But wait,
There is this linearity that negates.

These are instructions and expectations;
These are word of advice that I am suppose to follow,
Are they thinking that I am hollow?
In what they believe to be help,
I stood and listen,
Couldn’t even manage a yelp.

I want to live my dream;
To die a poor soul would be devastating to me,
To live life without passion would be worse than poverty.
I want to be who I am meant to be,
I want to be,
Free.

How apt :) Thank you for the he said, she said.

Alas, we are all free to do what we will. Freedom is a state of mind, and the mind is a dangerous playground.

Tis true what you said, freedom is a state of mind, but the mind may be bounded by paradigms, poisoned by biased perspective and narrowed by religion.When it is, freedom would be nothing but a facade.

Freedom comes from the knowledge of thyself, from within. It is when we know what we are, we know what we want, thus our purpose will be clear as the blue sky; then freedom awaits, yes? :)

Indeed the chicken-egg theory. Are we not products of our surroundings? And if so, then who we are can be attributed to what we are exposed to. But then again, we surround ourselves with what we know and by doing so, we experience only as much as our circle of influence will allow.

It's a weird continuous cycle, don't you think? We hold firm to our core principles, but anything and everything else is subject to change. What we deem to be 'freedom' today, could fall short tomorrow. What we have is choices; something I violently fought for when I was a much younger girl, only to wish I didn't have so many today.

Ah, the luxury of choices is indeed a problematic one; I can go nuts thinking of what to eat for lunch...when I'm having breakfast. haha!

I had the same conversation with a friend few months back where he said exactly the same thing, "our environment makes us who are today", to which I disagree to a certain extent.

It is true what you've said and it is a continuous cycle until you break it,but that could be hard; I argued this; we are creatures of that need to belong to a herd, we seek out people who are like us, and we hang around them all the time(thus proving that opposite attracts in love, is false unless it falls under a very specific context which is out of the context in this discussion), but yes, we need to belong.

When we find that group, we turn into this mode of thinking that is known as the hivemind, or rather, the group enters a stage which is known as groupthink. It is why toyota suffered with the Prius, or a better illustration would be the Abilene paradox.

By adhering to the will of the group, we repress our individuality, thus fulfilling the saying, the nail that sticks out gets hammered.

It's also true what you've said, what we have are choices, and we get to choose what to believe in, and what to discard when our believe that our beliefs are outdated; the question remains: how aware are we to the changes that affects our lives as an individual and as a whole?

And when we are aware, are we able to take a step forward, out of the circle of normality defined by our peers?

This conversation is reminiscent of the nature vs nurture theory. How do you know which parts of you is borne from your core and which has been infused through endless interactions on earth? Does it matter? The intricacies of a person's character can't be the easiest thing to dissect.

For the sake of a good debate, it would be ideal to pick a side. But life's never ideal, life's never clear-cut. We are who we are because each of our brains fire a certain way, our parents are certain types of people, we grew up in this particular part of the city. It's a web of contributing factors that will be really hard to ignore, if you want to start thinking about it.

(I totally agree with you about the fallacy that is opposites attracting. I believe surface attributes [hobbies, preferences and the like] don't add as much weight to the love equation when compared with a couple's core principles [liberalist, vegan and so on].)

I find the Abilene Paradox a very interesting study. In fact, I deal with it on a regular basis. My family being typically Chinese, finds it hard to express their desires, so they do what they think the other party(s) wants instead. Everyone ends up being discontent but at least everyone's happy being courteous.

I'm not familiar with the Prius example. Enlighten me :)

When a person undergoes change, everything moves in tandem. Priorities flip, human relationships build or crumble, the world looks different. I'm pretty sure we are aware of the changes that are happening, but possibly unaware as to its repercussions. I think awareness of a change would mean that what was once deemed normal is now no longer so. Remaining in an old way of life would be incredibly unfulfilling and, in true optimist fashion, should encourage a break away from peer pressures. Besides, peer pressure and the groupthink dynamic are surface environments that don't directly impact individuality. They are case specific, non-recurrent events. What do you think?

