered for nearly 3 years. At first family called it backpacking. Then eventually realized I was basically semi-homeless and content. But I grew up, got it out of my system and managed to make a career without a degree using the gift of the gab I was born with.

Maybe when you're finished the degree, you can take off. It's hard for debt to follow you abroad, I hear. But I don't know much about your student loans, but they'll still be here when you get back. How did you alone become responsible for grandma?
 
#9 ·
I want to say thank you to everyone here, it's nice to know I'm not alone in my sentiment.



The whole backpacking around thing actually sounds quite nice, not so materialistic but totally free.

As for being responsible for my grandmother, I've lived with her since I was a small child, she has always taken care of me, my uncle lives here as well but sadly, he's going to prison soon. So it's up to me to take care of her, especially since she's always looked after me.

I've considered suicide quite a bit lately although my family has had alot of death. (my 15 year old cousin committed suicide about 4 years ago as well as many other family tragedies that I don't care to discuss)

So it seems suicide isn't even an option, as it would destroy my family all over again, it's truly a conundrum.
 
#15 ·
I am doing all of these things but I am not fulfilled, I am not happy, it is just a depressing cycle, I can't quit my job because my family relies on me to bring home the bacon, I just feel forced to live by a set of rules that I did not agree to, almost as if from birth I was forced into this world and to live by it's rules, it's almost as if living on an alien planet.


My case is even worse, I'm studying architecture and there's literally no jobs in my country (Spain), the career is fucking hard and I hate it, but it's too late to quit, I will have to go find a job somewhere else, leaving home only to survive and not feel like a charge to my parents, and I'll be forced to work 12h every day for a shitty salary, after 24 years of studying.
 
#16 ·
Yes! I hate feeling like the drone that society wants me to be. Sometimes I just wish I were a mindless animal, then I wouldn't have to feel the pressures of daily life. The primitive mindset scares me but also seems intriguing.
 
#17 ·
I would be happy living in a small home in the country, growing my own food and living off the land, occasionally creating works of art or maybe even studying the universe (independently, not for money.) but in our modern society all of those things require this "energy" we call money.
Nothing is stopping you from doing this.
Sure there is defiantly a system in play that is fucked up but that docent mean you haft to comply to it.

If you look at the system from within the system then yea of corse it looks grim. You haft to think outside the box.

By fact that you notice the system means that you can live in it and use it to your advantage.

Its really not so bad if you just do your own thing. Its almost like it docent even exist when I take it out of my existence.
 
#32 ·
I can't wait for the day oxygen has to be paid for. :dry:
We already have to pay for all of the other essentials of life, it is only a matter of time. We can say the terrorists are "toxifying" the air and thus we need to put up "detoxifiers" all around the country, but at a cost of course lol.

I'm in a similar situation where I have been questioning life lately and not finding many good answers. I am against everything society stands for and do not wish to partake. I'm having a really hard time trying to find out what will make me happy in life and even then some of those things are so outlandish that they will likely never happen.
 
#22 ·
I often really wish there was an Opt Out option for society. Working is necessary, however. As individuals we have to throw something into the community pile. We have to contribute in order to further our species. Money is simply incentive. A reward for doing what we're supposed to. It sucks when you realize how valueless money really is, because then you realize how mundane life is. Then you question the societal obligation to contribute. Then you decide to stop working for society.

I understand thinking like that. But if everyone thought like that, it'd be an uncomfortable world. Sadly (yet luckily) most people remain a slave to money.
 
#23 ·
Well I think modern society wants us to live a SJ lifestyle that's why I don't agree with it
but I'm the same except I'm still in high school and realised this earlier, I really want to be a electronics engineer because i thought i was smart enough to and it also made a lot of money but then i joined the robotics team and went through the whole honors program to realize that it's not about being smart it's about hard work and the amount of time you put it so I just gave up on the whole engineer thing
I mean going to a 2 year college with under a 4.0 gpa and just being a computer technician doesn't mean you're unsuccessful as long as it's enough for you
I suggest if you truly want to continue your education but if it makes you unhappy then just go to work and make the most of it as it is now you've gotten pretty far as it is so good luck
 
#24 ·
OP as you analyze the situation, make sure to take a step away from the confines of the problem as defined in your mind. The bigger you make the problem, the less you will get done. Make a small decision, a simple decision, have something to look at when you envision your future. "I want to be free from responsibility by having a reasonable amount of income over my debt, and I want to live on my own."

Something like that. Just figure out what you want, simply. If the answer you get is unworkable, break it down into 2 or 3 more simple statements, pick the workable ones, break the unworkable ones down, etc. Just don't go past 3 levels or so of this or you end up with a problem bigger than you can actually handle.
 
#28 ·
"I feel like a slave to societial standards. I feel like an indentured servant, forced to play a societial role, forced to play this fucked up little game called "life". " The Majority agrees on a set of rules and we are all expected to live by them, even if they make absolutely no sense."
That's exactly what it is. We were born onto national soil forced to live by the standards given, told that we are free, but then we must be forced to pay taxes and forced to be good little workers to pay off the debt of our government. We never had a choice, we all have guns to our heads.

" I don't give two shits about money" but then you say: "yet I decided to get 40,000 dollars into debt so I can make one day make 20-25 dollars an hour. (half of which will probably go to pay off student loans for the next decade.)"

