Published on 12, July, 2020
I realise I am middle aged and I that grew up in a world in which only a minority of men had tattoos, and they were either sailors, builders or thugs. Then, around about 15 years ago, David Beckham, famous footballer, gets a tattoo—followed by a string of other footballers, so-called celebrities and media non-entities, all proclaiming they are expressing their 'individuality' or 'rebelling'. Soon afterwards every young man and woman has covered his or her body in them, all believing they too are expressing their individuality or rebelling. And yet, like lemmings advancing towards a cliff-edge, or sheep flocking with the herd across fields, they all look almost the same, that is apart from having different amounts of these vulgar eyesores, or slightly different colourings to them, they all still look virtually the same (at least to me). I see no individuality in these people. Or any spirit of rebellion. I can't understand this herd-mentality. What is it that makes people all try so desperately hard to copy one another in a bizarre attempt to appear different from one another. It doesn't make sense. You would think to be different or rebel, you'd do the opposite to what everyone else is doing. And what is this craving to emulate celebrities or media personalities? Do they imagine they are better than they are—smarter, nicer, more charismatic? The unfathomable sheep-like behaviour aside, I can't understand what, apart from mental illness, what would drive a person to inflict such damage on their largest and most vital organ. The very idea of deliberate mutilation horrifies me.
I think this applies to nearly everything. Humans behave like sheep in almost every situation.
e.g. when something is happening to someone else in public, people just stare. No one calls the police or intervenes or does anything. I get people are busy but if someone falls down you don't just walk over them and ignore them. It's only the occasional person who will do something to help. Most people just follow whatever the crowd is doing. I think it's called bystander syndrome.
I don't do that. Obviously if I was in direct danger I wouldn't do anything but if I can help without being in danger I'll do something e.g. a little girl fell out of the church door when the primary school children were coming out of their Easter service. The teacher said 'where's your mum?' The mum wasn't there and the rest of the mummies just stared. So I said 'I'm not her mum but I know her' and picked the little girl up and comforted her while the other mums just stared. FFS.
I've gone off on a tangent again, haven't I. But humans are generally sheep tbh.
For a kid I would do it too,
I wouldn't be sure, if they actualy need help, when lying on the pavement, if it was a grown up.
I think I'd ask around if someone was lying there. They did an experiment when an actor collapsed in a small village, he was surrounded by help within minutes. When he did it in a big city he was ignored for hours.