I know this is mostly a joke, but I’ve noticed that online, people seem to think individuals who hold aloof from social networks are self-obsessed. My neighbors insult people who spend more time with friends than family as self-obsessed. In college and at my job, I meet people who are confused at how people who’d rather hang out with others than pursue interesting projects, personal or shared, can be so self-obsessed. The funny thing is how the same label seems completely justified in entirely different ways from within different worldviews. I mean, it’s not like any of these usages are outright wrong.
For the workaholics, calling people who are reaching out to others “self-obsessed” is strangely paradoxical. The family-oriented type often have a primitive tribal mindset. They push their family members like beasts of burden, and they’re jealous beyond the point of civility, at times dangerously so, when other families perform exceptionally well. As for the denizens of the internet, (I’m not sure what demographic the process of going online is selecting for. Maybe they’re all joking all the time.) I’d like to see them come to Calcutta, take a good look at the poverty here, and then dare write off people who are trying their best to fix the world as self-obsessed, while being wrapped up in their lives of relative luxury.
I know this is mostly a joke, but I’ve noticed that online, people seem to think individuals who hold aloof from social networks are self-obsessed. My neighbors insult people who spend more time with friends than family as self-obsessed. In college and at my job, I meet people who are confused at how people who’d rather hang out with others than pursue interesting projects, personal or shared, can be so self-obsessed. The funny thing is how the same label seems completely justified in entirely different ways from within different worldviews. I mean, it’s not like any of these usages are outright wrong.
For the workaholics, calling people who are reaching out to others “self-obsessed” is strangely paradoxical. The family-oriented type often have a primitive tribal mindset. They push their family members like beasts of burden, and they’re jealous beyond the point of civility, at times dangerously so, when other families perform exceptionally well. As for the denizens of the internet, (I’m not sure what demographic the process of going online is selecting for. Maybe they’re all joking all the time.) I’d like to see them come to Calcutta, take a good look at the poverty here, and then dare write off people who are trying their best to fix the world as self-obsessed, while being wrapped up in their lives of relative luxury.