# What's at the core of not wanting to participate in society at all?



## Id_

I've met a lot of really interesting people who are primarily low on the socioeconomic ladder, and there are few things that are recurring in their ideology: They don't want to participate in a hierarchical system, they're generally defiant without knowing why, there isn't anything that they would love to do as work, and they see no happiness in the "prospects of success." Take for instance, here in the united states, it is your goal to make money by doing what you love. But these people don't want to do anything but what they have to really, because they seem to enjoy no responsibility. This approach toward life will not lead you up the ladder, because "you're just not cut out for it," and could I say they're left to suffer? But even though it seems that way, they still find happiness in the simple things.


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## Red_Setting_Sun

I'm not particularily enthusiastic about participating in the rat race either, even though I probably have to for a little while, to pay off my student loans. While doing that, I will save up money and research (already on it) a way to have as few obligations as possible while maintaining my lifestyle.

Making a lot of money is not a goal for me. It would feel just as meaningless as earning points in a video game, even if it was somewhat enjoyable of a process. I think means through money actually will hinder your enjoyment of life and your creativity, because when you have it, it solves every problem by itself. I think it's healthier to just have the bare necessities, plus something to spoil yourself with once in a while.

To answer your question, I think the core is the possibility of doing whatever you feel like whenever you want, staying in bed listening to the rain drumming against your window on a dark autumn morning while everyone you know is hurrying off to work and you after an hour of this go make yourself a cup of coffee while reading the news slowly before you go for a jog after the piercing sun has risen, being able to do everything in your own tempo.


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## Aquarian

Krisena said:


> I'm not particularily enthusiastic about participating in the rat race either, even though I probably have to for a little while, to pay off my student loans. While doing that, I will save up money and research (already on it) a way to have as few obligations as possible while maintaining my lifestyle.
> 
> Making a lot of money is not a goal for me. It would feel just as meaningless as earning points in a video game, even if it was somewhat enjoyable of a process. I think means through money actually will hinder your enjoyment of life and your creativity, because when you have it, it solves every problem by itself. I think it's healthier to just have the bare necessities, plus something to spoil yourself with once in a while.
> 
> To answer your question, I think the core is the possibility of doing whatever you feel like whenever you want, staying in bed listening to the rain drumming against your window on a dark autumn morning while everyone you know is hurrying off to work and you after an hour of this go make yourself a cup of coffee, reading the news slowly before you go for a jog now that the piercing sun has risen, being able to do everything in your own tempo.


I read your comment and wondered if you were INFJ, clicked the thing and - yeah.

I wonder if INFxs are inclined toward this positioning because the dominant structure doesn't allow for certain kinds of humanity to which we're particularly sensitive.


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## Erbse

For some it's fear/anxiety or bitterness.

For others it's true freedom.

These days I belong to the latter group and am enjoying it thoroughly.


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## Revolutionist

There are people who try and fail to make it up the socioeconomic ladder. I mean, more jobs are requiring college degrees and college degrees are getting harder to get. Plus I don't know how many people I know that have college degrees and still don't have a job. It's seems we all go to college to get degrees doing something we 'love' but because so many people are pursuing the same degrees - the important ones get neglected(I'm guilty of this as well). It seems people are either content where the are or people are starry eyed dreamers. Not enough pragmatism nor willingness to actually contribute to society(or knowledge of how to contribute). This isn't a recent problem - it's always been a problem, this is why many philosophers or the most egotistical call mankind, well, stupid


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## Emtropy

Revolutionist said:


> There are people who try and fail to make it up the socioeconomic ladder. I mean, more jobs are requiring college degrees and college degrees are getting harder to get. Plus I don't know how many people I know that have college degrees and still don't have a job. It's seems we all go to college to get degrees doing something we 'love' but because so many people are pursuing the same degrees - the important ones get neglected(I'm guilty of this as well). It seems people are either content where the are or people are starry eyed dreamers. Not enough pragmatism nor willingness to actually contribute to society(or knowledge of how to contribute). This isn't a recent problem - it's always been a problem, this is why many philosophers or the most egotistical call mankind, well, stupid


This ^ 

I love it when people put what I want to say into coherent words :kitteh:


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## tangosthenes

Hello, you are currently speaking to such a person. I have struggled with this my whole life. Things that other people want and naturally do... I just don't give a rat's ass about.

My primary defense is "Give me a good reason." Invariably the answer is "money." That doesn't strike me as a good reason because there is nothing I want less than to be bought into a system beyond my control. 

I'm an INTP(and in normal terms, unhealthy). I don't trust others or their feelings, and I don't trust my own feelings. I know that when given a choice between capitulation and disharmony I will prefer the former. I am weak. This is why I have no interest. I give my vulnerability to a system that wants nothing more than to use me like a screw to hold the cogs in place. 

No thanks. I will tell you better ways to arrange your cogs instead. Deal?


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## Planisphere

Erbse said:


> For some it's fear/anxiety or bitterness.
> 
> For others it's true freedom.












