With all of the things I’ve written about free thought, and not having to do everything in line with how society expects you to, it’s important to make one thing clear: What I’m advocating for is personal decisions and personal choice. Sometimes those choices will line up exactly with what society might expect.
In matters of personal safety, this will probably happen a LOT of the time. You’ll drive your car on the expected side of the street. You likely won’t lick a live electrical wire. Wanna drink cyanide? Probably not.
In matters of going to public places, this will likely happen a lot too. You’ll behave in an expected way when you eat out at a restaurant, otherwise you’ll be asked to leave. You’ll behave like a normal patron at a sporting event or concert for the same reason. You have flexibility in how that plays out, but the general way you behave won’t stray much from what is expected.
Going to school, buying groceries, these types of things will play out ‘normally’ the vast majority of the time. It’s in personal matters, and maybe semi-public matters, that you’ll really exercise your autonomy of choice.
The way you decorate your house, the music or talk radio you listen to, the animals you keep or don’t, the humans you invite into your life… these are personal matters with much less social expectation. The last bit involves a synchronous desire from any other participating humans, but for now let’s assume that this is indeed the case.
The things you like are personalized choices too. There’s a lot to be said about the power of the media, about how they feed certain shows, music, and messaging, and these forces can significantly influence society. A popular song gets played over and over again on the radio. You don’t have to like it but it’s also completely fine if you do.
The ideas and content society puts forth is yours to decide upon. You can like the songs on the radio or not. You can enjoy certain movies or not. You don’t even have to put a lot of thought into whether you like it, or why you like it or don’t, and simply consume it with pleasure or disdain. In as much as you are now an independent thinker, challenging established thought and mass media, it’s also completely your prerogative to enjoy some of what society-at-large produces.
Myself, I’m getting less and less enthused at the general notion of pro sports, or mass-market movies. I do see value in entertainment, and I’m trying to explore that more on the local scale. At the same time, I am giving myself the choice to continue to like the highest caliber of hockey on the planet, or to appreciate or enjoy any blockbuster movies that resonate with me at all.
The other day I got to experience an interactive art piece, a creation of David Byrne, called “Theater of the Mind”. A small group of us went room to room, led on this curated journey by our host “David”, where we explored various oddities of how the eyes, senses, or human brain works. As an inquisitive kid, then adult, most of this was not new to me. Most of the topics that came up were things I’ve already spent time thinking about, but it was a fun experience and I was excited to see something accessible to the general public stepping into philosophical territory, and the type of thoughts that might also arise during introspective psychedelic experiences.
Are we the same person as a younger version of ourselves, despite being a whole new collection of atoms and having had years to form and reform thoughts and opinions on various things? They danced with the Ship of Theseus thought experiment, one that also reared it’s head in the recent Marvel show WandaVision. We were challenged with the size perspective of childhood memories, where chairs or counters towered above us in ways that are foreign to anyone six or seven years old, or older. We sat in darkness and examined how eyes worked and how the brain stores and processes the light it takes in. All of these were neat experiences, all of them were available to the public, and I enjoyed partaking in it.
Some popular musicians are vapid, some sing about meaningful and socially-charged matters. Both types sell out arenas and get radio play. The woke me tends towards the more meaningful stuff, but who is to say that a vapid song that puts a smile on my face is something I shouldn’t pursue? We all hold that choice for ourselves.
My wish for you is that you make your own choices, not that you make the choices I would make, nor the choices you think I would have you make. If you’re happy being in lock-stop with the middle of society, and you choose that reality, then more power to you. If you challenge yourself and step into more underground spaces, you will like some of what you find and reject some it as well. For most of my friends their chosen reality is a mix of both spaces.
Me, I create light art and digital art in the visionary art space, I read science books, and I like both hockey and most Marvel media. I loved Moulin Rouge as a movie and as a stage production, as well as Cirque du Soleil, and I support my friends as they do circus burlesque or heavy metal burlesque. I’m generally predisposed to reject misogynistic or racist material, but apart from that I’m open to liking, or at least trying out, most types of experiences that come my way. Some will be more mainstream, some will be more underground. All will be chosen.