There are things that people can’t control no matter how hard they try, and often people will complain because they can’t get what they want. Most complaints I hear are knee-jerk reactions, short-sighted, and lacking perspective. The only perspective is that of the complainer’s and it is usually a self-serving interest. These will too easily commit all sorts of logical fallacies for the sake of “argument” under the illusion that whoever can talk louder or faster can claim the title of being “right” and win what is basically a shouting match. The world is bigger than any one individual’s life.

I’m reminded of an experiment one of my professors told our class about randomness. People had a choice between choosing Object A or Object B and would receive either a reward or punishment (a mild shock) depending on which object they chose. The reward/punishment system was random every round when the subject made a choice about which object to pick. Our professor also told us that the same experiment had been given to monkeys. Animal rights aside, what the researchers discovered was that the monkeys learned that choosing the same object over and over yielded more reward in the long term. The human subjects didn’t produce results as good as the monkeys. You could question various aspects of the test, but it doesn’t change what it highlights.

Resistance is very destructive and people seem to go this route more often than trying to find resolution in harmony. I knew someone in high school had a shirt that read, “Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.” The mob mentality, when composed of narrow-minded views and poor application, reflects badly on everyone. Unfortunately, there isn’t an easy (things usually never are) solution to fix this, and doing so would need a large amount of time before any change occurs. Trying to upheave and replace an entire social culture all at once would be chaotic.

It’s an emergent behavior that makes me want to avoid people because everyone seems to be looking out for themselves instead of each other. I don’t want to partake in that, and it suppose it’s a reason why my choices and behavior don’t seem “logical” to others even though all I am doing is, in a sense, trying to survive. It’s all anyone is trying to do.