Agreed almost completely with @tangosthenes. I would contribute to society if it ever contributed to me in some meaningful way, but that really hasn't happened yet. Society may have made a lot of inadvertent contributions, but nothing substantial or direct. It won't even lend me a job when I need it most. In college, I got actively involved with peer-review groups and tried to add to our understanding of fields like psychology and sociology; in return, I have no money and the constant threat that a serious disease will get me one day (and nobody will do anything, since I don't have money).

Hence why I've begun to find beauty in the world beyond society. My anxiety is strongly reduced; I have more time to do the things I enjoy; and I can think without having to fit into a specific group. Sure, living off of ramen can be a bit of a pain, but it seems a fair trade.


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## geekofalltrades

If it's an INF thing, then I'm definitely in on it. My fantasy is to roll up some money as a salaryman, buy a large plot of land (probably farmland), and then drop off the face of the Earth and build essentially a residential power plant (residential wind turbines, home-made anaerobic digesters, thermosiphon solar systems, the works) and pay the bills by selling power back to the grid. My day-to-day job will become cruising around looking for material to feed the digesters (an anaerobic digester is a closed chamber in which anaerobic microbes break organic waste like leftover food, grass clippings, or manure down into methane gas). In my free time, I will do whatever the fuck I want, which will chiefly include reading, writing, playing videogames, and being inconspicuous.

My mom asked me recently if I'd ever thought about going back to school for an MBA, and I sort of wanted to throw up.


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## tangosthenes

geekofalltrades said:


> home-made anaerobic digesters. My day-to-day job will become cruising around looking for material to feed the digesters (an anaerobic digester is a closed chamber in which anaerobic microbes break organic waste like leftover food, grass clippings, or manure down into methane gas).


The acronym of your name is g.o.a.t. 

how fitting. like the idea a lot btw.


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## Promethea

Well, not everyone can find something they love and are good at enough to make a career out of it. Those who find this are rare, and very fortunate.

Some might just not know what they want to do. Maybe they haven't found it, and have no desire to make themselves settle for less. 

Most jobs feel empty and pointless, like you're living for something that doesn't fulfill you in any way, just to get a regular paycheck. Bosses are often power-tripping assholes who realize their job is pointless too, but at least they get to take advantage of their power to feel like the alpha-baboon. Then there are co-workers. Some are cool, but a lot of them are petty backstabbing jerks who will do anything to get ahead at your expense, or they just enjoy the drama - again, this makes their lives seem less pointless. 

Then theres the bigger picture. Why do I have this idea of 'success' so deeply embedded up my ass in the first place? The culture of economy. You can't even draw a line between the two. Here we live in a culture that was first founded on puritan ethics, and then capitalism took control of your average persons life philosophy: To be the person I "should" be, I need to make a lot of money so that others will look at me and think, 'great job.' 

A lot of people don't bother asking themselves if they're happy, because that puritan ethic comes into play, saying: "happiness doesn't matter, now get back to work you lazy bum" and the threat of being seen as someone whos unsuccessful (capitalist culture) reinforces the same. 

Few can see any alternative.

Plus, people find a certain sense of security in living by a life script. Being adrift is terrifying to most. I see it all the time: "I want to have x amt of money saved away by the time I'm 25, and settled into a career.. children around 30.. blahblahblah" -- but what actually happens? Life. Its not predictable and there is no security, only the illusion of it. 

So why bother living the binding american nightmare (I realize not all of you are american, but this is my perspective as an american anyway), just to hang onto some shakey illusion of freedom, when you could actually go try to pursue something more real? Whats fulfilling about sitting in a cubicle all day. We weren't designed to do that. Its no wonder so many people are on ssris and physically unhealthy, living this artificial lifestyle, like a bunch of domesticated humans.

Me personally, I don't feel domestic. You couldn't put me in a cubicle for 8 hours a day. The job I'm about to get, I will spend at most a few hours in each location, and I won't have a boss breathing fire down my neck the whole time. 

I couldn't force myself to sit in a desk enough to keep getting degrees either. A 4 year university was way more than enough of that. I felt suffocated by the structure and demands. Being forced to write a paper on poetry analysis when I simply could not was my breaking point. 

I hate schedules, I hate business clothing, I hate business -people-, any institutional setting.. its -all- suffocating, and it feels unnatural to me, and I'd jump through these hoops for what: Have a nicer house and car, then live to work paying the shit off, lick the boots of some schmuck I hate every day hoping for a promotion, like some pathetic begging dog.


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## dvnj22

What people call participating in society is a desperate enterprise. All I need is food and shelter. I work to live not the other way around.


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## Fleetfoot

There's so many reasons why someone wouldn't want to participate in society. Desire for true independence, a flaw in the system that someone has pointed out and wants nothing to be a part of, laziness, or in some cases, they're taught by their parents not to participate, as they will be given handouts of minimal needs anyway, or the children are taught they aren't of value to society anyway, as much as they desire to be. The latter is so prevalent in the rural impoverished southern U.S.


