The marriage of the “Individual” and the “Collective”

I wanted to explore this movement/trend in consciousness/life that is increasingly evident in the expression of the youth of today (in which I include myself) and this movement is the emergence and the importance of the idea of the “individual”. I was having a conversation with a friend from a slightly older generation and this theme resurfaced as the central theme to which much of the discussions we subsequently had pointed to.

In essence we realized that the current youth places an additional emphasis or even sole emphasis on the needs and the aspirations of the “me” over the “we” in comparison to previous generations

We see evidence of this in increasing number of entrepreneurs, artists, increasing cases of nuclear families and so on. To explain what the earlier statement in quote means — Although the world has always placed deep emphasis on the individual, the idea of the individual in the past encapsulated a lot more than just the individual. For example, there was the idea of a joint family, the capacity to almost live in a larger interacting community, marrying within one’s own religious and community affiliations and so on. It is interesting that I thought that the current crop almost uniformly seems to have evolved out of the ideas of the “we” and any ideas formed from a delicate merger between the “me” and the “us”. I hope the reader reads what is written from the background that I am not choosing one side over another and this will become much clear through the course of this article, but just remarks on some of the observations that I have made.

Self-Worth? — Part 1

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I wondered what is resulting in this and it lead me to explore a number of themes

Could it be that the current crop find a deep need to recognize and express it’s own relevance and self-worth through ideas and actions rooted more in the individual(me) than in the collective(we)?

Then I thought this could make sense. The society in the way which it was constructed had long subdued the blossoming of the individual — It has prevented the individual from interacting with the collective in terms that are proportional to the individual’s own understanding of life but rather enforced by the terms that are proportional to the collective and sub-collective’s understanding of life. The sad part is that generally speaking, the collective’s understanding of life has been left to the whims and fancies of tradition and culture that comes under the larger umbrella of religion.

This can be very stifling as may of us (some of whom are revolting it) are aware. Now, while this can be very stifling,

I began to wonder if we have made any inroads into finding a deep harmonious balance between expressions that are collective centric and expressions that are individual centric through revolt (in whichever form it may take).

I realized we really haven’t. The quality of revolt that many of us have subscribed to have a very “teenage rebellion” tone to it and this made me wonder because “revolt” or “reaction” is a very inefficient and unintelligent way to bring about change. It immediately became clear to me as to why there haven’t been many successful attempts at the harmonious bridging of the individual and collective ways and one out of the many reasons is because the the reactionary path to change is so addictive and easy to follow that we can rather get caught up in the ease and conventionality of the seeming anti-movement. This reminds me of the saying in relation to the hipster movement. If hipsters hate mainstream, why are there so many of them? Again, this is not a comment on hipsters but an example to describe what tends to happen with anti-movements. If it is a true anti-movement founded in authenticity sooner or later the movement will climax and we will find that we are naturally including what we have excluded initially but in a more intelligent way.

Self worth? — Part 2

Next, I wondered

if this additional emphasis on thinking and acting that emphasizes the idea of the individual more than the idea of the collective is a deep symptom of a lack of self-worth?

Although, this could quite possibly be a reason, it seemed to me like in reality it actually isn't. Humanity has always struggled with this idea of self-worth and self-love and it cannot be the sole reason for this change to happen only now. It seems to me that this natural movement of consciousness is accompanied by deep blessings that we may be missing due to psychological distortions and it only seems on the surface like this movement of consciousness is driven by lack of self-worth. However, it’s important to remember that in a certain movement of consciousness, there could be a number of reasons and we cannot really say if it is due to one reason or another a movement takes place. What makes matters more complicated is that as we further evolve, the context that holds these movements keep getting bigger and bigger so the same movement of consciousness can be seen as a positive from one context can be seen as limiting from another.

Are we just growing up?

Then I wondered could it just be that we are growing up? Could it just be that as we grow older our sense of self begins to interact more with the community, the city, the state, the nation and the world? Is it just a matter of growing up that we begin to connect up the dots? Then I realized it could be partly true only but not entirely. I realized there is something about us bunch that wasn't there before. May be every crop that came before us thought this way and may be they’re right but I feel like in this crop this change is more tangibly seen. May be it evolved through many different generations before being able to tangibly show itself in this generation I wonder.

I realized that this deep movement of consciousness of focussing on the idea of the individual over the idea of the collective brings with it a deep catalysing capacity for our inner exploration to culminate in the sacred ground within each of us that is known as the eternal, the undying, the immeasurable in the religious scriptures.

Although this claim of culmination could be seen as a gross extrapolation, I have seen the evidence of this in many around me and for me it is no longer a folk tale but a living reality. Why does this focus on the idea of the individual seem to bring this capacity out whereas the focus on the idea of the collective doesn't seem to? I think it’s primarily due to the fact that the focus on collective can keep our energies entrapped in systems that have a way of complicating themselves as we go along. I think this generation is smart to have recognized that and stayed away from associating with ideas based in tradition and culture.

The meeting of the rivers

However, as one tends to find this sacred undying ground there also seems to be a natural movement back into the collective.

It almost seems like the movement centred in the idea of the individual that leads to the culmination into the sacred ground might rather be comfortable making a shrine for itself in the enclosed space of “spiritual” reality. But, as I'm increasingly seeing there seems to be a natural movement back into the “material” reality. With this movement back into the material reality, the consciousness that hasn't gained a lot of experience moving through the collective realms will realize the resourcefulness of being associated with the collective. The capacity to make things work, the capacity to work within a larger community by being able to bend ourselves to the rules of that larger community and so on. Ultimately, it boils down to this — the pay-off that we seem to get from playing the game of the collective can be quite large. When a generation that has placed a deep emphasis on the individual moves back into the collective realms after the culmination into the sacred ground, there is a beautiful harmonious quality to this meeting. This meeting then is no longer individual, no longer collective but the marriage between the two and it is in this marriage we find that there are deeply unexplored territories, travelling which can bring about a deep shift in the individual as well as the collective. It is in this marriage that the sacred child called transformation is born and at the core of it all it is this transformation that humanity seeks.