The groupthink dynamics can be seen in the case study of the Prius with the auto accelerating feature that had caused Toyota lose its market lead over GM and Honda in the US market. Basically, there were already 2000 reported case before it actually made media headlines, demonstrating a breakdown of communication between senior and top level management.

As you've already pointed out, this phenomenon is prominent in Asian culture; I think a better illustration of the Prius example lies in the case study of Korean Airways before year 2000, where David Greenberg took over flight operations. This is illustrated in Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell if I'm not mistaken :)

I agree that a person's character is intricate thing to deal with; it's akin to asking which contributes more to a rectangular, the width or the length? But at the grand picture, I think it matters very little because what's done is done, we are here. What I believe is this, if we can pass the IQ test proving that we are not retarded, and then we can be shape our character, which in turn, shapes our destiny.

In relation to your final paragraph, I think the very important question to ask is this: when do people actually change? And when we do change, does it represent progress?

I think I've gone on a bit too long; ah, inherent limitations of discussion on the comment box.

There would be a lot more details to go into but I do feel that it's getting too long for a comment box. It is a shame that can't we discuss this face to face.

But my point is this, more often than not, we do not realize that we are being repressed by our environment, hence our individuality might suffer in the process and thus, we are unable to attain the freedom of mind.
The case may be case specific or may be a general problem that we all suffer from culture, but it is far from being a non-recurrent event. The reason for being so prevalent lies in the difficulty in detecting this phenomenon instead, it camouflages itself too well.

Ah, the Korean Airways story. I found it extremely sad, but to a certain extent I identify completely. The Asian culture is so contradictory to that of our Western counterparts yet we so willingly adopt their culture in an almost negligent fashion. It’s necessary for effective global communication, but detrimental to Asain communities. Maybe it’s a little easier for us as Malaysians because we don’t really have a true culture. What we have is a melting pot, nothing’s truly authentic.

In reference to your question, it reflects on your final point as well. The keyword here is “progress”. How do we define progress? Isn’t change progress anyway? Or is it progress only if we perceive it to have a positive impact on our current livelihood? Again, points of view change with time and experience. If you think you’re being repressed, then you’re repressed. Doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks because goodness knows, the people around you will have an opinion.

Maybe it’s a good thing we can’t do this in person. Most likely we’d carry on for a whole day. And yes, this ain’t the best Comment Box Etiquette. :S I guess we’ll just cyber shake on it, and I thank you for your thoughts. :D

One final note :)

Let me present you a model. Assume, you own a car and commute to and fro from office everyday during peak hours.

Scenario A: You take the same route everyday. However, you feel a bit adventurous today, so you took an alternative route, which is longer but traffic is light and commute time is cut by 15 minutes. Note: You've made a change and made progress(time saved is 15 minutes, fuel saved by a smoother drive, stress reduction from the jam -value is subjective)

Scenario B: You took the alternative route, but journey is so much longer that you no longer save time. Traffic is moderate, so the petrol saving is marginal at best. Note: You've made a change, but whether progress is made is disputable.

Scenario C: You took the alternative route, journey is not only longer, the traffic is as heavy as the default route, commute time increased. Note: You made a change, but instead of progress, regression happened.

Scenario D: You're unaware of an alternative route because you accepted the heavy traffic and the total commute time as a part of life. Note: Change can never happen in this scenario because the subject never seek out better alternatives. This could be caused by various factors including repression by social environment,i.e. Aiya, this kind of hours always jam wan lah.

Quote:"Or is it progress only if we perceive it to have a positive impact on our current livelihood? "

Let us assume now, you have adopted the alternative route for its benefits, do you perceive it to be a positive impact on your current livelihood, or is it actually a positive impact?

Quote:"Again, points of view change with time and experience"

The only time you would divert from the alternative route is when you find an even better route to undertake, or other forms of transportation which would even reduce the commute time between work and home. Thus, a better route is a fact, not a point of view.

Therefore, progress can be properly defined as advancement/improvement of the default model.

Therefore, a conclusion can be reached: Progress requires change to happen but change does not represent progress.

It has been a pleasure to divulge my thoughts. Have a nice day :)

And you. :)