People just follow the norms of life, everyone is supposed to live in a happy suburban family, have children, and from their 'made-up' dream, they hide from life's ugly realities. Apparently the purpose of life seems to be more material acquisition. Such people drive in fancy cars, eat in fine restaurants, seek to hang out or hobnob with the ‘upper class’ people, seeking to advance their status in society’s eyes both materially and socially.  The shallowness of such mentality can even be seen in elementary school where you have kids who climb their way up the mini-social ladder stairway........go with popular cliques in order to gain social acceptance. Popularity is ajudged usually just as in the bigger society, by those who are materially, physically endowed with status/power/prominent backgrounds or merely by those who are ‘plain power-pushers, power-trippers or bullies.”  Whereas, you have the outcasts who are victims of emotional/psychological cruelty laughingly cast aside and the perennial butt of ridicule and bullying.  Meanness abounds even in the confines of the school, proof of which are school murders which have often occured and are always occuring and are overly sensationalized. People always blame the murderers; they are hyped as deviant beasts. The deeper root of the problem is our society. Just as people blame other people who turn rebels and cause sensationalize provoking act. They fail to see the real root in the mentality of society. It is a society that causes a person to be callous, where a child loses his innocence in favor of material acquisition and social acceptance. Just as in the wild, where the tough reigns supreme, so we see from classrooms, to the bigger society, the one who is “brutish” is considered powerful.  Right is not ‘necessarily right’ but that which is only ‘right’ as imposed by bullies in power.  There are always two sides to a coin and every story and in this world ‘what people would consider generally ‘right’ is not necessarily ‘right’ but that which is "might" powerfully ‘imposed as right’ by a powerful ‘sect’which has either monetary, political or religious backing. Conclusively, Rightness is thus generally subjective by those who are in power or ‘powerful and strong’ enough to enforce their views. Like in the wild, it is a ‘sophisticated’ way of survival of the fittest where the strong imposes his ideologies and the weak meekly kowtows.  And most people are cowards and would just not hesitate to side with the popular majority view lest they be considered a deviant or something different. So insecure they are for the approval of the majority, even if the basis is shallow. Instead of valuing sensitivity and compassion, ours is a society that places pressure on conformity, material acquisition, and a general 'callousing' of the heart. Our society is one that propagates and places high value on financial intellectual, material success or ‘intellectual titles’ ‘physical success’ ‘power’ and importance on shallow stuff such as ‘celebrities ‘titled’ figures, etc.. As a result man is endowed with greath intellect but his heart is numb and cold. Intellect is useless, we have wrecked havoc in the world compare to million years ago, pollution global warming, endless diseases such as SARS, bird's flu, and wars. All our intellectual ramblings have enabled to us to understand the scientific essence of how life exists but instead we destroy life on this planet: the life of nature and the life of animals and even human lives. And our ‘enhanced’ knowledge, in the bigger picture, is useless, it is already there, it already exists, does our knowing what is the chemical composition of water, changes it causing to exists? It existed and still exists. Nothing has changed. But our hardening or hearts and lack of compassion and sensitivity is causing havoc on   nature , the planet as an entire whole: all our wastage and abuse. Because of our ‘little knowledge’ we have acquired, we feel a “special entitlement” to abuse mother nature and other inhabitants on this planet aside from us, failing to see that each entity is contributes to the big whole and when we destroy them, we destroy ourselves too in the end, as we are merely an entity, a small speck and part of this planet and need the mutual balanced coexistence with others species/entities. Because we fail to respect such entities, the end result rebounds on us and a future shortage of natural resources is a looming reality should we continue with our overly hedonistic ways.

To be sensitive, one is considered a sissy and one is expected to be 'tough' in life, this is why we have so many criminals, etcetera. People just have families with no aforethought if they are capable of raising compassionate citizens of the world. In reality what has the rising increase of population of mankind contributed to the world? Overpopulation, Pollution, Global Warming, and Poverty. The world is so greatly polluted compared to eons ago before the reign of ‘civilized man’. Very productive should we say? Man just wants to reproduce a likeness of himself, therefore his offspring, his key to posterity to leave his narcissistic mark on this planet, even after he has died.  As he has no chance for immortality himself. Through his offspring, he sees a way to leave his egoistic mark on this planet.  Without much thought if he is capable of contributing, he merely wants himself and his next generation offspring to continuously scale up the social material ladder at all cost, even if it entails callousness towards lesser creatures, a destruction of nature and planet.

“Matter is given more importance over life.” Sense enjoyment is the measure of a man.  The more money he has to buy material pleasures, the higher is his esteem in other men’s eyes.  And in his lifetime struggle devoted to acquiring all material entities to enhance his status, society teaches him to be calloused and it does not matter who he steps aside on as long as he is ‘made’ materially.  Thus, small acts of callousness and cruelty from each person rebound to a bigger chaotic whole: we see chaos all over the world. We see this result in the maladjustment of the world. Chaos on the bigger picture comes from chaos in the singular unit which is why sensitivity is essential. Cruelty is a result of piled up acts of callousness. No small act is not cruel enough to merit our attention and cruelty to animals burns a man's heart his greed and lust and ignites the spark further. Thus, let us not blame the entire pie on so-called misfits of society. Although the violent tactics they resort to are totally wrong and sinful.  Punishing them for their erroneous acts, is merely a band-aid solution.  Going to the deeper root would be to see society as it truly is. It is a cold callous breeding ground for similarly cold and callous souls. A society that is numb calloused cold and indifferent creates similar denizens. You reap what you sow.  Small acts of cruelty create for a bigger cruel and chaotic society. Society is such that small acts of sensitivity are considered ludicrous and yet on a double-faced righteous hypocrisy society puts on a facade of ‘holiness and righteousness’ by appearance, and nice-sounding 'ideology' 'words cliches of love and righteous and fairness and morality'.  As such it is a double-entendred society: one which is numb apathetic and extremely cold and calloused and yet hypocritically ‘righteous’ and ‘holy’.

