Me and Them

So, not much has changed in the last few days. Really not much. Continually struggling to find a job, on the verge of despondency, I find myself wondering about independence, or more abstractly, the difference between dependence and independence.

As a 21-year old, I of course seek to be independent from both parents and family. All of my friends have moved out from our hometown (save one, who's currently studying abroad). My older brother has been out of the house for some years now, and my parents and younger brothers have me wishing everyday that I were somewhere else, too. I find myself both alone and claustrophobically entrapped in what feels like a situation that I feel should have ended ages ago.


But then I wonder, why do I feel this way? Is the desire for independence, for an identity seperate from family, cultural or genetic? Certainly, growing up in America, independence is not only lauded, but almost required for full, "normal" social interaction and growth. Although I'm a collectivist at heart, I can certainly appreciate the desire for independence. In all sorts of media, avenues for expression of self identity abound, blogging being among them. Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, even the comment sections on newspaper websites--all were created to allow personal, individual expression of thought. I know I participate in these (save Twitter) when the mood strikes me. But why were all these even thought of? I'm no expert on human psychology (my knowledge consists of a single semester of high school psych classes), but without a doubt, our culture urges us to express ourselves through individual thoughts and actions, or put another way, literally to get out and go it alone. Granted, our society attempts to provide a sense of community and togetherness via such social networking tools, but do they really work? I can't say I fully agree they do.

Although I'm also no expert on modern East Asian (which here refers to Japan, Korea, and China) culture, I wonder how these fundamentally Western (and yes, I'm willing to generalize on this one), individualist influences are playing around with Confucianism's prioritizing of filial piety. Anyone care to say?

It's also interesting to note that two of those nations (Japan and Korea) have among the highest suicide rates in the world (it's also interesting to note that despitebeing highly patriarchal, the suicide rate is higher for men than women in both countries; maybe it's more accurate to say the higher male suicide rate is because of the patriarchy). Perhaps that is the outcome of meshing a historically collectivist tradition with individualist trends? Mixing a culture that relies at least somewhat on family for self identity with one that requires but does not structurally provide for individual self identity is bound to lead to some unpleasant conclusions. Not that an individualist society sprung from an individualist past always works out....

P.S. Yes, the source is Wikipedia. Provided you check the sources used and nothing looks obviously out of place, Wikipedia is a perfectly acceptable place to cite, especially for my purposes.