It was the existential philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre that said, Man is condemned to be free, because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does. We are at the mercy of our freedom as each second passes by, and in many different cases, Generation Z is more free than any previous generation. So how could that possibly contribute to Gen Z's lack of purpose, and how did we even get to the point where our generation's defining characteristics are ones of nihilism and hopelessness.
After some philosophical research, as well as my own observations and solutions, these are the questions that I'm going to attempt to answer in this video. Where it began, post-modernism. This is such a massive philosophy to try and explain in just one YouTube video, so please do forgive me if I misconvey an idea or I don't explain something properly. Postmodernism is a movement started in the late 20th century that denotes the shift from believing in one grand narrative or truth to life to multiple grand narratives.
It fuels subjectivity, individualism, and most closely related to this video, an instability of meaning. We can break up the last couple thousand years into three stages. Premodernism, modernism, and postmodernism. In premodernism, God was the truth.
There was a central grand narrative, belief system, and ideal that the majority of the world followed, that governed their everyday life and thoughts. Then, with the development of the scientific method and scientific observation, modernism came in and kind of made God look a little less credible. It was then that the modernists said, science is how we will make progress and find truth, not God. Lastly, which is kind of the current era we live in, is post-modernism.
Although some would argue we live in a more meta-modernistic or post-postmodern era, but that's not really important for this video. With the rise of media, the internet, and the globalization of knowledge through mass distribution, people started to think, well, maybe this whole god thing and this whole science thing doesn't really have too much credibility. Now the amount of differing opinions, beliefs, and ideals have been taking to a whole other level thanks to the internet age and the smartphone. With a simple Google search, you can gain access to every single philosophy, religion, or any other belief system you can think of in just a few short minutes. And because of this, there are a million different grand narratives which you can adopt.
A million different truths that all seem to have a solution to your problems. So when this happens and you are constantly consuming information that conflicts with one another, It is up to you and only you to figure out what is the right information. In other words, you have the freedom to pick your own truth and you start to realize that there is no one correct interpretation of reality.
And when most people are given that opportunity, they become directionless. Because if everyone is right, then is anyone really right? What's the right information? What's the correct way of living?
What's the meaning to all of this? We are supposed to figure that out for ourselves now. The ability to have freedom to believe in whatever you want to believe and create your own subjective truth is something quite incompatible with the human psyche because we all crave to some degree in our lives meaning and certainty.
And this is why I've said in a couple of my past videos that most people... actually prefer to not think for themselves and like to be told what to do. Because then we can convince ourselves that our actions and the consequences of those actions are not by our own doing. And when we're told just one truth or narrative, it gives us a singular direction to strive towards, and purpose and direction are synonymous with one another.
Now it feels like there's nothing solid to believe in, and we keep asking ourselves this question. Who do we know who to trust? When there's no trust and no direction, then purposelessness becomes the symptom. And not only that, but it also leads to a lack of trust between individuals.
When we don't know who to believe, who to trust, or who is right, it makes us second guess others as well as a byproduct. And that lack of trust can contribute to a lack of community that we are now seeing. Why is that important?
Well, community, that is, a conglomerate of minds that focuses on shared goals and ideas, is one of the best ways to elicit more purpose from your life. But I'll explain this point in more detail in the next section. So that leads me to the second section of ideas that I want to go over that come out of postmodern thinking, which are hyperreality, signs, and symbols. Hyperreality was a term first coined by the philosopher John Baudrillard, and it is described as the inability to distinguish the real from the signifier of the real.
In other words, it's the blurring of lines between reality and the thing that is simulating reality. Looking into the way we have interacted with objects and why we choose to interact with those objects over the past few hundred years can help us to understand this concept of hyperreality more vividly. Before our current reasons for purchase and consumption, the value of a commodity was typically based on the amount of labor put into it, how it was compared to other objects in the market, which is typically known as exchange value, as well as its usefulness, known as use value.
