36. Personal Matrix

In case you are wondering what I'm doing now, I'm making up my mind. My whole life, I’ve been unable to fit into any matrix. Perhaps I'm an undiagnosed neurodivergent person and can't read the room, but I don't want to be part of a system that drains my nerves, my wallet, my mind. What is there to read, really? Endless gossip by the coffee vending machine, half-assed commitment to the duties, and stupid company parties. I see no path to self-actualization in such environments. Please, fire me. No problem, there's a line outside the gate for your position. People are cheap nowadays. Sigh.

Such a culture is a potential weapon of mass destruction because it diminishes the value of the individual and increases the domination of the crowd. No matter how innocent it may seem initially, it slowly but inexorably pushes the masses toward the complete acceptance of the logic of approval to exclude THEM for the sake of OUR salvation. When there are a hundred of us, and ten of them, it's not so obvious, but when there are a billion of us, and a hundred million of them, that's what I'm talking about. Many people are unemployed for this reason. Many people suffer from burnout for this reason. Uneven distribution of efforts leads to uneven distribution of benefits. This math is crystal clear.

My naive solution to unemployment is to split monotonous work into two or three shifts a day, allowing more people to have part-time jobs, which is better than nothing. This way, people can stay connected to the workforce and maintain their skills until they acquire the necessary competencies for a creative work that requires a full-time presence. Workplace becomes a place of transition, but at least it leaves no room for plots and intrigues. Work becomes just work, not a second life.

Yes, go to have lunch with your kids at home, discussing their little chores instead of gossiping about someone you have no future with.

I want to see my own progress as an individual, instead of accepting an image of a plow horse as my lifelong destiny. My dream of individual self-realization must come true.

I have no intention of stamping my feet furiously, shaking my fists, and banging my head against the wall behind which my promotion in this wonderful company has been blocked. If they see no potential in me, I should distance myself, not to punish, but to observe the situation from a neutral territory.

Peaceful coexistence presupposes a higher level of intelligence, which includes careful observation, rigorous scepticism, hypothesis testing, and experimental validation. Objectivity helps maintain psychological balance.

Am I on the level of love and belonging, or am I simply surviving? Considering the extremes of the corporate culture mentioned above, most of its adherents, including upper echelons, are mere survivors, because the love and belonging this company flaunts are merely a screen of sycophancy.

Survivors try to do what is required of them and not do anything that will lead to a reprimand, which is the bare minimum. Toadyism begins at the stage when basic norms of corporate behavior, hamster wheel races, have become ingrained in the subcortex: you no longer need to control yourself and can look around for a friend. You identify people worthy of your courtship and begin to implement your security policy. If you've identified the right social circle, you cling to it with all your might, trying not to let anyone from the outside in. Deep down, you're afraid of competition because you know you're not the best worker in the room. There are better people out there: they'll listen attentively, won't judge or gossip, and they don't flaunt their exploits, which makes them very different from you and your level colleagues. The comparison is clearly not in your favor. Oh, these are dangerous people. They need to be gotten rid of first and foremost. 

That's what I call staying at the threshold of self-actualization. Being an insightful person in such environments keeps us one step away from becoming unemployed Monks. Sainthood is not profitable. A job is there to support one's life. We are faced with a dilemma: either we give up on ourselves or lose our jobs.

Hunger creates the body, the body creates the mind, the mind creates opportunity.

 According to Maslow's hierarchy of needs, a personality cannot be created by hunger. Hunger is indiscriminate; it makes you eat what you can, rather than what you truly need. But does self-actualized personality come only from abundance?

What should those poor souls who find sycophancy disgusting do? 

Let me suggest a more pragmatic view of the pyramid: although it's portrayed as static, in reality, no canon keeps us stuck at a single level forever. We move from the bottom to the top and vice versa, depending on the circumstances. Never say never.

