The Individual in the Collective

We associate strongly with the roles we play in society, the occupations we engage in, and the gender we identify with. Our external appearance notwithstanding, we define ourselves by certain personality traits exhibited repeatedly during life experiences, our family background, social conditioning and ancestral histories.  Our interactions and how we relate to the people around us influence how we behave, our actions, motivations, and who we eventually become as a person.

In the collective amalgamation of these multiple roles, it is interesting to inquire the purpose and role of the individual, and how being part of a larger consciousness shapes our individuality. 

For example, let us consider the continuous process of growth-emotional, psychological and physical. As we age, and cross into the subsequent stages of childhood, adulthood, and old age respectively, we feel a need to conform to the stereotypes associated with each phase. 

Incongruous development of the faculties of nature result in an unnatural status quo, which seeks to balance out the internal states of individual needs and the external requirements of society. 

A man needs to fulfill his duties as son, father, and husband, just as a woman needs to fulfill her own respectively. The transition from each phase to the other, requires the individual to consider the needs of others, before himself. The status that one holds in society is proportionate to the respect garnered due to success, and in order to have a relatable position of authority, the individual needs to deny his self-actualisation needs, placing his physical and social needs first, in direct reference to surviving within the collective.

      Write down the various roles you carry out, and also, the ones you want to. Mother. Father. Friend. Filmmaker. Banker. Singer. Man. Woman. Now, put an adjective before every word. Feminine Man. Dominant Woman. Patient Father. Stressed Mother. Bad Artist. Bored Banker. Do the same for the three most important things in your life. It can be a person, profession or thing. 

        What is the place of the individual in the collective and vice versa? Which state is the current situation of our societal conditioning more attuned to, and what can be done to find a merger that satisfies and bridges this duality? 

With the dynamic and influential nature of changing trends in popular culture, how can the individual resist and maintain its integrity of being? The issues of nonconformity threaten the public sphere, and with it, a commonly accepted hierarchy that politicises not only economic systems of authority, but also human nature. 

In the rise and fall of power, the need for domination has been prevalent as a basic tenet for furthering one's owns means, ultimately reinforcing a Darwinian notion of survival. 

This notion can be applied in a paradoxical manner to the battles between own's one individuality and the collective, in the suppression and submission of one over the other. Is it possible for each to recognize their inherent differences and co-exit peacefully in a symbiotic rather than a parasitic manner?

Let us consider contemporary gender stereotypes of masculinity and feminity. With the civilisation and urbanisation of modern society, women no longer require men to pursue conventional gender roles of protection and provision. With liberated attitudes towards physical intimacy, men no longer require the challenge to pursue women for what they desire. However, though the economic and social movements have rendered gender stereotypes inadequate, our biological needs still remain. 

Isolation and the lack of emotional intimacy has shown itself to be one of the main drawbacks of an increasingly modern society that is no longer dependent on each other. Feminity has been traded in for undesirable masculine traits, and masculinity has been traded in for the feminine, as men  and women can no longer suppress their inherent polarities due to social conditioning.  

        While biologically it can be argued that men have a masculine core, and women have a feminine core, the complete suppression of the complementary energy creates issues of uneven development. 

While the feminist movement has reminded male energy about the inherent power of the feminine and the respect she deserves, too much of it begins to tip the scales in the domination of masculine energy. It is scientifically proven that for attraction there needs to be polarity to satisfy our biological needs, and hence the subsequent rise of same sex relations in contemporary society. This seems to be manifested as a need for the society to balance itself, overthrowing gender stereotypes in the internalisation of energy. The manifestation of various socio-economic and political movements, even biological evolution, suggests that there is a constant dialogue between the individual and the collective, with each responding and influencing the other.

As Lao Tzu quotes, 'When a movement becomes extreme, it turns into its opposite.' So also a possible futuristic prediction would be the dying down of same-sex relationships, and the realignment of heterosexual relationships, in a society that equally respects both the masculine and feminine, such that neither is suppressed while the other is inculcated. 

Both the externalization and internalisation of androgynous gender identification will restore the original balance between the masculine and feminine, while respecting the biological inner core of the differences between men and women.

When considering these multiple polarities, it is fascinating to reference a similar dichotomy that exists between the body and the mind, and draw parallels with the ultimate purpose of resistance. It is important to consider and recognize that the individual and collective may be two opposing forces, or even complementary, but they are also essentially the same, in the commonality of the goal towards the ultimate betterment and survival of our society. 

Freedom from Conditioning

Whether it manifests as a quarter-life crisis, a mid life crisis or much later into old age, at some point in our lives, a deep unresolved conflict surfaces. This conflict is central and essential to all human beings in the process of growth, and addresses the key issue which disturbs our status quo. 

What then is this conflict and where does it come from?

This conflict can be addressed as a coming of age, an inherent need to break away from the collective, and become an individual in the truest sense of the term. 

What is an individual? An individual is an original being. What is originality? Originality is knowing that a truly original opinion lies not in its content, but in its method of inquiry. 

