I never saw a wild thing
sorry for itself.
A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough
without ever having felt sorry for itself.
— D. H. Lawrence
It is an observed pattern that mass movements of all types require a focus on the future and an accompanying hatred of the present. That combination of motivators allows the members of a collective to become selfless in the service of the movement and its agenda, forsaking their individuality, their personal wants and needs, their ambitions and ideas for those of the movement. Only a hatred of the present, being so fed up with it, so frustrated and disillusioned with the state of things that all options seem hopeless, can drive a person to give up their own individuality and put their faith into a collective and its leaders with selfless abandon for the promise of a glorious future they may never see. Indeed, it is a very small step to move a person from becoming selfless in their devotion to the movement to becoming entirely and completely self-less. Their willingness to devote their mind and efforts to the collective slowly but inexorably eliminates the concept of self utterly. The person becomes the movement. The collective ideal is the avatar for self, and only in shaping one’s self to match it as accurately as possible can one feel any value to the movement, which is to say “any value at all.” It is in this transition that a movement achieves three important things. First, it exerts control over its members with the power of ultimate worth. A member’s identity is indivisible from the ideals of the movement and its leaders. Therefore, any deviation from the leaders’ ideals is a sacrifice of the member’s own identity - a crisis most minds are not willing to create for themselves and are ill-equipped to handle. Second, it suppresses the eventual urge and even the ability for members to band together in counter-revolution when the movement eventually makes its shift from a revolutionary movement to an authoritarian entity. Self-interested individuals do not readily submit to authoritarian control or oppressive states, so any urges or impulses for self-interest must be stamped out in the early stages of a collectivist movement if it is to survive long. Finally, the third thing this sort of self-lessness creates is a hive of expendable human resources for the movement to use in any way its leaders see fit. If their work has been done well, the hatred of the present is sufficiently intense and the desire for the glorious future so consuming that a member of the movement will readily lay down and die for their leaders’ vision. They will submit, whatever that submission requires, and they will do so utterly giving all they have and all they are to the idea that posterity is watching their sacrifice and that they will be among the founders and martyrs of a new utopia. While much has been written about this phenomenon by philosophers and political scientists, social scientists and radicals, less has been explicitly discussed in terms of what human failing makes it possible. We observe the outcomes time and time again through the march of history and we see that it is, to all intents and purposes, a social constant, unchanging no matter which political or social extreme drives the change. We also see that regardless of a movement’s genesis or its leadership, nearly every revolution, well-intentioned or otherwise, eventually becomes an oppressive and authoritarian entity. That is, no matter how focused a movement is at its outset on shifting power to the people, it ultimately becomes an exercise in strengthening the State. The real question is, who will be in charge of the newly strengthened State when all is said and done? The goal of every revolution is to seize that power for itself, and to do it, every revolution must first make its members forget themselves.
There is no question that this happens, nor any real doubt that the effective leaders of a movement make it happen by design and to a purpose. We’ve witnessed it throughout history in a broad spectrum of social, economic, and political circumstances, and so it cannot be thought unique to any specific kind of frustration. If anything, the common thread is that the most useful members of any collectivist mass movement are the disaffected, the frustrated, the angry, bitter, and sad. They are the ones who suffer under the status quo and attribute their suffering to the system. Now, it’s at this point I have to find a term for suffering of this sort in order to talk about how it is exploited by others. The term I’ve chosen is one that absolutely fits, but which tends to cause discomfort as people read it and begin applying it to themselves. That’s a big reason I’ve chosen it - because it should make you self-assess. It should reinvigorate that sense of self that collectivist mass movements try so hard to eradicate. It should become a little tender and irritated so that you have a heightened awareness of the soft target they’ll aim for in trying to manipulate you. The common condition that encompasses all of that frustration and disillusionment, the anger and sadness and bitterness, is self-pity. Feeling sorry for yourself. Good old -fashioned, garden variety self-pity and nothing more. See? You feel that? I can almost hear the “Well, yeah, but…” and “That’s not always…” coming from the ether. And I understand why! We all feel slighted sometimes. We all take stock of our lot in life and sulk at the fact that it’s not what we want or hope for. Of course, that happens to everyone and it’s a normal part of living. The difference between what I call “productive frustration,” that is feeling bad about things and recognizing your own hand in how you can make them better, and self-pity is where you put the blame. Where is the onus of