Personal Standards

I strongly believe in personal standards. A personal standard is a standard one sets for herself, independent of what's out there in the "real" world. In short, it is non-adaptable to "reality" and forms an anchor point of one's identity. It also serves well to cement one's otherness such that one can avoid becoming too assimilated into a social reality, becoming unable to see beyond the reality to the ideals.

I was thinking about this when one of my colleagues made an absurd comment. The subway train we were taking was full of passengers. In fact, there were no free seats at all and a goodly number of passengers were standing. She said...wow the train's practically empty. Why would someone say that, when the train is very clearly crowded? It does not compute.

When I challenged that statement, she pointed out that trains are normally packed like sardine cans. Therefore the train was empty in comparison. Well...I suppose relativism in this case can make life happier, in that one can convince oneself that the situation is better simply because there are worse things out there. To me, however, a fact is a fact. To convince oneself otherwise is self deception...blasphemy by my book. Truly, it is a race to the bottom, because really, it's easy to keep sliding the standard downwards and if people are intent on self deception, they'll find themselves in a cesspool sooner or later. As my other friend says: Just because something is better than something else doesn't make it good.