[SOC]

I was having a convo the other day with my brother. He was pulling his boat up to Lake Murray which is about a two hour trip. He talked on his Motorola Droid phone which he recommends highly to everyone. I talked to him on Skype which didn't cost me anything because he has a Skype app on his phone. How cool is that?

Anyway, he tells me that people in the neighborhood hate him. I ask him if it is because of any Charlie Sheen type behavior, and he tells me no. The gist of it was that the reason they hate on him is for one particular Charlie Sheen behavior--WINNING. Basically, they envy him. He finds this surprising.

I am no stranger to this sort of thing. I have learned two things about status. The first is that there is always someone better than you. The second and lesser known part is that there is always going to be someone who hates you. I have endured this sort of thing just like my brother.

Is my brother some kind of arrogant prick? I don't think so. My favorite line of his is, "I am too stupid to quit." His spirit animal is the wolverine--an animal with insatiable hunger, fearlessness, and the audacity to take on much larger animals. I don't know if these are necessarily virtues, but they work for him.

So, where does the hatred come from? For me, it is senseless. I am always shocked when people hate me or develop some sort of rivalry with me. This usually happens at work. I have never been the best or most valuable employee at any place I have worked. Yet, I get hated on usually by the best and most valuable employees. I never pay attention to the status order since I work the same way always without regard to what others think of me but obeying my own inner dictates. The fact that these dictates and what my boss wants are sometimes the same thing is purely coincidental. I am as likely to be in conflict with the management as I am to do what they like. I just do what I think is right, and I don't give a fuck about the consequences.

So, why is there rivalry? I am OK with competition. I like playing games and trying to win. But if I lose, that is cool, too. But we are talking about Scrabble or touch football. These are fucking games. The point is to have fun. Work is not a game. Life is not a game. Status isn't about fun but hatred. That line about the one dying with the most toys being the winner is as cynical as it gets. Or as Gore Vidal put it, "It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail."

I have not met my brother's neighbors. I don't know them. But I imagine them to be typical middle class types with kids who play little league, and they go to church on Sunday. Their lifestyles rival 97% of that of the rest of the world. Yet, for all that is good in their lives, they hate on my brother. This is fucking retarded. As for me, I can't tell you the name of any of my neighbors. I don't know what they think of me because they never speak to me, and I don't speak to them.

This was the advice I gave to my brother. Fuck your friends and neighbors. This seems harsh, but it isn't as harsh as being friendly with a bunch of fake ass people who hate your guts. This is why I don't join clubs or involve myself in civic engagements. I don't go to church because I am an atheist now. But when I did go to church, it was the same petty hatred, gossip, and bullshit. People are either despising your successes or gloating at your failures. Who needs or wants this?

I don't want to call myself a loner, but this is what I am. I don't have a lot of use for other people. Somewhere, I became convinced that this behavior was unhealthy, so I tried to be more social. It didn't help. What has helped is to stop apologizing for being "anti-social." I don't give a fuck about the social game or the status game.

My brother is not like me. He is social. He has a family. He has sought and earned some status in his life. We both come from the same background, but my brother is different from me in that he has tried to be liked by others while I have not. The result is that people don't like my brother. It isn't my brother's fault. It is the simple fact that people hate you for being either a success or a failure. As Alain de Botton pointed out, people seek status because they want to be loved. The irony is that status does not promote love but hatred.

My answer to this thing is to not seek status but to seek individuality and originality. Being original and authentic are what matter to me. This may bring love or hatred. The difference is that I enjoy both the love and the hatred. They confirm to me that I am doing the right things which are living by my rules and doing what makes me happy. The result is that I am popular but have few friends.

In order to have friends and connectedness, you have to conform. You have to compromise yourself in order to run with the herd. When you are different, the herd reacts to you and shuns you. The same thing is true if you are great. Excellence and eccentricity both mark you as being outside of the herd. It means you are exceptional instead of ordinary. The result is a certain level of loneliness. If you want to be loved, the answer is simple. Be unexceptional and boring.

With my brother, the blunt truth is that he makes more money than his neighbors. This means he can purchase more consumer items than they can. Of course, my brother would be a speck of fly shit in the upper west side of Manhattan. He does plans for houses belonging to millionaires that make his house look like an outhouse. But my brother is the big fish in his little pond. Status is relative to the herd you run with.

I choose not to run with the herd. My brother is fairly individualistic, and I think he will make the same decision that I did. You get to a certain point in your life when you do what you do and tell the world to suck a dick. That rush of liberation is better than any accolades, love, or respect you could ever want from the world. It is freedom.

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