Individualism

The term individualism is defined in this article as maximising one’s own interests. We generally encourage this as long as it doesn’t harm others. Let us first establish some common ground with a few axioms before delving deeper into my realisation.

• Firstly, everyone if flawed: Nobody is perfect, neither I am nor you. It is our horrible and at the same time beautiful human nature to make mistakes and carry inefficiencies in us.
• Secondly, We have a limited effect radius: This classic stoic wisdom teaches us that some things are beyond our control. For example when our flight gets delayed due to a storm - no amount of yelling at an airline representative will end the storm. It would be better to handle such a situation by simply accepting it and reorganising ourselves.

We can conclude that people are flawed and its very little under our control to change that. Therefore its a waste of energy to put a lot of effort into trying to fix other people. Rather focus on yourself where you can have the most effect.

The Others Problem

Let’s take a look at this from my own experience and how I exercised my drive for individualism. Since my teenage years I found tattoos interesting and I knew I would like to have some as well. My thoughts were like: “Just by having tattoos I wouldn’t harm anybody”, “What does it matter what other people think”, “Its my good right and wont change my personality if with or without tattoos, right!?”. Well… a few years later I realised that its not that simple. And please don’t understand me wrong, I am still not regretting my decision to get tattooed, but If I’d like it or not we are living in a interconnected world physically we depend heavily on the work of others, but also emotionally, mentally and/or spiritually. Call it however you’d like.

The Others Problem is my Problem

Lets imagine the following scenario, what if my Dad hates tattoos for whatever reason. He associates it with criminals or maybe his high school bullies. Every time we see each other he will see my tattoo and negative emotions come up within him. I can not demand from him to not have these kind of emotions. I have very little to no influence on that. Moreover, thanks to the research of Donald Hebb, we know that ‘What fires together wires together’. This means that my Dad will start associating a particular kind of negative feeling with me even without seeing the tattoo.

Expecting others to simply accept my decision to get tattooed was unrealistic. In retrospect, it seems a bit unreasonable to demand such acceptance.

No right or wrong

Today I would ask myself if it is worth to have these tattoos risking a relationship? Maybe its not a big deal after all, but maybe it is. Its a question which needs to be carefully evaluated first. The consequence would be that I might now exercise my right to do what I want, but at the end interpersonal relationships do seem more important than some pigments under my skin. As with everything else its a matter of trade-offs. Either way brings some pros and cons with it. The only think we can do is to carefully pick the right option and choose our suffering wisely. I hope this essay encourages some reflection on the topic.