But what has overtaken all three of these types of values in the postmodern era is a commodity sign value. A commodity sign value is how it differentiates itself in a system of objects through what it represents. Most objects we surround ourselves with and interact with are based around symbolism. That is to say, how the object makes us be perceived in a social hierarchy.
Not only that, but commodities, aka objects, have become far more reproducible and movable than in traditional pre-modern times. So what happens when the objects which the majority of Western society interact with become based around status, wealth, upgradeability, replaceability, and mobility? Well, that creates a society full of people more focused on outwardly appearances, wealth, status, and other forms of symbolism.
And the one thing all of these have in common is a lack of depth and humanity. In a Western world revolving around signs, the signs themselves, aka the thing that the object represents, become indistinguishable from reality and become more real than the object themselves. And this has created what I brought up earlier, which is hyperreality.
A really solid way this has been portrayed in the media is in the movie They Live. The protagonist of the movie has a pair of glasses which, when worn, shows him the ideology or the sign behind each object in his environment. You gonna pay for that or what? Look buddy, I don't want no house today.
When we buy a $120 Yeezy shirt, we aren't buying it because it's a particularly good shirt with high quality materials that take a long time to make. We buy it because of the story behind the brand, aka what that shirt represents and how it changes how people view us in the social hierarchy. And when we go on social media and we see content that highlights the most polarizing controversial opinions and actions, we start to see that more and more in our world. reality.
The more that media becomes closer and closer to reality through technological advancements, the more and more it actually affects reality itself until what is real and the signifier of the real thing are no longer easily separated. Our world is now a world of easily replaceable and movable signs, and humans are treated and treat others as such. This transition to a hyperreal world has also been portrayed in movies like American Psycho, Taxi Driver, and Fight Club. And it's no wonder that young men, when watching these movies and seeing the main characters' personalities, can't help but say, He just like me for real. Objectification, consumerism, and overconsumption can be seen everywhere.
What was once saved for overly dramatic betrayals in media has now seeped into everyday life. And a symptom of that, like I stated earlier, is a lack of depth due to a heavier focus on appearances and status. So why is this important in relation to purpose?
Well, this way of functioning and interacting with the world is not natural. Our world is starting to reflect the internet more and more due to the fact that people spend just about half their days on their phone, meaning half of their reality is spent in an online realm. People's expectations and interests in real life are now being shaped by algorithms and artificial intelligence. That is the very definition of hyperreality. This is where I must correct something that I said in my Rise of Incels video.
Throughout that video, I constantly referred back to the fact that the online world and social media are not real life, but they are starting to become real life more and more. Everyone's expectations for a partner are much higher than ever thanks to not reality, aka social media, which highlights the most attractive people because humans are more attracted to viewing content such as that. And the natural inclination we all have to compare ourselves to other people's highlights and the most attractive people in the world makes people think their reality should look like other people's highlights. And so, people try to optimize their reality to make their lives as romanticized, materialistic, and appearance-based as possible. No longer are Snapchat and Instagram filters exclusive to their respective platforms.
People are getting surgery to look like Snapchat and Instagram filters in real life. Likewise, anime bodies are no longer exclusive to anime. With some Trenbaloney sandwiches, you too can look like Baki. If you're a young person in Generation Z and you've been unable to really connect with people on a deeper level, a good portion of that is probably due to the fact that most people lack the ability to dive deep into themselves and don't really want to anyway in our current society, which does not value that.
And I'm certainly guilty of all this too. I sometimes let a TikTok on red flags you shouldn't ignore from a woman affect my entire perception of a woman in real life, I lift weights partly because I enjoy it and it makes me feel good, but also because I know people in modern society will perceive me as having higher value, and I use polarizing titles and thumbnails, just like this video, to grab your attention. At this point, it's almost impossible to escape this game, even if you do delete all your social media, unless you join this newly emerging trend of off-grid living, which is starting to emerge as a way to revolt against postmodern culture and hyper-reality.
