I dislike “superficial life”, a lifestyle that is solely focused on consuming, such as watching TV, playing games, doom scrolling, gossip, and shopping as a hobby. People who embody these lifestyles are everywhere, they are the majority.

They live on the surface of a world that is ocean deep, they surf around, let the current take them to wherever. They are happy, they do not look deeper. I look down on them, because it is a life driven by the limbic system to fulfill a list of animalistic rituals to induce the easiest fulfilling chemicals.

I used to feel angry at them, because they are wasting their potentials, they could have achieved so much more. I thought I was angry from compassion, not from egoistic judgement.

I was wrong.

My hatred

One day, It dawned on me that, what is exactly wrong with being superficial? If you look around, the world is literally built to help people live like that. This is the intended way. They are the majority, the norm, they are the standard to be further replicated! The people who contemplate wild ideas are, in fact, the weirdos and outcast here.

Such obvious revelation convinced me to look inside on why I judge people. And to the surprise of absolutely nobody: It is my Ego.

I masked my ego through reasoning and grand speeches:”I would love to trade places with these people because they seem happy”, “to think is to poison our own mind, I wish I was more like them!”. No, that is a big fucking lie.

I would never trade my mind with them. I look at them with contempt and disgust. I hate them. Their hobbies, they conversations, their emotions, their routines. Everything about them makes me want to vomit. How dare they talk about kids, marriage, houses, weekends on a beach. I gag with a mere thought of living like these people. I would rather die, and this is not me being hyperbolic.

I am seething with hatred. Which is quite comical because they literally have done nothing to me. But somehow, their existences just rubs me the wrong way.

Judgements

But who am I to judge anyone for anything? I am an idiot with millions of weakness, pathetic failures and shallow mind. A better quest yet: how can one be judged by anyone, for anything? (Assuming an atheistic view)

Can I ever look at someone and say: That is bad, and I don’t like that (those is two distinct and unrelated statements).

To me, there seems to be two types of judgement we tend to make:

1. Moral Judgement – lying is bad, murder is bad;
2. Functional Judgement – he is a bad cop, he is a good father.

Moral judgement are by definition impossible to be transcendent nor objective, otherwise we wouldn’t have all any value-driven conflicts. Refuges, wars, guns, medical issues, these are all moral problems. We put them aside first.

Functional judgement is much more straight forward:

1. A dull kitchen knife is bad
2. A car without wheels is useless

There is no morality to these statements. It is a matter of fact. In order to make any functional judgement, we must know the intended “function”. If we say “a dull hammer is bad”, it would be stupid, because hammer is NOT suppose to have sharp edges.

So if we are to make functional judgements about a person. We must decide what is their function. This is beyond their job and daily duties, for they are temporary. We are referring to a unchanging function of a singular human being.

Functions of human

Life has evolved on this planet for billions of years. Every generation of every living organism had been trying to survive and reproduce, it is a set of codes baked into the fabric of our very being. We have a purpose in this world, it is to continue life that is flowing through us, it was given by the very fact of us being alive. Of course one can fail or reject their purpose. But by default, this is what we were given.

The next immediate question is that, if the purpose of our life is the continuation of humanity, why don’t we just live out our animiasltic tendencies completely? Why not beat each other to death, why not be naked, why we even bother with marriage and work and everything at all? Just eat and breed and forego pointless rituals.

To me, this is because the human society is more “alive” than any actual living person, it is hyper-alive. As individuals, we die and we disappear. But the society continues, carrying on with the minor marks we had left. It is a beast of billion corpse. It gives birth to us, mold us, then consumes us. It gives, it maintains, and it demands sacrifice. It is our duty it make sure the beast expand, grow and flourish.

The actions one might take should be as follows:

1. Baseline: Beneficial to themselves without hurting others;
2. Better: Does good to themselves and the society

The benefit of the individual is still more important, but it should be achieved without causing issues for others, such as cutting the queue/line in a busy railway station.

But what is “good”? Given the context, a purely functional view of “good” would be along the line of “Reducing unnecessary suffering for the entire society”. Unlike any positive emotion, pain is essentially the bed rock of human feelings. It cannot be explained away, or tricked to be otherwise. It has to be resolved or endured.

There are pain that cannot be reasonably resolved by anyone, such as the loss of loved one, or physical trauma or illness. But many can, such as poverty, the lack of access towards human basic needs such as shelter, income and food.

Thus it is reasonable to say that, reducing unnecessary pain is “good”.

The implications

With this conclusion, I believe people should take care of themselves, as well as the people around them. And if they have overflowing of power and resources, they should take care of broader society to reduce pain. That is good. This is the maximized potential one can reach.

Innovation and changes (for better for worse) are always proposed by a very few people. These people either have unusually deep level of thinking or hyper motivation that simply attract others in their aura.

Thus fundamentally correct to say most of the “masses” of human population tend to follow and do what is expected. If this is the case, and it is, then it is incorrect to dislike people who live a “superficial” life. Because by definition it is what vast majority of people designed to do by genetics. Their very existence allowed innovators and adventurers to sustain themselves – there would be no innovation if the mass cannot be seduced by new shiny toys. So the masses, by being brainless and superficial, they are doing “good”.

Thus, I have successfully reasoned myself out of a position i had been holding for many years. And I feel great! Less hatred and more love is always good.

Side notes

The dark side of the position that “everyone has their own use” is that it is borderline eugenics and could be understood as a call for the caste system, which I am very much opposed of. Rigid system that does not allow social movement will NEVER produce a high-rewarding and stabilizing society. Thus the consequential action of this idea should be maximized social movement freedom. People should be encouraged to try out different things at different places to maximize their function, thus doing the most good”.

This way, the society might benefit the most for everyone.