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## Imverypunny

NovaStar said:


> Agreed almost completely with @_tangosthenes_. I would contribute to society if it ever contributed to me in some meaningful way, but that really hasn't happened yet. Society may have made a lot of inadvertent contributions, but nothing substantial or direct. It won't even lend me a job when I need it most. In college, I got actively involved with peer-review groups and tried to add to our understanding of fields like psychology and sociology; in return, I have no money and the constant threat that a serious disease will get me one day (and nobody will do anything, since I don't have money).
> 
> Hence why I've begun to find beauty in the world beyond society. My anxiety is strongly reduced; I have more time to do the things I enjoy; and I can think without having to fit into a specific group. Sure, living off of ramen can be a bit of a pain, but it seems a fair trade.





> Well, not everyone can find something they love and are good at enough to make a career out of it. Those who find this are rare, and very fortunate.
> 
> Some might just not know what they want to do. Maybe they haven't found it, and have no desire to make themselves settle for less.
> 
> Most jobs feel empty and pointless, like you're living for something that doesn't fulfill you in any way, just to get a regular paycheck. Bosses are often power-tripping assholes who realize their job is pointless too, but at least they get to take advantage of their power to feel like the alpha-baboon. Then there are co-workers. Some are cool, but a lot of them are petty backstabbing jerks who will do anything to get ahead at your expense, or they just enjoy the drama - again, this makes their lives seem less pointless.


Life is pointless,you're in the same boat whether you like it or not. Each civilization has its own philosophy.The west (Capitalism) is about financial success derived from work.The east's originates in spiritualism or religion. Point being every person, nation etc has there own way of rationalizing their existance as a form of escaping the underlying nothingness.Yes it is an preconceived illusion that people create but that's convention for you. It makes it easy for people to decide,to feel secure and "feel like everybody else". Societal inclusiveness/acceptance is one of the main drivers of humans, It's part of what conventions about aside from being a form of psychological control. In evolutionary terms it means inter dependence for greater survival chances and then reproduction (the next big behavior driver).People try to reach these goals but the way they do it manifest accordingly to their personality type.

Alas,societal convention,"the societal ladder" that we created is necessary. It does have it's merits and shortfalls(one being discrimination). People have been following some form of it since our existence and it's probably one of the main reasons of our survival. So don't feel guilty if you take part in it in some way. I have to. I know by myself I couldn't break a system and survive comfortably. But that's life,you can't have everything.

Away from the cynical stuff, there is definitely a lot to live for. Knowing yourself is a good first step to understand what you want. Then you can make your own fulfilling path(It can be anything,remember no ones motives are better than anyone else's in objective fact),make sure it's good enough so when you're in your dying days you'll have little regret over what you did or didn't do and don't forget to think of people. You'll need them so they need you.

P.S I don't mind if someone comes in and completely refutes my opinion. After all, that's what I'm looking for, a different perspective.


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## kitsu

I agree with most of the posters here, money has distorted everything IMO.

Personally speaking I think western society is a relatively disgusting pit of ignorance, greed, repression, mental illness and nihilism. I won't contribute to society because I don't think it contributes to much other than its own self righteousness. I will, however, be happy to live a nomadic life finding low end jobs in different parts of the world, if I don't go into humanitarian work or withdraw into a buddhist monastery or become a hermit or join a tribe. The possibilities are endless when you have few possessions bearing you down and no nine to five hell to wake up to. Security is in the mind and nowhere else


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## 7dayweekend

kitsu said:


> I agree with most of the posters here, money has distorted everything IMO.
> 
> Personally speaking I think western society is a relatively disgusting pit of ignorance, greed, repression, mental illness and nihilism. I won't contribute to society because I don't think it contributes to much other than its own self righteousness. I will, however, be happy to live a nomadic life finding low end jobs in different parts of the world, if I don't go into humanitarian work or withdraw into a buddhist monastery or become a hermit or join a tribe. The possibilities are endless when you have few possessions bearing you down and no nine to five hell to wake up to. Security is in the mind and nowhere else


I love you


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## GusWriter

Mainstream society sucks. It's full of bureaucracy, mindless busy tasks, and shallow, superficial thinking.

I mean in the old days(going a ways back in history here) when people actually made things, mainly food, it all made simple sense. Often today we just have to file reports because somebody thinks it will be good info to have someday. Yeah, I'm fullfilled.

So, yeah, finding a little cave in the wilderness holds some appeal.

But, I muddle on as a cog in the machine as much as I have to and get my fullfillment in the spare time I have by not buying all in on the system.


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## mia-me

Globally, ~ 41% of the labor force are considering quitting their jobs. It's up to 54% for Gen Z. This should be a heads up to employers that people are dissatisfied with the status quo.


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## CRY5T4L

I needed this forum in my life ❤ It’s so good to not feel like you’re not completely alone!!!


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## georgyw223

We're involuntarily born into a system we did not get a say in creating the rules for. Were expected to just go along with what the mainstream narrative that is designed to benefit others and exploit us. People are shit and people are society. Society is shit.


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