For most of my life, I identified as one of the PILGOs (Political Parties, Ideologies, Labels, Groups, or Organizations). One thing that never occurred to me is that I never started any of these. All PILGOs were designed and carried out by other people, and in some cases, way before my time. One day, I had a sudden realization and asked myself one simple question; “Why am I doing other people’s ideas?”.
What’s in it for me?
This a good question to ask. What do I actually get out of these pre-made PILGOs? I’ve struggled to come up with anything of value. I know what I DO get; anger, hatred, self-righteousness, snark, arrogance, and probably the biggest threat to my mental health there ever was. I can’t think of one positive thing that this stuff has given me. Also, these political PILGOs don’t really even know I exist or care about me.
More importantly, what’s in it for other people?
The people at the top of these PILGOs. They probably get all the pillars of poison a person can selfishly strive towards. Things like money, power, control, connections, influence, status, fame, etc. I can pretty much guarantee this stuff completely enriches only a few people, but it has wide-ranging effects on the country. If someone can prove me wrong, by all means, go ahead. But I think that is going to be a lot of time spent trying to disprove something that’s already a foregone conclusion.
You know that the people at the top of the PILGOs would probably say or do anything to ensure that the good times keep rolling for them! Meanwhile, the rest of the country just eats itself for no real reason at all. They don’t care about our mental health, our division, or our daily lives. Can we change the PILGOs? Not on their level, but we can on ours.
We have the option to leave
That’s what I did. I just up and left it all behind. That was an option the entire time! This isn’t converting to another side either. Those are the same problems, just on the other side. It’s a complete removal of oneself from the entire structure. If PILGOS didn’t exist, we would have no idea who to hate. We also would have no idea what to believe so strongly. Since there would be no identifiers other than our own names, we would participate in the free exchange of ideas. There would be minimal anger (if any) and far more learning. So why not just live like that? To do politics on one’s own terms and not that of others.