Dr. Paul.Feb13,2K8

October 17, 2006

On Union by Comfort & Familiarity Resulting in Complacency

A friend, ERXAvBXMR, made a comment about staying with your companion based on familiarity and complacency within that union, and not necessarily because one is happy or even in love. I replied, yes, to stay with someone solely based on familiarity and complacency was ridiculous, and if one wasn’t happy in their current state they should seek to improve their position -even if it means losing everything they knew.

I told her, in my experience, familiarity's positive provides the comfort of knowing that you stand by stability & that tomorrow will be okay because you made it through today. However, its negative acquits you of the challenge to face the New. If one is to take history as a lesson, which has proven countless times over, to fall behind with change is certain demise. This, I believe applies not only to great civilizations, but also to the self. Run from familiarity, if familiarity is all that binds you. Allow not this common bond to enslave you, ever. For in the end, the familiar is nothing but hollow, and it leaves you alienated from yourself.

How does familiarity alienate the individual? First I will presume change is inherent within nature; for it is change that renews life, reinvigorates dying stars and turns today into tomorrow. Second, it must also be assumed humans are included within the realm of the natural. The second argument, I doubt, requires much support, but it is my third that might take some persuasion. Third being, change provides nature with the ability to undermine its own laws and structures in order that it may remain constant, constantly evolving that is. Ultimately, if it is natural to change, humans' persistence to constancy is unnatural and thus grotesque.

Consider this, familiar is known and comforting, but the New is novel and exciting. There is definitely fear invoked when approaching the New, but that’s half its appeal. Long have humans explored the endless possibilities in regards to suffering, always inventing novel approaches to impeding and torturing the human and their soul. All of which makes for a tremendously regrettable sorrow, bearing in mind Happiness’ potential has barely been revealed. Instead of seeking out novel methods for joy, humanity has been recycling the same old methods over the last recollectable ages of history –namely revelry, discovery, companionship, idling and violence; too few choices for a species which has noted a thousand ways to die.

Ultimately, familiarity breeds complacency, not contempt. If contempt was truly was the case, how is it that humans allow themselves to be bred into classes and chaste; why do they tolerate the oppression of their oppressors, or what causes them to remain suffering in relationships with people they can no long stand? My answer: fear of the New, fear of revolution, fear of not knowing what to do once their free.

Being that it is unnatural to avoid change, not only for its futility and absurdity, who dares to hold onto familiarity as if it were noble or beneficial? There is no fulfillment achieved by refusing to evolve, happiness is only realized when one breaks from the common molds and dares to be free. As previously stated, familiarity is a slave bond, binding the soul to that which we know, not all that is possible.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I'm not sure if happiness is only realized when one breaks from the common mold and dares to be free. Happiness is a by-product of those, but it's not instantaneous, you have to go looking for your happiness. you need to actively seek it out, giving up on the familiar doesn't mean that you will be happy, it just means you are open to change and the excitement that it can bring to your life. that's just me though. :)