Recently, someone made a casual remark to me: “obstinate humanity”, or in Dutch: “hardleerse mensheid”. That phrase continued to wander inside my mind. I’ve just noticed that it’s also the title of a 1990 essay: Obstinate Humanity by Louise Glück (b.1943), an “American poet and essayist” (eg, Medium-2018).
A video named ‘obstinate’ by someone who calls himself Egodemic, asks all of us a (very) relevant question:
“Are dead ends our only means of changing course? Do I (or humanity) actually need to drive all the way into a wall to make a change? I mean nature prepared all kinds of road blocks for us, multilateral crises, personal, global, like a loving parent towards an obstinate child.” (video)
Why are we so obstinate towards change unless we hit the proverbial brick wall (eg, burnout) ?
Perhaps, Cyndi Lauper already gave the answer to my 2022 question in her 1979 hit song: Girls Just Want To Have Fun (eg, lyrics, video). Just replace “girls” with ‘people”. This lifestyle is called hedonism.
Another explanation is that we just don’t care despite concepts like empathy. Recently, an Sri Lankan-born Canadian and American venture capitalist stated “that he – and most Americans – “don’t care” about abuses against the Uyghur minority in China” (BBC). This view is also known as: “Après moi, le déluge“.
Perhaps, humans are just not smart enough to consider the macro impact of our micro deeds (my blogs on macro vs micro). This is related to the infinity of human stupidity by Albert Einstein and Carlo Cipolla.
Last but not least, Change requires a new set of beliefs to replace your old ones. Changing your beliefs is far from easy. It requires a meltdown of your old beliefs (eg, burnout). I’m always reminded of a 2006 NY Magazine article: “Where Work Is a Religion, Work Burnout Is Its Crisis of Faith”.
I suppose the above is like hurdling, “the act of jumping over an obstacle at a high speed or in a sprint”. Each of the reasons above is a hurdle. The first one is hedonism, and the last one is changing your beliefs.
For most of us, it’s just too difficult to change our behaviour. Willpower will give some of us a temporary relief. Ultimately, we are creatures of habit or in Dutch: gewoontedieren (eg, TEDx video).
Old Habits Die Hard (2004) by Mick Jagger and Dave Stewart
artist-1, artist-2, lyrics, video, Wiki-1, Wiki-2, Wiki-3
Note: all markings (bold, italic, underlining) by LO unless stated otherwise.
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