Monday, February 06, 2006

The myspace contest that never ends

In an effort to motivate myself I have recently decided that I may in fact be better off being a competitive person. You see, I am naturally competitive. Call it innate, a biologically cultivated pattern amongst humanoids, whatever you like, when I think back it is what I can recall about myself. I grew up wanting to be a leader, playing sports, doing breakdancing competitions, neighborhood bmx freestyle competitions, playing video games... When you think about it, school itself was quite a competitive thing, the whole grade system is founded upon it:

"You're an 'A' student, I expect more from you than the others."

Mind you I wasn't consistently an 'A' student, 'B' student or 'C' student (it all depended on how interested in applying myself I was that year). Progressive schools such as New College, Evergreen and Full Sail have done away with traditional grades, which only proves to me that this issue is real and not just in my mind.

Some time during high school I started to read eastern philosophy/spiritual books and picked up on the "everyone is equal" vibe that usually results in viewing comparison as something negative. This has been an underlying problem for me. I doubt anyone would argue that everyone is equal is not the underlying culture in our materialistic society. Yet why is it considered healthy to compete with yourself but when you extend that same spirit with others its considered treading the path of unhappiness? Engineering school was highly competitive, "kill the curb" kind of place that encouraged the competitive spirit. I'm sure business school was the same kind of unfriendly environment, not sure how liberal art schools in general would have been. I'd guess that there is a fair degree of competitiveness there as well since there is the speculation of who is going to make it, who isn't, who has got the art skills, who is faking...

As of yet, I have not joined myspace. This competitiveness issue is one of the reasons why I have not joined myspace. It seems in theory to be a good idea, networking friends/people, but when peer pressure (whoa, you're not on my space? I've got a gazillion friends on there since 2004) and trendyness (oh, you like that band?) all factor in, it is a turnoff. Yet when I see what other people are doing with their lives the challenge to live my life to the fullest might motivate me more to focus on what matters most -not that I know exactly what that is for me yet, but still the point is an increased sense of URGENCY.

It is part of our culture here in America to be competitive. The car, the house, the spouse, the kids, the SUV, the fixed gear, the suits, # of myspace friends, the 60gig ipod video, the jack russel, all status symbols devised to see how you stack up with the Joneses. My brother is always annoyed with me when I ask how things compare to other things. In his world things just are (eastern philosophy view) and there is no need to discuss what differentiates them. I don't like to be scolded, and when he points this out to me it leaves me thinking: "if things are not to be compared, how is description at all possible?"

I find this to be true especially when it comes to music or basketball, two things I've been passionate about my whole life. Describe a band. Sounds easy to do, but can you do it in a way that does not label them in a 'category' or more obviously, compare them to other bands which they may have been influenced by? It is possible, but difficult, and I'd wager most people would at first instinct use comparison as a means of description.

When I see through it and choose not to compete, everything slows down, which can be good and/or bad at the same time. The crux of my point here is that perhaps things have slowed down too much. Perhaps I do have to see what the Jones are up to (joining myspace is like having an RSS feed for the Global Jonses, in this generation). Yet I don't want to join myspace. Besides the few cool people on there that are/could be friends, it's a bunch promotional people trying to outhip each other by trying to be arty and in the know. No really, I don't care if you like Johnny Cash or Betty Page.

Who knows, I'll probably jump on the bandwagon and join, if anything to catch up with old friends, but I am weary of/looking forward to the competition. I now finish here with some words from J. Krishnamurti, one of the influential writers I just alluded to moments ago.


Most people think that learning is encouraged through comparison, whereas the contrary is the fact. Comparison brings about frustration and merely encourages envy, which is called competition. Like other forms of persuasion, comparison prevents learning and breeds fear. Ambition also breeds fear. Ambition, whether personal or identified with the collective, is always antisocial. So-called noble ambition in relationship is fundamentally destructive.

...One must obviously be free of ambition, of competition, of envy, greed. And that's a very difficult thing to do because envy, greed, and ambition are the very substance of the psychological-social structure of which we are a part. Living as we are in a world made up of acquisitiveness, ambition, competition-to be entirely free of these things and yet not to be destroyed by the world is really the problem.

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