Projection

When you study Psychology, one of the things you learn quite quickly is that everyone has the same basic set of problems in life, the only difference is the variables that are thrown into the equation.  The solution to these problems often remains the same, although for many reasons it may be difficult or in some cases impossible for the individual to pursue those solutions.   What you learn as a result of this revelation, is the same conclusion that is drawn when you start exploring things like Cold Reading, that most people have an inherent ability to take any comment, or criticism, and make it about them, even when it was never aimed at them specifically, their minds can perform incredible feats of mental gymnastics and contort the limits of language as far as they possibly can in order to make it about them.  The most ironic part of this realisation is that in reality it is about them.

Projection is an interesting concept when it comes to Psychology, the idea is simple, if someone outwardly expresses anger, it can be deemed to be projection if the root cause of that anger can be traced back to emotions the person expressing that emotion secretly feels towards themselves.  The easiest example of this is to take an individual who expresses anger at a person failing to understand a concept they deem to be simple - in reality it is rarely the perception of that person that is really the root cause of the expression of anger, in reality it is more often the case that the person expressing anger is insecure about their own intelligence and their own competence that they hold anger they direct at themselves so often when they fail to grasp simple concepts, then when they see that behaviour in other people it has been built up to be something so repugnant to themselves that they direct anger towards that person.  What you learn in this situation is that almost all emotions people express, both positive and negative in life, are really coming from their own issues and their own internal conflict rather than being the result of outside stimuli.

This isn't to say that a person cannot be made angry by a given action or stimulus, that can still happen, this is simply to say that for the most part when you want to understand why a person behaves in a given way towards you, the answer the vast majority of the time is because of something going on in their head, in their life, not something you said or did.  This can be difficult to accept, especially for people who struggle with self confidence who believe the lie they tell themselves that they are to blame for everything wrong in their life and the lives of everyone around them.  Our impact on the world is tangible, but despite sentimentalities and our desire to change the world, the sad and simple truth is that for most of us our impact on the world is negligible.

What I find fascinating about this whole idea and the conclusions drawn is that it leads us on to the issue of people who want to make an impact that is deeper, one that will last beyond their lifetime.  What motivates this desire is not easy to pin down.  You can consider it in some instances to a fear of living a life of insignificance, or a fear of the fact that life is fleeting.  You can also consider it to be plain and simple ego.  You can posit that it is motivated by any number of things, but in all cases, what they attempt to achieve is to ultimately have an impact on other peoples' lives.  The question then comes down to whether or not anyone ever has a right to do this.

If you are a revolutionary, you must by definition accept that you have the desire for others to adhere to your vision and your interpretation of the way the world should be.  You must accept that you do not like the order that exists, that you believe your order would be better, and that you want to impose that order on others.  No revolution was ever achieved without resistance - there will always be those who reject your vision, who do not like your order, and will actively fight against it.  They don't have to like the way things are right now, all that is required is that they do not want your alternative.  Herein lies the ultimate problem many people have in modern society with the concept of revolution - that it is really a question of authority, and which authority you want to accept and allow to define that to which others must conform.  In modern society there is a growing displeasure and unease with the idea of one person having authority over another, this is a concept that is resisted almost everywhere it is imposed, the pursuit of liberty has lead to the emergence of an extremity in our society that believes that every single person should be completely free.  The problem with this idea is that it can never be achieved in practice, or at least it would be incredibly difficult to achieve to the point where it is deemed impossible.  In order to achieve this concept in totality, you would have to create over 7 billion micro nations, were each and every person in the world becomes their own independent sovereign state.

This idea is asinine, for the plain and simple reason that it is impossible for one person alone to meet all of the needs they would have in life.  You can live "off grid" to an extent but basic needs such as the need for social interaction cannot be met by you alone, at some point you will need to engage with other people.  Technology on the other hand, encourages this isolationist mentality.  It is much easier now to live a life of isolation where everything is brought to you, where you never have to leave the house, and where you can interact with as few people as physically possible.  This begs the question, if technology ever progressed to the point where it enabled everyone to live in a world of their own choosing, how long would the idea of organised society persist?  If real life simulations akin to those depicted in moves like The Matrix were to come about, and people were to enter into worlds of their own design, how long would society persist outside of The Matrix, before it is abandoned entirely in favour of the virtual world where our ego is the centre of attention every second of every minute of every hour of every day until we die.  It's funny, one of the questions that still persists about the world depicted in The Matrix is that of how it came to exist and how humans ended up trapped inside it - with our fascination with AI and our pursuit of technology that does more and more for us rather than doing it ourselves, it's not that hard to imagine that world coming to fruition not through conflict or some dystopian regime but voluntarily without any resistance.