      As we psychologically, emotionally and physically mature, we gradually become aware of this inherent resistance. The first stage is the denial of the conscious mind, which engages in repetitive patterns of thought habituated by tradition. It is easy to get caught up in this cycle because of the comfort that it offers, in the promise of a momentary reprieve from what we have repressed. However, the gratification is temporary and the suffering returns again and again. It begins to externally manifest as as our own projection of what we have internally suppressed. We begin to reflect our insecurities and that of the others into a mesh of a subjective reality far from the actual truth of possibilities. 

We often react to this suffering in two different ways. We adopt the defensive approach, becoming prisons of victimhood, or we try to aggressively attack it by reacting which is often countered with an overwhelming resistance to the reaction. As time passes, we come to find that these efforts are futile in the exhaustion of our energy reserves, and we surrender to square one, falling back into the cycle. 

If we are to transcend this relentless circle, we must look at it from outside in. The observer must become the observed, as we adopt an objective approach in understanding the source of the conflict. 

The primary resistance arises from every man's innate desire to be free. The reason for the conflict is that he/she does not know how to achieve this. When we are faced with the terrifying uncertainty that we do not know who we are, and what we want, we seek to fill the gap with something temporary. We hope that it will be lasting, but this question comes to haunt us again and again, until we learn to truly face it. 

How then can we become free, and is it truly possible to be so? To answer this question we must begin an original inquiry into the nature of conditioning. 

        If we are to truly look into our own personal backgrounds, we find that we cannot ignore the influence of the collective. Conditioning comes from not only of one's experiences, family, environment and education, but extends into the universal spheres of language, nationality, country, even climate and food. 

The way we speak, the way we dress, talk and act is influenced by how we think, and our thoughts are conditioned by language. A word is a judgement, and a judgement is conditioned.  For example, when we use the adjectives of good and bad, it creates a split of black and white thinking, creating a conflict by forcing us to conform and commit to either one. All the categorizations create divisions which forms a hierarchy in the assertion or domination of one over the other. 

The political and cultural system of our country defines our lifestyle, influences the way we react to communities, and also the way we internalise this struggle with our individual needs for independence and assertion. For example, in Eastern societies the focus is more on the mystical, the communal aspect of sacrifice, and of being something larger than oneself, but also the lack of freedom and assertion of personal needs. The West focuses more on individual independence, rationality of thought, but also selfishness, isolation and the lack of compromise. 

Incase of our personal histories, over dependence on parents or spouses causes issues of infantalising co-dependent behaviour, and sense of identity reliant on the approval of another. The other extreme causes abandonment issues, with dissociative and isolating defence mechanisms. It is interesting to consider various notions of parenting not only with our own families, but with religious, political and cultural schools, which advocate the right way to do something, thus creating a conflict between what should be done and what already is. 

The religious conditioning of self improvement is the biggest dilemma we each face in the perpetuation of the reinforcing of our ego and core identities from external sources of guilt manipulation and control. Contemporary society is based upon the trappings of competitiveness, ambition, acquisition and comparison as we constantly strive to be better than the best, ultimately crumbling under overwhelming pressure to become something to everybody. 

When a human being becomes aware of the prevalent conditioning, this is the first stage in his development. When we travel back in time and analyse our own experiences, starting from parental conditioning to larger influences, we begin to understand that our suffering comes from arrested development in certain areas. It rises from an insecurity that has not been addressed, a wound that has not been healed, and perceives the recurring patterns that result from habitual behaviour. 

        Write down something that you feel has been a major influence on you in a good way. It could be a teacher, your country, religion, career, a parent, a spouse, a hobby. Anything. Now write down something that has influenced you in a bad way. Something or someone that has hurt you, and changed the way you think about life and love. 

The second stage is when man resents this conditioning and applies outward blame, which reflects the same conditioning inflicted upon oneself back in the assertion of 'They should not have done that.' He seeks to overthrow it, thus unknowingly falling into the same pattern of conditioning. To reach a desirable yet impossible state of being creates a never ending conflict. 

When one realises that doesn't work, he/she seeks to forgive and internalise the conflict, in a solution for example, 'I should not let myself be affected or controlled by that.' While this offers relief, it is temporary. One must remember that, even if one revisits one's past or is constantly mindful, one does not have control over the subconscious mind, which actually governs most of out thoughts, feelings and subsequent actions.  

One then reaches a more positive state by understanding that not all conditioning is bad. For example: Language helps us speak and write. It helps us to communicate, as does the way we dress, talk, live-everything helps us become effective members of a functioning society. While our personal experiences could have been damaging or traumatic, they were also pleasurable and fulfilling transforming us into the colourful and unique, yet paradoxically common personalities that we are today. 

However, the suffering continues, and the mind still does not understand why. By idealising or devaluing a particular state of being, we are simply repeating the cycle. To desire to achieve an unconditioned state is a conditioning in itself. 

The mind is truly free when it becomes aware of its own conditioning, and neither judges it as good or bad. It simply watches. In this simple observation of the judgement of the content, the mind is already liberated. It understands constructive and destructive patterns of thought, and begins to break free from the cycle. 

A free and original mind accepts that is the product of subjective conditioning. 

As quoted by post modern Indian philosopher, Jiddu Krishnamurthy, 'To be free from something, is not true freedom. Freedom does not need to be free from anything. It already is.'

Awareness is freedom, and it is achievable in the here, the now, and by anyone.