What makes the world good? What is justice? Where do we find truth? These are philosophical questions that can hardly be agreed upon by humanity. Whatever the belief, it is uncommon to stumble upon someone who lives a life actively searching for the Good. You may admit to yourself that you try to search for these things, but do you really? I myself struggle when faced with this question. We always like to see ourselves as the hero, but how many times do we act as the hero? Most of the time we are in the gutter of society, controlled by narratives commanding our everyday decisions. Our lives end up in a reoccurring narrative. If you are a girl, how often do you make the first move while asking out a guy? Do you really stop and think about the extent to which your parents influenced your allegiance to a certain political party, even if you align with a different political party?
Our lives realistically are an endless stream of narratives; we feel most comfortable conforming and associating ourselves with a group. When this becomes normal, everyone suddenly speaks more or less the same narrative and we lose speciation, freedom. Our moral agency, ability to make our own decisions, is gone once we decide to cling to whatever the leader (parents, president, peers) dictates. When someone clings on to a form of tradition other than theorizing their own ideas is a lack of understanding and education. This can be easily observed in society, but is definitely not everyone.
I challenge you to stop and look at your beliefs. Question the reasons for why you think the way you do. Look at the narrative that is before you, we all have one. Narratives are innate in society, but living blindly in a narrative is where the danger occurs. Being aware of the narrative you live in and asking yourself how you contribute to society is a way of self-education on your own views. Is your tradition destroying the earth? Is your tradition taking away someone else’s moral agency? We may have good intentions, but am blind to the repercussions of what the last generation passed down to us.
Narratives may trap us when we enter into adulthood. Once we begin to plan our future, right before college and around college, we begin to form our own individual opinions. We don’t depend on our parents as much and become influenced by other people. This is where a narrative can solidify. The college you attend, the friends you make, the hobbies you partake in will all shape an individual. It is daunting to be alone and some people choose to conform to an already determined narrative that can ease the transition to a new life. This is not necessarily harmful in a general instance, but like most things in the world, can turn bad. The take away from this article is to be aware of the decisions that you make. We can so easily be skewed to a narrative and live through a long held tradition without truly understanding it.
