Most people

Welcome back my Good Ol' Three Faithful Readers!

I'm planning on posting a "short" - nothing is actually "short" in this blog - story involving a mysterious balloon that suddenly appeared in my office desk. But It's still cooking up so I'll delay that for a later day.

So for now, let me tell you that recently it has been called to my attention that I do odd things most people would not do. And I'm believe that is actually a good thing because it defines me as a thinking, individual human being. As you can see in a previous post titled Good thing they were Catholic, and according to what little I, a simple Computer Systems Engineer, knows about Crowd Psychology through empiric experience and the works of Stephen Reicher, some Freud, Bruce Bassi, Charles Mackay, Mass Hysteria, Herd Behaviour, Collective Effervescence, Moral Panic and most notably and importantly The Joker in The Dark Knight, when people work in very large, mass-like groups, their behavior becomes tribal, primitive, uncoordinated, without any civilized thought.

In simple terms: friggin' stupid.

I do understand there is some collective intelligence, in the crowd. Yet I think the crowd has to be smart to begin with. Sad fact is in a country such as Mexico where only 18.5% of the population gets to actually finish one grade - note, a single grade - of high school, I guess it's safe to say our collective asses are friggin' stupid.

Then you see people all gathering to a certain lane because, according to some urban legend, they believe is the fastest lane. Everyone stays away from a particular dance club because, according to some anonymous spamish email, they drug people's drinks. A whole city stays in their respective houses because, if a anonymous poorly written message on public streets, says this will be the most violent weekend ever on the city. People won't go to a restaurant because, so the rumors say, burritos are made with dog mean. Some folks still double click web links and there are some who use still click "Apply" before clicking "OK" when "OK" inherently "Applies" who happen to be the same people responsible for Windows Vista's draconian UAC. I bet these herd of people must be very, very smart.

Yeah... right... and Little Mickey died mixing Pop Rocks and Coca Cola.

Hence, it is my belief that whatever most people do will quite probably be something friggin' stupid. Mass media is directed towards most people and tells them what clothes to wear, what music to listen to, what person should they admire, what clubs and restaurants should they go to and what not. Here we find a generation of people who are fighting to find "themselves" and leave their own mark but still do the same stuff as most people.

Because most people are still people. And people are people. You know. Just bipedal animals wearing funny hats.

I don't know. I like to think that by not doing what most people do I am actually taking my own decisions and dictating my own behavior. But of course I make mistakes! Yet I'm educated and mature enough to recognize them, make amends if there is the need to, and then learn from them. Thereby I increase my own personal knowledge that further down the road will help me make my own personal choices hence keep on dictating my own behavior which I tell myself is more civilized, educated than most people.

In other words, yeah, you know I'm also trying to be myself... like most people.