On Culture, Meaning, and Values

As the world progresses I can't help but feel that aspects of culture are being lost. As globalism takes reign over tradition, we grow increasinly connected but without much of the differences that, well, make us unique to each other around the world. Growing up in the United Kingdom, I feel I have always been surrounded by people that are very much different to me, featuring many elements of multi-culturalism but void of any definite and evident culture and tradition. Us English don't really have many holidays and events throughout the year that we celebrate. There is not much really to us, but what culture we do have is introduced through the many generations of migrants that have started new lives here in the country.

As I grow older, one thing I have noticed about myself is an increase of interest in culture and tradition. Finding people incredibly fascinating, and I hold this curiosity for how others think and act and what influences their behaviour. For many, this is religion. The ways in which religion has introduced our minds into this belief of a fundamental set of core values that we aim to pursue and will bring us a successful and happy life; not in the financial sense, but the spiritual sense. That the idea of the self is only as valuable as the community that the self is surrounded by.

With globalism, the loss of much of these values and the idea of small, but very connected community dies down. If you look at many cities around the world now, they contain buildings of dramatic height built of glass. London looks like Moscow. New York looks like Tokyo. While I am not religious, I see the ways in which these concepts gave us purpose in life in the many decades and centuries prior. How the fear of God(s) made people kind, caring, and thought more of the world that they live in. In this last decade, we have seen many headlines around the world that detail the ways in which people are less motivated, feeling more depressed and lost in life. We belief that our modern brains just need to take some pills and our problems are solved.

We fail to understand the ways in which our minds have evolved alongside technology, losing its fundamental core values and instead polluted with many complexities of modern life: career, friendship, wealth, and even romance. Each of these things we are now told we can achieve in particular ways, that we must be liked by all and that there are specific ways in which we can pursue the idea of being liked. This modern culture is one of toxicity that spreads from one person to another as we forget who we are and instead promote the idea of being people we are not. We pursue the idea of what everyone believes everyone should look and act in attempt to push ourselves a bit higher up the economic ladder. That success is followers, and followers means you are a good, liked person.

I have realised that this idea of how the modern person should act and live is one I reject in its entirety. I have abandoned social media, rejected the idea of being liked by all, and have rejected the many foundations of what is supposed to contribute towards a "happy modern life" such as buying a home and working myself to death. I find what interests me more is the simplicity in life. The lack of wanting and needing items, and only obtaining the very essential things. I find that I dream of roaming the world and discovering the few strong cultures and traditions that remain, and integrating myself into those languages, ways of life, and the people that maintain them. To witness the ways in which community are still active and promoted.

It is worth noting that I still do acknowledge that the United Kingdom still has culture, and and many hidden sub-cultures, but there isn't much intensity to it due to how multi-cultural it is. Those who bring their culture here sadly have many elements of it stripped away as they have to live and adapt to the expectations and standards we now face. The only aspect of culture that truly maintains its intensity is food. And while food can bring us all together and be a gateway into different cultures and ways of life and thought, it mostly ends up just being a small luxury that people pursue in a restaurant and then forget about the moment they leave this experience. I find that when I talk to others from different countries, there's this evident difference between us in the ways in which we talk; and this makes me realise how void and soulless the United Kingdom can be.

Instead we roam our clean glass cities and wear our suits and trend-of-the-month clothing, failing to realise who we are and who those around us are, becoming worker drones that think of the self's own needs and wants, not really understanding the world we live in or getting different perspectives from those who are different to us. All slowly becoming one entity that thinks, looks, and eats the same. It is a genuine nightmare to me, and I want to escape it. I long for the feeling of being lost, finding myself around those who are the entire opposite to me, and learning from them. Discovering new perspectives on life and thus discovering more about myself as I move throughout life with the limited time I have.

I find it insane that there are people content with never knowing who they are. Content with the bubble they live in where things are seemingly made for them and catered to them. Where the thoughts they come across are simply their own, never from another, because everyone is part of some hivemind. I have noticed that I am happiest when I am somewhere that does not resemble home. That my true home is found in personal growth and understanding of what it means to be alive and part of the universe. That someone out there might see things in a way that I never have, and that it might actually open my eyes a little more.