It's not as if purpose is gone completely. Everything I just stated that I do has an underlying reason as to why I do them. But it's the type of purpose that most things are centralized around that lacks the depth that humans have experienced for centuries before our time.
This new type of purpose can almost not even be considered purposeful at all because it does not derive the meaning out of life that makes life feel like you are really alive. Instead, it makes you feel like an object in a simulated reality, and it convinces you that the solution to this lack of depth is more. More friends, more money, more items, and more followers. So now we have to ask this question. What can the average person in Gen Z do to feel like their life has more purpose and meaning, and how can one feel more alive rather than feel like they live in a hyper-reality?
Well, the typical answer to this that most people in the self-improvement space are advocating for is to go back to tradition. We need to go back to a time where we only had one grand narrative, put our faith in God, get off social media, and start building communities again. So basically, a return to pre-modernism.
Now, for a lot of people, this can be a great solution to their individual life, if they are capable of doing so. But what about the people who find themselves constantly surrounded by postmodernists or people who live in a hyperreality? And if this trend continues, it's only going to become harder and harder to find that connection and intimacy that most humans are lacking from their life.
Like I critiqued in my video on the masculinity crisis, I do think that in most cases, past traditions... are not going to be the one right solution to present day problems. Encouraging people to get off social media and spend more time outside is very good for their physical and mental health. But if this new way of living gets bad enough, I think what humans are going to do, or what they need to do, is to evolve and adapt to this new age of individualism.
I mean, really ask yourself how humans have managed to survive for this long. It's because we know how to adapt and evolve as the world continues to develop. It is absolutely clear to me that the average person is having a much harder time finding someone to marry or have a serious relationship with or even become friends with on a deeper level. So loneliness and a lack of connection with other humans is already starting to become the norm. If this is the case, and enough humans are starved of this intimacy, then eventually the brain will have to evolve and adapt to reflect this change.
Meaning that, and yes this is gonna sound crazy, I think one day the human organism is no longer gonna need as much social connection as it does now. in order to function optimally. But that's probably going to take hundreds of thousands of years after you're already dead.
So what you need to do right now is force yourself and your brain to start to adapt to the current times and become more self-sufficient. This is a concept that I've been playing around with in my head since I've had the idea for this video, and I'm just going to call it the on-off social switch. This is a state of being you get to in which you can overpower your primal brain's need for intimacy and social relationships, and you yourself can do it. learn how to produce those same sort of feelings within your own organism.
I feel like to some extent, people like myself who are introverts have already learned how to do this pretty well. I enjoy spending most of my time alone anyway and derive a lot of the pleasure I get out of life from my alone time. Understandably I can see myself getting a lot of criticism for even suggesting that humans should try to evolve out of our natural need for social but it just seems like with the way things are headed, returning to monk is probably not going to happen. Ever since the pandemic, I think we've gone past the point of return when it comes to being a society that allows almost everybody to be social and reproduce. If you are completely socially deprived, then yes, make an effort to put yourself out there and make friends.
But the type of depth and companionship you are looking for will probably be more difficult to find in others now and will be more readily found within yourself. If you want to feel like your life has more purpose, you must befriend that mammalistic need for connection and make it realize that you can be your own best friend who can give yourself the love that it needs. I've made plenty of videos on how to enjoy your time alone, and I explain that most of the feeling of loneliness comes from that primal need I just described, a lack of self-worth thanks to a simulated reality that makes you compare yourself to completely unrealistic expectations. and our hierarchical social structure that now allows much less people to experience sexual intimacy and social connection.
Now, of course, if every human being operated in the way I just described, and all we did with our time was be alone, then we'd go extinct. We need communities in order to build incredible life-changing things, and we- need to reproduce, which requires at least some level of connection with another human. And that's why I've called this the on-off social switch. It's knowing when you can use that social switch to benefit yourself and others by collaborating with other humans, versus knowing when you need to be okay with turning it off when you're alone most of the time and learning to become more self-sufficient.
