Happier Abroad Forum Community

I was just thinking about a song from the late 1970's called "The Logical Song" by the rock/pop group, Supertramp. Generally, the lyrics of the song start out with the singer describing how life was so simple and magical for him as a child. But as he got older, the status quo impresses upon him to give up his youthful spirit and individuality, and to CONFORM to the standards of society. That song made me reflect upon my own struggles to maintain my own identity and made me realize it's perhaps the biggest struggle in my life to overcome. I mean, it seems american society is determined to fight an individual to the death to overcome a person's right to be themselves! For me, even more than the quest for love, wealth or survival, I find that to the the biggest challenge in my life is the preservation of my own identity! Has anyone else had this experience?

I"m surprised nobody has seen this thread. Yeah, in my generation, there is a rapper whom goes by the name of Kool Keith, and he had released a song in 1999 under the quasi-moniker of "Black Elvis" called "I See Robots". Yes, that's right; he's talking about how fake everybody is just to comply with society and how they were innocent as a child and care-free.

It's worse than that. An individual is expected to live to serve an organization or corporation or institution or government agency. He is not supposed to serve himself. That is seen as selfish and a bad thing. One is expected to give their life to others as though others own them and their life is not their own. It's stupid. They don't even give you a choice about it. It's like your life is to serve others only, not yourself. So you are supposed to live for external organizations and be willing to die for them if necessary, which is considered honorable. That is seen as the mark of a good man. A bad man only serves himself and is selfish. Unselfishness is always good and selfishness is always bad. It's black and white.

People ought to read Ayn Rand's "The Virtue of Selfishness" booklet. It makes sense. Also Harry Brown's "How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World" which has a chapter called "The Unselfishness Trap" that is very good and exposes this technique of society to control you and make you serve the collective.

It's also a huge contradiction for America to tell you that you are a free individual in a free country with free speech, yet at the same time tell you that you must conform to society's standards and serve the collective or an outside organization, and to not be selfish but treat your life as though it belongs to others and is not your own. That's a 100 percent obvious contradiction. Yet very few people notice it or speak out about it or complain about it.