It's All Pathology.

Pathology (or, more accurately, Personality Pathology*), refers to one’s enduring pattern of thought, emotion, or behaviour, which negatively affects that person’s ability to adapt. It is characterized as an inability to adjust to a given situation, often resulting in outbursts due to stress.

Adapt and adjust to what, you ask? Society.

What if I told you that, from this day forward, everyone with fingernails would be regarded as unholy or unfit to be in the presence of those without fingernails? What if, from this day forward, I told you that it was imporper to speak to someone with eyebrows, as those without eyebrows are far more superior than those who have them?

Sounds ridiculous, but this is just as ridiculous as the contention between the Indians versus the British in the 1940s, and the blacks versus the whites in the 1960s…

Society is pathological because people are pathological; and the governing rules set forth by any society are merely set in motion by the people with the most power. When examining “maladaptive behaviour under stress,” we have to remind ourselves to first ask, “what benchmark are we comparing this behaviour to, anyways?” Would it be considered pathological for a black person to get upset about having to sit at the back of the bus? Would it be considered pathological for the people of India to stand up for their rights against the British? Would you have classified Martin Luther King Jr. or Gandhi as pathological, should they have lost in their fight for equal rights? Would we have classified Hitler as not pathological, should he have won? Did you know that homosexuality was once considered (and even in some remote places, still to this day) pathological, despite homosexuality being commonplace during the Roman era?

We are a species with no natural law, governed only by human ones… These “laws” (or, more accurately, “belief systems”) are the real pathology, here; for, beliefs first manifest from the mind. Is it any wonder that all pathology is triggered by “stress”; a byproduct of the mind’s desire to change its situation?

All mind is pathology; all belief is pathological; it is only a matter of having the biggest stick to fend off or convert those who think otherwise.

So, before you try to judge, understand. Perhaps individuals are just acting-out simply because they choose not to be defined by a select majority’s specific set of rules... The truth is, all of life is not an even playing field (it's why the lamb never gets to eat the lion), but that’s OK! To understand, to re-think, to re-learn, in itself is change enough. “You can’t change the world, you can only change your world,” and once you’ve convinced the majority of the world of your point of view, then the rest will have to follow, too...

Until they don’t.

—and that’s what makes us so pathological...