Money is a part of life, you must except that. Time is money, work is money, "Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think". -Ayn Rand
With that said, you do bring up a good point about college. I don't think it's for everyone. I also would like a home, property, and to grow my own food but to live in solitude. I realized that it's not going to happen ever for me alone, there must be two incomes (no wonder why women get married so young). It's hard because I'm trying to do everything "right" but I feel like society is telling me I MUST fail in order to get what I want. It makes no sense!!

"I wanted to know if the rest of you feel the same way?" I think everyone does in a way, the ones that SAY they don't are simply delusional of reality... or self ignorance... which is one of the greatest sins of this world in opinion, it's this self disillusionment that made society the way it is today.

"Does it seem unfair?" Is anything fair in slavery? We must be forced to choose which Tyrannical nation to be a part of, none of this is fair. But life isn't fair.

"Do you feel like you are forced into a life of unhappiness only to satisfy others?" Yes, I "behave", but I'm open about my beliefs which upsets the peace. I may snap one day though.
 
#29 ·
“Existing is craving change; Living is acting on it.”
As a child, adults were constantly reminding me to think before I acted, to be honest, the like. The wicked truth of this situation is, however, that most adults don’t even come face to face with the reality of their own lives on a daily basis, or on a weekly or monthly basis. In many unfortunate cases, they don’t come face to face with the reality of their lives until old age sets in. At times, I feel I am cursed with the perspective to see where and why people are unhappy with what they are doing with their time. The time they try so desperately to control. “Growing up” is a god damned joke on the development of the self. They say, “Grow up.” They mean for you to find a set of traits and characteristics and behaviors to conform to and never waiver from. Adapt, flex, change, create, deviate, do anything different than what they standardize as good, right, moral, competent, successful, or happy, and you can kiss their respect and acknowledgement goodbye. But, why are we living for the affirmation and acceptance of other people? Fuck that. Live to become as you as you can possibly be; don’t wake up at eighty years old, realizing that you’re a miserable, bitter old bastard because you never lived for you. I hope that you embrace life so tightly that when death comes face to face with you on your reaping day, you are not afraid to go, for you are confident that your life was not a waste of time, space, and resources. If you have already been sucked into the rat race, there is no better time than now to leave if you do not feel in the depths of your being that this is exactly how you want to live. If what you are doing with your time every day will be a highlight of your memories in five, ten, fifteen, twenty, thirty, fifty, seventy years, do it. Changing is relative to the moment; if you are happy now, continue; if in the next five seconds you cease to be happy with that way, change it. Stop existing now; start living.

Yours Truly.
 
#30 ·
You think modern life is hard, but living an isolated life growing your own food would be so easy that you would have time to do art? It's not. In that case you would have to provide for all your needs yourself. Growing food is a lot of work, keeping the weeds and pests out. In modern society we can pay others to do the work we can't or don't want to do.
 
#31 ·
I suggest you try it out over a summer break. Make arrangements to live on a farm in some self sustaining village or town. In the U.S. that would probably be Amish country. I'll bet that living off the land is not nearly as easy as you make it out to be. You'll spend most of the day securing a stable supply of food, something that we take for granted.

You do have a point with the indentured servitude part though. Life is tough. If you want to make something of yourself, you either have to be good and/or lucky. There's really no way around this. I think part of accepting your role in society is defining what you believe to be your purpose in life. You can do that by trial and error and also being real with yourself. Picture yourself in old age, what kind of life would you be happy and proud to have lived? Work backwards.
 
#33 ·
Yeah, I feel the exact same and it's hard to take the pressure off, even if it's imaginary. Ever since I was 15 I felt something was way off about this life script everyone seems to follow. It all started with a deep hatred for school. Virtually everything works in a way that helps the cycle of bullshit (aka the system), formal education included. I was pretty angry back then. I've been reading this thread for a while now and many posts in there are much better worded than anything I could come up with so take a look if you want to.

I don't want to die now, but I wish I never existed in the first place. I still despise and continue to be a part of it at the same time, though it will be done as minimally as I can (when I'm independent). Living simple and with a little over enough money to cover basic needs, almost completely removes the enormous layer of stress that comes with living life 'normally'. I realize I have a choice, but I hate that it's a dichotomy. It doesn't have to be that way. "Either live in modern society or a farm", they say. 2 extremes but no middle option. Shouldn't technology and simplicity go hand-in-hand? No, not in the present day. Everything just gets more complex because it is based on profit, not progress.

In short, I know how you feel.
 
#34 ·
I really appreciate all of the kind and wise words from everyone, I actually feel alot better. (especially since it's the weekend.)

I've been listening to Alan Watts alot more lately, it's very good for the mind, perhaps reality is simply what I have made it, I'll try to make the best of a bad situation.

Videos like this are quite helpful, as well as knowing others feel the same way.



This one really hits the nail on the head in regards to the topic of money:

 
#35 ·
Money has existed for thousands of years. and whilst we are not totally free, I'd rather modern society than a society in which people were truly slaves, like 200 years ago.

I like modern society. Whilst it's not perfect, it's better than many other cultures that exist or have ever existed.

I also may have to work, but then in which human society don't people expend effort to survive?
 
#37 ·
What is the alternative to money? A trading society? Everyone makes their own stuff, sending us way back in terms of technology?

Nothing in life is free. Money is just a measurement of how not-free something is.
 
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