Be Radical

Society and I are not aligned in the concerns we have. We are also not aligned in what we value and the life we want to lead.

Society values fancy cars. To me, they are luxury death-traps and money drains. Unless I could sell it, I would not want a fancy car, even for free.

Society values a long, steady, low risk, respectable career that will last right up until your body barely functions. To me, that sounds like dying slowly with extra steps and bureaucracy.

Society thinks people who risk their lives climbing Everest and K2 are insane. I also think they are insane, but I envy those people, I wish it were me, and I would also climb them if the death rate were lower.

Statistically, as a 20 something year old if I were to die it would be from a motor vehicle accident. Specially a motorcycle, which is why I don't drive them. Not a plane, not a mountain climb, not skydiving, not scuba diving, none of those things are actually super radical (with the exception of climbing any of the Himalayas, those boast a 2%+ death rate).

Society has normalized a horrible diet that will kill you from heart attack when you're 60, it has normalized wasting away inside a cubicle, getting to that cubicle by doing the deadliest thing you will do in your 20s (apart from drugs), taking pills to sleep and to function normally as a cog in the machine.

We are peer-pressure animals, always looking for someone else’s approval. Meaning, we will default to what everyone else is doing. By default we will fall to the lowest common denominator. And the person whose personalities and interests is entirely average doesn't exist. We all have different opinions and personality traits, there is no one-size fits all.

The adjective “weird” has become high praise in my mind. Dancing alone is weird, running in the streets for no reason is weird, expressing genuine happiness, or any form of emotion in fact is also seen as weird. Camping is weird, hitchkhiking is crazy, climbing mountains is insanity. Taking a year off from your career and blowing half your savings to travel the world is seen as some sort of ‘giving up’.

A diet that avoids the unhealthiest foods ever conceived by humanity is considered “radical”, so is having any form of values or backbone or principles or things you stand for.

Anything that remotely resembles life is “weird”, “crazy” or “radical”. But doing the things which will lead to an unfulfilling life and early death is totally normal. If avoiding death, pursuing purpose, meaning, and emotion, is being radical, so be it. Be radical.