07/07/2026
When I was younger, I never understood why some people took drastic measures against society.
I never understood why they would take up arms, knowing it could cost them their lives.
I never understood why others obeyed without question. Perhaps it was conformity, or the quiet pressure of obedience that often feels safer than uncertainty.
I never understood why life had to be this way.
But as I've grown older and begun to see the system for what it is, I can't help but wonder if those people were also lost—not monsters, but wanderers searching for meaning, belonging, and a sense of identity in a world that had already decided who they were supposed to be.
The more I observe, the more I see alienation. People become strangers to themselves, disconnected from their work, their communities, and sometimes even their own values. We speak of freedom, yet so much of our behavior seems shaped by expectations we never consciously chose.
Sometimes it feels as though there is no hope, no genuine love, and no real definition of success that isn't inherited from the culture around us. We are told what achievement looks like long before we discover what fulfillment actually feels like.
The system often feels rigged in such a way that, no matter how much good you try to do, it is never valued as highly as quiet obedience. Over time, repeated experiences of powerlessness can begin to resemble learned helplessness, where people stop believing their actions can meaningfully change the outcome.
Whenever you try to move forward, there is always someone trying to get ahead of you. We compare ourselves endlessly, measuring our worth against others until our self-esteem becomes dependent on competition rather than growth.
No matter how capable you are, if you cannot function in the way society expects, you're treated as an outcast—as though there is no place where you truly belong. The need to belong is deeply human, and exclusion can wound as profoundly as physical pain.
You're told that a blue-collar or nine-to-five life is what you should strive for. Even if you give everything you have, you're measured by how well you fit the mold, not by who you are. The conflict between authenticity and acceptance creates a kind of cognitive dissonance: the tension of living a life that earns approval while feeling increasingly disconnected from yourself.
Perhaps that is why so many people end up feeling lost—not because they lack ability or purpose, but because their basic psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness remain unmet. When those needs are denied, people search elsewhere for meaning. Some find art, faith, community, or purpose. Others become consumed by anger, ideology, or despair.
I still do not believe that every drastic action is justified. Harm remains harm. But I no longer see every person who resists society as someone driven only by hatred. Sometimes I wonder whether they are people who, after years of alienation, exclusion, and unmet needs, reached a point where they believed they no longer had a place within the world they were expected to obey.
And perhaps the most unsettling thought is not that they were different from us, but that many of the psychological forces shaping them—our need to belong, to matter, to be seen, and to live authentically—exist within all of us.