change? Is your suffering the “system’s” fault? Is your frustration with the fact that you’re powerless? What do you do with that feeling? Do you resign yourself to it and lament how awful things are? Do you focus on how unfair life is and how you just can’t seem to get a fair shake? If so, then you’re feeling sorry for yourself. That is self-pity and not one thing more. And yes, I realize how uncomfortable that is because it applies to even the most independent and self-sufficient among us from time to time. Even then, it’s true. Consider the stories you’ve heard of firefighters who were burned over huge percentages of their bodies only to recover and through hard work and perseverance become inspirations to us all. Consider the stories of soldiers who were blown literally to pieces, who fought through the missing limbs and eyes and ears to rebuild themselves and take on life anew. What’s the difference between those people and the ones who can’t seem to “get a fair shake?” Self, and the role of the self in changing one’s circumstances. It’s certainly not “fair” that the soldier has to endure amputations and surgeries, blindness and rehabilitation just to live a severely handicapped life. It’s certainly not “fair” that the firefighter has to undergo years of skin grafts and surgeries just to live disfigured in a society obsessed with the superficial. But they do. They accept it, they determine the course of their own lives with whatever hand they are dealt, and they move forward. It isn’t their abandonment of self that gets them through it, nor some distant vision of a utopian future. It’s that they refuse to be defined by their limitations. They refuse, with a more dogged resolve than you can imagine, to feel sorry for themselves. What is happening in their present is theirs to live with, to shape, to embrace, and to carry. Indeed, no matter how grim or difficult their present may be, it is precisely their willingness to embrace it that gets them through.
Not everyone faces such comprehensive or life-altering frustrations. Some worry about money and bills. Some hate their jobs and feel they have no future prospects. Some lament the corruption of the political system and lose themselves in wailing and tearing at their clothes because “they” won’t stop misbehaving. The present is different for us all, no matter how common our circumstances. Some embrace it. Some are broken by it - they see their loss, they see a future they’ll never have, things they once loved that they will never get to do again. Their eyes are fixed on a future they wish for, and their hearts are broken by a present that they loathe. That poisonous combination leads to unbelievable self-pity, and that is the weapon that turns a living individual full of potential into a martyr for an imaginary future in the eyes of an imaginary audience. The power of the individualist lies in something so basic and elemental that it’s a common theme in nearly every philosophy ever crafted by humankind. It’s a concept that is often embellished and decorated so much that the truth and simplicity of it is lost. So simple, so direct that it’s almost impossible to believe you have the choice to either observe it or not, and that choosing to live by it means your life is your own and choosing not to live by it means giving up your “self” entirely. The single idea that kills self-pity and empowers the individual to thrive is the realization that anything you live through in your lifetime is a gift. Any burdens you carry are the raw materials for a new strength, a new capacity, a new intelligence or creativity. You have lived through each and every one of your “worst days ever,” and in so doing you have the tools to either feel sorry for yourself and disappear into the traumas of those events, or to throw away the traumas, keep the lessons, and move forward with new muscle tissue, new creativity, new resilience. The problem I think a lot of people face in learning how to direct their minds toward this sort of realization is that they imagine it requires toughness. They imagine it is the byproduct of determination and strength and an emotional durability they fear they may not possess. The truth is, the secret is far softer. What’s required isn’t toughness or strength or resilience or durability, though all those things and more are the byproducts of making the choice. What’s required is to fall madly in love with the thing the collective tries first to kill. The only real way to shape the future is through a love of life. The way to impact the future is to give our absolute all to the present. Don’t let them make you hate it. Don’t allow them to try and replace the today you’ve been given with a future they promise will be better. Love life. Love your present, and know that any power you have to shape the world for posterity exists completely and totally within the scope of your impact and outcomes today. Those outcomes do not care about your limitations or your frustrations, your sadness or your anger, the “system” or your finances. All that exists is what you manage to create in spite of all that. Your ability to do that, to create a today that will impact tomorrow, depends on whether you love life more than you hate your circumstances; whether you can make your gratitude and love outweigh the urge to feel sorry for yourself. So love, and love wildly. Create in spite of what tries to suppress you. Leave the movement and its minions to their own self-destruction and focus instead on the kind of future defined by what you have done in that laudable spirit today. It is perhaps the boldest possible act of individuality one can commit to, and perhaps no other act so committed to carries with it the potential to leave the world a better place, whether that was ever a consideration or not.