All people want of life is more and more material pleasure and this is the measure which every single person in measured, how he has accumulated himself materially becomes the measure of his worth in society's shallow eyes. The innocence once association with youth and childhood is replaced with jaded cold-blooded eyes that tiptoe with the powerful, and so long as one gets material sustenance, and is enabled to climb in the proverbial 'status' ladder, man compromises his principles, his innocence, he becomes a zombie , a puppet of materialistic society. With no purpose in life, rather than to conform and be approved by his materialistic counterpeers, always afraid of making unsafe judgments, always conforming with the majority so as to blend in, to be accepted and approved. And one can see even this kind of mentality as early as in primary school with kids who are as jaded as the most wily and cynical adults. Innocence is lost on the youth, once the young learns the corrupt ways of the system and society, the power-tripping, the callousness, he becomes a creature of conformity with no concern for anything other than his own material comfort and the esteem and approval of a materialistic society and with no purpose other than to escalate his value in the materialistic ladder and therefore improve his worth. He is so afraid to be different, lest he be cosidered a deviant.
The clever child or man soon learns that conformity is the key to this world and that passion for anything is considered extremist and absurd. Although nobody can blame them for a person who loves comfort and innately man is a creature of comfort but it takes a great measure of courage and the opposition one faces to stand up for one's passion and principles despite the ridicule that abounds. Passion is life and although one may have all the comforts in the world, the soul is dead when it loses passion or purpose in life. See some middle-aged men or women cloaked in white professional robes who have materially made it in the world, Inside their rehearsed frozen smiles, professional white clothes and genteel sophisticated put-on demeanor lie souls who are ‘civilized to the perfection’ they appear so genteel and ‘sophisticated yet inside they are so numb and calloused.....lives are merely treated as business transactions........put on a ‘professional genteel face’ yet insides they are so cold indifferent and apathetic with no aforethought but personal pleasure and material gain.  People people who are so numb and calloused, to them death is as casual as drinking a cup of coffee.  Where life and death is so casual, and dealt with by just a mere shrug , because they have more important things to do with their time such as advancing more in the material world and social status registry. These kind of people are empty bitter shells, they are the living zombies, too numb and calloused and indifferent to feel ‘human feelings’ like love hate, grief, sorrow, anger, these people are “civilized”to an utter perfection. Double-faced and masked under the guise of professionalism and genteel polite tactics, they feign ‘professionalism’ as they have to, in order to proceed in their profession yet they are incapable of feeling anything anymore and nothing matters not  innocence and principles, just a life of comfort and ease and material advancement and social hierarchy are all what these living zombies see and clamor for. Here we can see the height of perversity.  When “matter becomes more important than life.”  This is the real sickness and the reflection of an extremely sick society with totally perverted values.  Of course naturally hypocrites will shrug their heads to high heavens but anyone will know deep down in his heart what he truly is.  When the measure of a man’s value is based on material acquisition and social status......... and when the life of a man of less material acquisition is less valued and his death or ailment is regarded as mere statistic......when without money......people entasked to cure and save lives will not lift a finger to help a dying or injured man who has not enough ‘material acquisition.....hypocrites nod your heads to death......but the reality of life is the reality of valuing “matter over life” and inspite of this injustice already, yet adding insult to injury, putting on a veneer of “righteousness, holiness, altruism and morality.” Yet inspite of hypocritical words of pretentious righteousness, the truth will always surface and prevail just like dead murdered corpses will always eventually surface out of the body of waters it has been hastily dumped. Hypocrites, claim that you believe in righteousness and value life over matter, but the reality deep down in your hearts you know that matters of life and death are but mere daily statistics to your calloused soul and your dazed zombie like eyes are coated with greed over more important matters are things such as material profits or things that will advance your status in the social registry, and heighten your esteem in the eyes of people you deem as 'prominent social figures', to enhance your status in the social ladder.

 The problem with youth is that its innocence is fleeting and soon  most everyone learns to go the easy path to toe in with the system of the society, where one gets the best goods from the cookie jar. Most youths who go through the ‘callousing system’ of society emerge the same as the abusers they meet along the path of climbing up the stairway of their success. Their bitter experiences numbs them and makes them equally as bitter. In the end, after going through such a difficult path before they attain their success, they become like the soul-less zombie like shells of their abusers, so numb and so cold and so embittered that they want to pass on the bitterness they have received to the next generation of innocent unknowing wide-eyed youths who will be the next generation victims. It is rare to see people who have passed through life and yet retain innocence and passion yet this is an ideal we all must strive for. The worst thing in life is to be numb and callous, that is the real death. People who are alive but dead in heart, with no concern but sense gratification and comforts and who care only for their own wretched survival. Outside, they may appear so successful and the ultimate conformist of society , the ultimate success but their soul is dead and callous when they cannot feel compassion for a little thing. It is the small things that lead to the bigger cruelty and every small thing counts. Sensitivity is what makes a man a man. Passion is life and without passion, a man may be a live but his soul is suffering a slow most painful death and this is worst than death itself.