Tribes

During my ongoing journey through the bowels of YouTube, I came across this video. I found it pretty interesting- awesome, even.

I'll sum it up. The dude is basically making a summary (which makes this a summary of a summary X_X) of another video (which, at the time of writing, I have yet to watch). The concept he is trying to get across is that whenever people group together, they form subconsciously form, what he calls, tribes. Tribes exist on one of 5 different levels. The levels are incremental, and can be reached only from an adjacent level.

The levels go like zis:

1. Life stinks
2. My life stinks
3. My life is great, but yours stinks
4. My life is great, and yours is, too
5. Life is great

Obviously, the higher the level of your tribe, the better off we are. For example, war exists within a level 3 tribe. This is due to the "we're better than you are" mentality. But war is bad. It's not really good for anyone, which is one reason why a level 4 is better than a level 3: there is no war. In a level 4, we have learned to overcome our differences and get along. We can understand the other point of view and see the value in other people. It's hard to want to kill someone when you know how much they are worth.

He goes on to say that our current society is at level 3, and that the transition to level 4 is the hardest transition to make. He also states that individuals live on their own tribal level, and that most live at around level 3.

This would kinda explain my ever-present tentative optimism in the world. I would say that I'm between 3 and 4. I see value in my own life, and in others' lives, although there are still some people that give me pause as to their actual value.

I decided to try to live my life on level 5, finding value in everything. I think this is the answer that I was looking for in regards to being the best person that I can be. We'll see how it works out.