This perspective allows us to create a network of love and belonging around ourselves at any level of the hierarchy, instead of stubbornly trying to fit into someone else's circle of affection. The process involves developing the ability to be a lovable, likeable, or emotionally reliable individual, meaning not succumbing to provocations and never attacking people, even in self-defense. Being lovable requires strength. Being strong is not easy, and we will fail at times. Still, we examine our weaknesses, adapt to the level of human need we are currently stuck on, and carry on being willfully kind, doing our best, no matter what we are doing for the sake of moving up to the top.

If we can be nice and open, no matter the circumstances, we can succeed in anything we set our mind to without having to beg random people for support.

Such a strategy benefits society as a whole. We all know that people are more willing to help those they appreciate. Niceness breeds altruism: the true measure of personal success is when people want to do things because it allows them to be near us.

When we aim/plan for success, we are actually aiming for Maturity, which implies fruitfulness expressed in the act of offering. The demands of the masses are simple: health, wealth, food, shelter, and entertainment. People rarely pray to become a better person. Only our failures teach us that prayer. Once we understand what we are good at, we can develop our area of specialization while building our communication network along the way.

We don't compete with anyone, but patiently strive to learn from the experiences of those with whom we participate in collective efforts. The desire to share experiences is also an altruistic support. Won’t you agree?

We don't seem triumphant when we go around asking for endorsement. This might happen when we are developing a new experience to achieve success, but as we thank everyone who likes our post, we know we've failed and should create something more valuable. We look triumphant when we offer our support.

“Well, okay, you're handsome and all, and your little music kind of lalalays, but what is there for me in the long run?” These thoughts should never cross people's minds when they see us. It should be obvious that our product/service is valuable.

If our achievements don't allow our contemporaries to imagine our shared future as bright and prosperous, then we are just Sisyphuses from the underworld. That is why most people don’t understand certain kinds of personal success. The internal rejection often arouses irritation called envy. In reality, this is simply a feeling of injustice, since the price for a short pleasure for one individual, multiplied by a million similar, mostly unhappy people trying to enjoy life at least a little, turns into not only wealth visible to the naked eye, but also the brazenly unlimited public glorification of a single nosy individual, who ultimately doesn't care about the wellbeing of humanity as a whole.

If you don't care about humanity and its collective success, you will ultimately fail. Yes, your star may flare brightly, but it's a mirage. At best, it will be a comet or perhaps just a meteorite that quickly dissolves in the Earth's atmosphere.

One day, humanity will come to you and present its bill: “Your meteorite hit me hard on the head, and you're responsible for all my troubles. There was no need to show off, pretending to be special, if you can't keep us happy continuously. You just wanted to fool us for money.”

For people who don't strive to be better personalities, happiness implies nothing special but the absence of grief, dissatisfaction, delusion, and sadness, while your smile flashes across every screen.

If your talent offers only temporary relief, without a tangible improvement in the overall situation, their sobering up will only bring more pain.

Talent entails responsibility and long-term commitment, because people need a North Star to guide them. Before we start shining at the top of Maslow's pyramid, we must look within and ask ourselves: Are we capable of leading humanity into the abyss? If the answer is yes, be sure to lay some soft straw of personal decency at the bottom of the abyss, on which humanity can land, following us, without causing significant damage to our health. Being a genuinely good person will save you from falling back to the basic level of physiological needs, which offers no security whatsoever. And if you ask me what being a genuinely good person feels like, my answer is: it feels like discernment and honesty.

People who constantly seek entertainment want to learn something about life without being preached at. Everyone is sick of tedious lectures. People want their lives to be filled with joy, which is natural.

Simulation of sorrow is created through manipulation in the present. If we want to achieve true joy, we must stop manipulating people and not allow others to manipulate us. Step by step, we become the founders of our own personal Matrix, thanks to which we can resolve the malfunctions of the systems and the various equations of our lives.

The next moves are to keep it optimized, efficient, open to expansion, and preserve its durability.

Backscratching imitates kindness, seizing the opportunity for a flattery move to gain favors; true kindness, on the other hand, is a character trait. Hidden agendas are shallowly buried hatchets of war. War is incompatible with the implementation of human rights, including the rights to work, fair wages, and an adequate standard of living.