The Illusion of Individuality

Hampstead
John Atkinson Grimshaw (1836-1893)

Our contemporary [western] society, in spite of its material, intellectual and political progress, is increasingly less conductive to mental health, and tends to undermine the inner security, happiness, reason and the capacity for love in the individual; it tends to turn him into an automaton who pays for his human failure with increasing mental sickness, and with despiar hidden under a frantic drive for work and so-called pleasure.

...

Let us beware of defining mental hygiene as the prevention of symptoms. Symtoms as such are not our enemy, but our friend; where there are symptoms there is conflict, and conflict always indicates that the forces of life which strive for integration and happiness are still fighting.

...

Many of them are normal because they are so well adjusted to our mode of existence, because their human voice has been silenced so early in their lives, that they do not even struggle or suffer or develop symptoms as the neurotic does.

...

They are normal not in what may be called the absolute sense of the word; they are normal only in relation to a profoundly abnormal society. Their perfect adjustment to that abnormal society is a measure of their mental sickness. These millions of abnormally normal people, living without fuss in a society to which, if they were fully human beings, they ought not to be adjusted, still cherish "the illusion of individuality," but in fact they have been to a great extent deindividualized. Their conformity is developping into something like uniformity. But "uniformity and freedom are incompatible. Uniformity and mental health are incompatible, too... Man is not made to be an automaton, and if he becomes one, the basis for mental health is destroyed."

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The wish to impose order upon confusion, to bring harmony out of dissonance and unity out of multiplicity is a kind of intellectual instinct, a primary and fundamental urge of the mind.

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Organization is indispensable, for liberty arises and has meaning only within a self-regulating community of freely cooperating individuals. But, though indispensable, organization can also be fatal. Too much organization transforms men and women into automata, suffocates the creative spirit and abolishes the very possibility of freedom.

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City life is anonymous and, as it were, abstract. People are related to one another, not as total personalities, but as the embodiments of economic functions or, when they are not at work, as irresponsible seekers of entertainment. Subjected to this kind of life, individuals tend to feel lonely and insignificant. Their existence ceases to have any point of meaning.

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But no less obvious is the fact that we can, if we so desire, refuse to co-operate with the blind forces that are propelling us. For the moment, however, the wish to resist does not seem to be very strong or very widespread.

- Cited from Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. Italics are added.

출근 전
까페에서
상상과 기억이 어우러져 마음대로 만들어내는 흐릿한 이미지들을
여과없이 흘려보내며

한참동안 눈도 깜빡이지 않고
멍하니 앉아있었다.

회사나 기관이 한 개인의 정체를 정의할 수 없다.
얼마나 많이 버느냐가 한 개인의 능력을 판단하는 기준이 될 수 없다.
똑같이 8시간 동안 그닥 어렵지 않은 일을 했는데도
어떤 때는 그 보상에 대해 죄책감이 들었는가하면
어떤 때는 투자한 시간과 노력에 비해 어처구니 없는 보상이라 생각되기도 한다.

나도 호사부리는 여자라,
몸에 꼭맞는 옷을 입고
비싼 화장품을 사고
가끔은 친구들의 저녁을 사고
아침마다 서브되는 모닝 커피정도는 당연하게 생각한다.

그렇지만 단지 이것들을 지켜내기위해

그많은 시간들을 갖다 바치는 것은 

보통 미련한 짓이 아닐테다.

음.

일단 "abnormally normal"하지 않고 "normally abnormal"하기 위해

호들갑이 필요한가.
버스타는데, 아니면 지하철에서 내리는데 뒤에서 미는 아줌마한테
"밀지마세요"라고 말할 수 있는 것처럼.