Social Contracts

My whole life is one big compromise. I tiptoe around everyone like they're made of china. I spend all my time analyzing what the effect will be if I say this. Then there's you, you're a reality junkie. If I offered you a comforting lie, you'd smack me over the head with it. Let's not change that.                                                                                 -Dr. Wilson, House MD

         After watching the episode "The Social Contract" from the TV series House MD, many thing occurred to me. First of all, I want to declare that I myself HATE social contracts at some point. However, I admit that, sometimes, we benefit from these contracts. I hate it because it advocates indirectness. I hate it because it is a contract, and contracts are designed to be restraining. For example, you can't go out or do lots of things when you're still not 18 yrs old. Gender wise, girls are not allowed to go out more than boys. Age wise, at all cost, you should give respect to people older than you. To be more relevant, yesterday, lots of shops and businesses were temporarily closed because of the belief that spending money during the first day of the year will give you bad luck, or your money will somehow be unwittingly out of your control. The list goes on and on and on.  Social contracts causes lots of compromises and irrationality.

          No matter how much I rant and complain about these social contacts, I will have no choice but to live with it. After all, it exists as well because of its evolutionary importance. Social contracts are like allegories and metaphors. They exist for a deeper cause and meaning. Let's just deal with this whole one big compromise of life. Respect the contracts created by the norms. Although I often choose to disobey, I always try to respect and avoid putting bad faith to other's beliefs.

        We are in the matrix. We are living around contracts; Religion, Science, School, Work, Marriage, and even Life itself. We are in a contract. We don't get to choose how others act towards us. We don't get to choose how the outside world will act upon us. We don't get to choose where and when we are born. The same thing goes when and where we die.

       I want to believe that there are two contracts. The contract from the society which is the Social contract, and the contract for yourself which is your Personal Contract. Your  dreams, personal decisions, your actions towards others, perception or the way you see the world, life, music, art and how you want things to be.

                                        You don't have to be like everyone else.

Just sign the damn social contract. Hustle around it and write your life with your own pen and paper.