> The human who doesn't want to belong to the masses need only cease to go easy on themselves; let them follow their conscience, which cries out to them "Be yourself! You are none of those things that you now do, think, and desire." Every young soul hears this call night and day and trembles, for when it thinks of its true liberation, it has an inkling of the measure of happiness for which it is destined from eternity. As long as it is shackled by the chains of opinion and fear, nothing can help it attain this happiness. And how bleak and senseless this life can become without this liberation!
-- Friedrich Nietzsche
That's not permitted though. This is the framework that is permitted, and within which we can discuss the difference between "be yourself" and "just do what you want" in articles of appropriate word count as suggested by the editor:
> [Hobbes] foresaw the necessary idolatry of power itself by this new human type, that he would be flattered at being called a power-thirsty animal, although actually society would force him to surrender all his natural forces, his virtues and his vices, and would make him the poor meek little fellow who has not even the right to rise against tyranny, and who, far from striving for power, submits to any existing government and does not stir even when his best friend falls an innocent victim to an incomprehensible raison d'etat.
-- Hannah Arendt, "The Origins of Totalitarianism"
We have this "open world sandbox", moot and harmless, utterly devoid of deep meaning, because it's all printed on stickers without any lasting adhesive, that can and will be removed without any trace or consequence. We may not have noticed this, but our brain did.
Most "thought" expressed in the 21st century stems from rationalizing around that elephant on the couch, that's what I think. When I come across a turtle on its back in a desert, I don't know quite know what to do, I never seem to be able to help and it's really stressing me out, but I know what I will NEVER do, I will never say "oh, I guess that's just what the turtle does, that's just how it walks, it's not dying, that's how it lives".