This advice is not applicable to everyone, but it is applicable to people who feel like they don't belong in our current society, which is becoming much less accepting. of average. But ultimately, everyone, not just the people negatively affected by the current times, should strive to live more deeply. So now, let me hit you with some...
Copium. What does it mean to live deeply? To me, living deeply means becoming so involved in even the most mundane of activities that you barely even have time to think if you feel lonely or not.
It means growing out of the instant gratification that makes the awe-inspiring world we find ourselves in. boring. Everywhere you look, you are experiencing the miracle of life. The very fact that you can hear these words and see this screen with your eyes is a statistically impossible fortune that you've been gifted with.
Each day, really examine what it is you are experiencing right now. Get really involved in this thing called life by participating in it in as many ways as you can and as presently as you can. Have appreciation for the instrument that is your body. Take walks and marvel at these things.
the swaying of the trees, the color of the leaves, and all the different sounds and sights, even the ones that are man-made. There is awe in everything if you focus deeply enough on it. Everything in this postmodern era has programmed you to not understand and realize this. Postmodern society wants you to believe that your existence serves no point and has no joy unless you achieve status, wealth, and popularity. But this perspective of being in awe and wonder over just about everything in this realm of human consciousness, which is very much so awe-inspiring and wondrous, and adopting the child's viewpoint of seeing everything as novel, is available for you to take back.
at any moment. Just really center yourself in this moment in which you are hearing the words I am saying right now, and realize how absolutely insane it is for you to even be experiencing anything at all, with all its different textures, colors, smells, and scents. sounds. No matter what you do, if you can keep that frame of mind, then just about everything will feel purposeful. And despite how cynical the majority of this video may have sounded, I do have hope for Gen Z. This is the most progressive free-thinking generation the world has seen, and that scares the sh** out of traditionalists.
Gen Z is starting to wake up and realize that a lot of traditional values and religion are corrupt in nature, and we can take what has worked from past traditions and refine it into something better. At first, this collapse of everything traditional and natural may cause complete chaos and crisis, like we're seeing right now, but just as one chips away at a sculpture to reveal its art, chaos and crisis are necessary for things to get built back up into a new, improved version. Just so long as we don't end up killing ourselves before that happens.
And even though simulated reality is starting to seep into reality, There will always be people who understand that social media in many aspects still isn't real life and there will always be people who will not use it and not let it affect their perception of the world too much. I don't think it's as extreme as Baudrillard probably thought it would be, nor do I think it's as extreme as the people who are trying to make money off of you by telling you how to escape the matrix are making it out to be. But I don't know, I'm just a guy on the internet.
A sign among signs, a mere object of a brand that is more real to you than the real Cole Hastings himself. There is an idea of a YouTube Cole Hastings, some kind of abstraction, but there is no real YouTube me, only an entity, something illusory. And though I can hide my cold gaze, and you can hear me talk about stories and watch my mouth move, and maybe you can even sense our lifestyles are probably comparable, I simply am not there. You know, sometimes we just need those reminders to live more deeply and with more purpose.
And one thing that could help with that is my free newsletter. Yes, I just started back up my newsletter. It's been on hold for a while, but yes, it is now back. Fallback Friday is a newsletter that will share the most inspiring quotes or lessons or stories that I've read within the past week or two weeks, just so you have something to share with me. And I'll see you in the next one.
Bye. to fall back on. That's why I call it Fall Back Friday.
So if you're looking for a motivating kind of self-improvement newsletter like that for free, then you can sign up using the link in my description. And I'm giving you a free ebook. If you do sign up to that, you'll get my ebook, Three Journal Prompts for Self-Growth Completely for free when you do sign up.
I can already picture the clearly you got a lot to learn bucko comments in the comment section So if that is you or if you want to add some input or critique something else I said then be sure to leave a comment below I love seeing what you guys think of these topics and if you are looking for those videos in which I talk about how to Enjoy your alone time more check out this video might help you out, and I'm finally signing off. I love you guys Thanks for sticking around till the end that always helps a lot peace