Thread: Impressionability

Originally Posted by tommo

I wholeheartedly disagree that this end outside of high school.
That's incredibly naive. It becomes even worse, on a much larger scale.
Government, military and rich people all think they are above others.
They get the good looking partners (and lots of them) and are portrayed as successful.
This causes a whole mass of people to also want to achieve that same success.
And then there are a whole other bunch who resent those "successful" people and form their "own" ideals and they group together.

It definitely does not go away. It may just be more difficult to notice in one's smaller social circle. But even there, it is still prominent.

Regarding impressionability and copying others being how we learn to function and do everything basically.... reminds me of something Alan Watts said. It was something which truly gave me a big hit to my ego.

We are not what we think of as "me", "I" or "you" etc. Think about the way you think about things. When you actually stop to look at how you are thinking about a problem it is almost always another persons voice in your head, or their style of talking when they told you something or you heard them say something. So basically, fundamentally, there is no you, an ego, we are simply a collection of experiences, a mish-mash of things we've heard and seen.

this has definitely been my experience. especially at a work environment. everyone seems to be trying to fit in whether by joining a club, family, friends, this website, etc. almost everyone i know looks at someone with a well paying job, nice home, nice car, in shape, married with kids as a successful person regardless of how miserable and stressed out that person may really be.