Mind Blown, Reflection 10/26

The discussion we had this week in class was mind-blowing. As we began to talk about ideologies, and how it impacts every individual in our society, whether we are aware of it or not. It got me thinking that when we're young, we think that we can be whoever we want to be, believe in whatever we want to believe in, form opinions however we chose to form them. However, this is not the case. Yes, we do have some control over the people we become but a lot less than we think. Since we are so consumed in a culture that thrives off of ideologies, we are basically told exactly how to think about different concepts. To put this more into perspective, I used to think of people as empty baskets from the time they are born and their whole lives they can collect whatever they want to put in their baskets. However, it's more like we're computers that have programmed hard drives that you cannot rewire. You can save different things on this computer that make it different than another computer, but every computer has that same hard drive. Ideology is that hard drive.

Furthermore, I started to think about how everyone strives to be unique and different in this world of sameness. It's difficult to be unique and different when we are surrounded by ideologies tellings how to think and act. There is a song (that I'm going to send to Dr. Cummings to play in class) called Kids by Style of Eye that talks about how by not being mainstream, you're being mainstream. It also ties into when we discussed originality and how something can be classified as original if it's all been done before. One verse of the song goes,
"I'm wondering what is up with kids around here
you're trying so damn hard to come off weird
you bought your image in package deal
generic hipster got no sex appeal
you're so authentic yeah you're oh so real
you hurt yourself today to see if you still feel"

The song's main argument is that we all want to fit in, but we all strive to be different because being different makes us 'cool'. Yet, how can it be considered different if we're all doing the same things that are considered 'weird' or 'not the norm'?