The right way to do ANYTHING

Someone that follows my blogs recently asked me:

‘How do you know that what you say in your posts is right or at least makes sense? How do you know that people would understand? What’s the criteria?’

And my reply was obviously…

I have absolutely no clue.

The reason I have no answer to the question is that I am not looking for it.

I no more feel the need to be understood.

I no more thrill to fit in.

I no more try to talk to everybody.

‘No more’ because I used to, and this is the time when none of my blogs got published, when I spent days and days editing the same piece of content so everybody (most) can understand, when I was so self conscious and thinking anybody cares.

In fact, nobody cares about what you do, what I do, but we still try to fit in.

We don’t openly admit it but each one of us thinks of him/herself as SPECIAL and EXPOSED to the world. But you know what — YOU AIN’T SPECIAL. I am not either, and if I do great work you might or might not appreciate it, if I fail you might or might not see — in both cases you don’t care, you won’t think about my achievements and failures before you go to sleep, and you won’t wake up in the middle of the night because I made another mistake. Nobody will, except of me, AND I KNOW IT. That’s why I just do…

I’d like to think I’m able to just do mein terms of my craft — my writing (not everything), and three ‘no more’ statements above are power! But…

I’m struggling to write this following paragraph because AGAIN (in controversy) I am trying to be understood. Here’s my best way without too much of a headache…

I believe we SHOULD be part of society by RESPECTING others and by SHARING without INTERRUPTING, and this is because I wish we can be part of society FEELING FREE to create without FEAR OF JUDGEMENT, open to share IDEAS, willing to OFFER HELP.

It’s not the case though.

EVERYTHING (most things) AND EVERYONE (most people) IN OUR SOCIETY OPERATE TO FIT IN.

And there is no one to blame. It is how we’ve made it.

Humanity’s primary needs prioritisation (and definition) has been consistently changing as we evolve. Ever since the early rise of capitalism, humans started progressively moving from solely focusing on satisfying their needs, to also needingto fulfil their wants. For example, wanting to be classified as more feminine, because women with higher social status wore dresses, justified the need for a women to wear a dress. It started becoming a norm, often a priority.

Let me further explain what you’ve just read:

Sigmund Freud’s (Austrian neurologist and founder of psychoanalysis) nephew Edward Bernays, who extensively examined his uncle’s discoveries about the irrationality of the human mind, moved from Vienna to New York City and made a career of intentionally tapping into these unconscious impulses to sell products. Freud understood that people are irrational and driven by needs, wants, and desires that aren’t necessarily rational but we build a ‘layer of rationality on top of it.’This has been associated with the birth of Capitalism.

Talking shortly after First World War, the NORMAL thing for anybody was to purchase a new shirt once an old one had torn. Everybody needed a cupboard for clothes, not wardrobes. However, Bernays reasoned that unconscious urges for sex and power could be used to sell people products they didn’t strictly need, and that a purchase could reflect the buyer’s personal identity.

Nowadays companies still use sex to sell sexless products, and speak to how buyers perceive themselves. Quickly spreading to all consumer industries, Bernays was inventing unthought of ways to grow them — women in the US mostly didn’t smoke until he was hired to expand American Tobacco’s market. Bernays spoke to a psychoanalyst who claimed that cigarettes tapped into women’s unconscious penis envy, and so Bernays decided to link Lucky Strike cigarettes with power and women’s liberty by branding them as “torches of freedom.”

The same philosophy was applied to women in terms of clothing. I cannot find and recall the story in detail, but in a popular TV advert women were being convinced by well-known and respected celebrities that they need to show ‘personality’ through their clothes if they wanted to be noticed by the right man. It was being said direct — you will not be desired or loved by a man if you cannot articulate your personality through the dress you wear.

Meaning the same. Meaning it’s time to comply with the new rules.

Sounds ridiculous, right?! Women have been wearing dresses for decades and women have been smoking though.

But it hasn’t always been this way. It’s just the way we know. The way we’re taught. Comply with social rules if you want to satisfy your needs and wants (about EVERYTHING by now, literally everything — career, family, appearance, hobbies, all)…

I feel beautiful when I wear a dress.

I am confident when I buy and wear a new dress.

I can go out in that dress this weekend.

Consciously or not — do I comply, do I do it for others, do I need or want it? — the already mentioned above phrase ‘layer of rationality on top of it’ answers that question.

I know I went way off topic, but let me try relate this to my answer to the initial question. When I create something I care for, that comes from my within, that I make because I feel the urge to, not for survival, money, responsibility or to ‘turn my passion into profit’ or to feel beautiful, but just because I really and truly care, Imma do it my way.

What feels ‘the right thing to do’, the right way, the right direction, is more often than not what we’re conditioned for, it’s not exactly intuition. I am not referring to simply what we buy or wear but also the ‘obvious’ things in life such as go to university if you want to have a successful career, teach your kids to do the same, give money to your grandchilden when they’re doing well at it. 

Not saying also that this is wrong. All I’m saying is that if there is a different path and a different goal somewhere there, compressed at the back of your head, shy to speak up, it is actually worth assessing — if not out loud (to prevent it from being killed by the mass opinion) then at least silently with the self. Many proved to achieve their goals without complying with the system. More importantly, goals that ‘the system’ initially defined as impossible.

I won’t be a rebel to walk against what’s been accepted to be NORMAL in our society. I don’t want to waste energy on completely refusing the ‘modern’ way of living because in the end of the day that’s pretty much all I know. But when it comes to the LIFE I GIVE in terms of my own creations I won’t go with the what’s expected to be normal because it does not exist yet. There is no normal. There is just the widely accepted.

With my writing, I want to create value, uniqueness, power. Real. Me. And nothing of such, ever made in the world fully complied with the world. Such things make the rules.

Even Freud would have been called a mad men if he spoke about his intentions without actioning them too. However, let’s come to this day and age…

Think of the new plug of the apple headphones. Ever since headphone plugs exist they have been made to fit every device universally. What the hell Apple?

Apple are still winning tho. #breaktherules

It is not for everybody, but for the ones that care (to have an iphone)

I know I’m not Apple. They have the credibility you might think. But that’s not the point. Headphones example is just less used that the actual invention of iPhone or Apple brand, but the exact same principle applies.

Answer to the initial question: 

If you believe in what you are creating, there is no criteria.

There were millions of ideas put out there — from having to eat 3 times a day to be healthy, to queuing to be served, to having to triple the size of your butt to be sexy. Ideas that were given to humans that were not used to them, that haven’t always been part of the rules, that didn’t initially fit. It’s just that a few believed in it and started spreading.

I can never know if mine are good enough. You can never truly know if yours are good enough. Simply because this is a single point of view.

However, what we do know is that if we think in a certain way it is very likely that other humans on earth share our view. It’s worth sharing. There’s 7 billion of us. Apple will never reach all. Neither will you. Don’t try. Shot for the ones that will share your mindset and you will never ever have to worry about ‘the criteria’ or ‘being right’

The norm and ‘the normal’ will always be there. It can always change though.

Phew.

Let’s go.