26. Remember Who You Are

The question that bugs me a lot, day in and day out, is: why do some people fail to exercise integrity in matters that conflict with their beliefs? However, I also don’t want to force my will to maintain friendships simply for fun or to use them for selfish purposes. I want relationships that I genuinely enjoy, and where my partners appreciate my presence. Trying to clarify this for myself, I devised an unconventional solution to prioritize civility over peace.

To love human beings is to understand the main human character trait: humans admire dignity and strive to appear dignified. They feel injustice when another humiliates them. If we get humiliated, we can't live in peace and need our dignity restored, or else, we wither. Dignity feels like an appreciation of existence. To gain dignity, we are ready to pay a high price for the assets we possess solely to be appreciated because respect is not given but earned in our culture of competition. Well then, people who create luxury items know what buttons they push: they sell dignity as the most desired way of living for everyone. 

We can give it to ourselves and each other for free. We shouldn’t hand out dignity on the streets like flyers, we just need to be the best version of who we are at this exact minute. In our time, unencumbered by the ceremonies of the Rococo or Baroque era, simplicity in address is encouraged on a personal level: many prefer more democratic, simple ways of addressing them verbally, in the second singular and without specifying the gender of sir or madam—just call me by my name.

Say peace no more! Peace implies quiescence and inactivity. When we are quiet and inactive, then, sooner or later, we become beggars, and beggars can't be choosers.

From what I observe in my feed, I presume that many don’t cherish integrity as the driving force of personal well-being.

Let's reason as civilized people within the framework of our original shepherd culture. In this culture, we should respect our private pastures and those of our fellow citizens, thus reducing the possibility of immediate wild fights and squabbles.

Civility presupposes that we all want to build a better society by developing our culture, science, and institutions to avoid stagnation and a resumption of the Middle Ages. This requires high civic consciousness from everyone of us. A high civic consciousness means remembering every second that we are part of the civilization elaborated by the shepherds and that we should contribute to its progress by being professional while taking care of our affairs as if they were our flocks: this is the only step we should take to give us all the dignity we dream of. We absolutely need to put the word civility above all our concepts to achieve a common integrity. Let's move our civilization forward!

Many previous shepherd civilizations ended in ruins trying to negotiate with predators in exchange for cheap labor and resources. Hunting requires wilderness, not institutions. A predator hunts, he doesn't care about being civilized. Their mind structure is simple: go to the jungle, kill the prey, eat. They don't want to bother with anything: their only worldview is that the trophy of their desire has already their name engraved on it. Everything and everyone is either prey or trophy for them. 

Unfortunately, in our modern Civilization, the hunting instinct is still encouraged under the mask of motivation for chasing bigger crowns. Seekers of various privileges don't understand that the higher qualification is necessary to get the desirable position because of their hunter’s mentality, which comes from a circle of culture (not necessarily outside of the civilization) that doesn't praise education unless it's a hunting lesson. That's the only way one grows up to be a savage, a thug, or an outcast: "Why should I study if I can use my bow and arrow?"

The concept of civilization never crosses their mind: people have lived without knowing about a big universe around the earth for millennia. So, what?!

The only fruit that civilization should provide is a good quality education; its citizens will deliver the rest to each other.

At some point, the civilization mentality must apply its bounding line to see where we can go without constantly falling into a primitive communal system at every level, from a single family to a nation. It should not be cruel and arrogant, but stand firm on the culture of civility as the only way to communicate, thus signaling a direction to everyone internally and externally. So I have decided to put aside the concepts of brotherly love and peace as my dominant reference point for a while, at least until everyone in my circle has a shepherd mentality, placing civility like an umbrella above my head, like a tinfoil hat to assess and filter all the information that rains down on me. When it comes from a shepherd bro, I know it: civilization is based on deep knowledge and expertise, not on group hunting.

Although it may feel cold, it's the cold of February, which, unlike December, offers us the brighter sunshine of the universal wisdom with each passing day.

You don’t like me? Show some detachment as a civilized individual! Let’s see from a distance if we really need each other.

I never want to be worshiped and I want to worship no one.

Let everyone have relational liberty to be who we are and show more genuineness!

Most people don’t care to be worshipped. All they want is civility (respectful interaction without deep connection), which logically should help them realize their potential.

Idolatry is heavy. Figuratively speaking, one has to have a good hair day every day because if your hair is not combed nicely, you're about to be kicked off your pedestal and made fun of. People never worship the laughable: you can't have a running nose or yellow teeth, or say rubbish. You have to look perfect like a brand-new princess doll and to be smart like Britannica, which is not only an unattainable goal for the majority but also a repugnant combination because active learning requires our full attention. I invite everyone to try and combine those two entities just to see how long they could last as such a doppelganger Idol. 

Civility gives us a healthy distance and the ability to be our vulnerable selves when we are not feeling well. It provides the energy-saving mode to have enough vitality to take care of ourselves until we're feeling well and balances the coexistence of various mentalities. One can never make a breakthrough in a dense crowd of fans, and that's why an Idol is doomed to become a deprived of respectful autonomy slave of their aficionados. It’s hard to maintain a cooperative relationship with an Idol without the emotional involvement (usually jealous and negative) of their devotees charged with dignity by simply being recognized as admirers. Fans have that repulsive, vampiric, and fetishistic air when they pounce on their idol with requests to put their autograph on all sorts of surfaces and get a thrill out of it (no kidding), or when they’re willing to spend any amount of money to buy something with their Idol’s name on it. What for? When I try to answer this question, I have obscene fantasies.

Fandom club strips its members of their sense of self-worth as independent individuals, replacing it with pride in another person’s success, in which admirers put no professional effort, developing a habit of disregarding their own talents, the well-being of their families and friends, and general achievements of the civilization. 

I would prefer to be a part of a community concerned about civilization’s trustworthiness.

For me, integrity means conforming to the professional duties imposed on the occupied position or social role. If we use our position to manipulate the public, it’s kind of lame.

A man of conviction cannot be an idolater because convictions are constantly subject to either confirmation or denial of their effectiveness and can’t be analyzed in the middle of a cheering crowd.

It’s frustrating to find that service personnel are unsure of their responsibilities. Constantly demanding integrity is not my favorite type of cooperation. Citizens who can’t grasp their role in managing their flock of duties reveal a civilization defect. If we put as much effort into supporting our civilization as we do when supporting an idol standing on a personal pedestal, we'll skyrocket it.

A belief is effective when, following it, you and the people around you begin to live better than before. In the long run, nobody will let you live better than they do if they think you don't deserve it.

Integrity means being consistent with who we are, and to do that, we must first consider who we are from the point of view of our immediate functionality: I am a student, I am learning, and I should study well. Period. This is what I do to become the best version of myself right now so that everyone will appreciate me. It's that simple. The better we fit into our social roles, the more successful our civilization is.

Just look at your job description: there is no conflict when we put our beliefs aside and do what our role prescribes without caring about promoting the agenda of our idols and club friends in the workplace. 

Stay safe, everyone 💙