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I am a 26-yo male, single, very well-educated, professional, successful...
Miserable.
I was highly motivated and idealistic in school, and went farther than anyone in my family and any of my friends. Now when I go home to visit my family and friends, I can't understand them. I see them engage in so many silly and counterproductive behaviors.
I am an engineer, and engineering gave me a new perspective on life. I see the world in terms of logic, cost, benefit, ROI, and frankly very little of what I see makes sense. I sometimes wish I had never learned of the scientific method, because it's led me to nothing but grief and heartache about the state of things.
I am an atheist, and that opens up a huge gulf between me and many people. I think that the natural world is the result of random processes and any meaning we assign to it are artefacts of the pattern-recognition regions of our brain which have been selected for by evolution. My beliefs have led me to no end of grief, but frankly I can't bring myself to believe otherwise. To do so I would be lying to myself, and you can't live that way. Not for very long at least.
I fear I am turning into Daniel Plainview from "There Will Be Blood". Here's what Dan has to say about life (copied from IMDb):
Plainview: Are you an angry man, Henry?
Henry Brands: About what?
Plainview: Are you envious? Do you get envious?
Henry Brands: I don't think so. No.
Plainview: I have a competition in me. I want no one else to succeed. I hate most people.
Henry Brands: That part of me is gone... working and not succeeding- all my failures has left me... I just don't... care.
Plainview: Well, if it's in me, it's in you. There are times when I look at people and I see nothing worth liking. I want to earn enough money that I can get away from everyone.
Henry Brands: What will you do about your boy?
Plainview: I don't know. Maybe it will change. Does your sound come back to you? I don't know. Maybe no one knows that. A doctor might not know that.
Henry Brands: Where is his mother?
Plainview: I don't want to talk about those things. I see the worst in people. I don't need to look past seeing them to get all I need. I've built my hatreds up over the years, little by little, Henry... to have you here gives me a second breath. I can't keep doing this on my own with these... people.
[laughs]
I saw this movie, and I thought, "Oh no, I'm sympathizing with the villain!" What to do? Am I just cluing in to the human condition, after years of idealistic brainwashing (by myself and others)?
First of all, I find people who identify with fictional characters troubling. People who never existed really cannot have emotions, etc. It's a screen play. It's not real.
You need to take some time off and travel. See the world. Learn to appreciate other cultures. Turn off the television and expand your horizons by reading books, picking up some hobbies, enjoying nature.
Thomas Paine is a great author. I think you might like his work.
Soooo at 26 you think you have all the answers? Life is one adventure or misadventure after another. You haven't had enough life experience yet to make such deep assumptions. Find some people you can share common ground with that are nice people as well. Your views will change with age and experience. Try not to be so serious at an age when you should be out exploring the world and having fun lest you be an old soul before your time.
At 26 you certainly don't have all the answers. At 56 I'm still learning myself. You're going through a phase and that's perfectly normal. What has me concerned is the my way is the only way mentality. We all have different ways of going around the block and if you follow a different direction once in a while you may actually find something beneficial. Having such a narrow view makes you limited. Here's a good example: I was walking my dogs after work last night and my usual route takes me past the yuppie bar with the beautiful look at my huge diamond ring crowd. I'd be lying if I said that I couldn't fit in there. I can, but I prefer the grittier bar down the street with the antiques and stained glass lamps and fire place vs the sleek boring red walls and uncomfortable love seats. It's like eating lobsters in Maine wearing a comfortable flannel shirt. There was this man getting out of his really expensive pick up truck heading into the bar. I was polite and said hello to him and he was drawn to my dogs. We had a nice conversation about a ferret rescue that I had no clue even existed. I'm so going there! I will also be going to the yuppie bar after my husband divorces me for bringing home another animal. You have to be versatile.
Ok so here's my two cents, for what it's worth.
1. Couldn't help thinking how we as humans kinda suck at seeing in ourselves the same flaws we criticize in others. Sure the OP's tone cld have been construed as elitist, but the tone of some of the responses, despite apparently being against that kind of thing, struck me as a touch sanctimonious. (The one about the OP biting the bullet was actually just plain disgusting.)
As I see it, all young and highly qualified people have to rediscover humility. And yes... I am also highly educated, skilled, well paid etc etc etc... I don't consider myself elitist (u cld argue I wouldn't know if I was) but also feel that travel and the very different path I have chosen makes it hard for me to understand the small town stuff that preoccupies the folks in the rural village my parents retired to years ago. But I don't think it's education related at all: I think anyone who chooses to walk a slightly different path has to accept the fact that it takes them away from all that was once familiar. We just have to learn to grow with that.
2. There is no magical chronological number at which one is entitled to misanthropy. I grew out of an extremely abusive childhood, and when I finally left home realized that the experiences I had and the means of coping with them made me much older emotionally than my agemates. I never had the luxury of childhood or the protected discovery of teenage. So when people go on about how young the poster was (I am now MUCH older than he was), I can only say the one who wears the shoe feels the pinch.
3. There must be kinder, less sanctimonious ways to offer our suggestions to those around us who find themselves embattled. I struggled with similar questions as he from an even younger age, and looking back I certainly don't think they were misplaced or even particularly uninformed. The truth for me, as pointed out by another poster, was that being extremely sensitive for one reason or another can itself be partly the root of said disillusionment.
For me, there are many perfectly valid reasons to gravitate toward misanthropy, as already eloquently stated by other posters. The selfishness, greed, hypocrisy and cruelty of humankind needs no introduction. Despising us probably wouldn't be that hard for an outside observer. But hatred is poisonous...so it seems to me the harder (but ultimately more desirable) option is choosing to remain a dispassionate observer, free of the negative emotions and poisons that grow like an abscess when we open ourselves to hate.
The misanthropy is more likely a symptom rather than the cause of your misery, as it sounds like you may be mildly depressed. The problem with mild depression is that people suffering from it see the world as it really is, rather than through the rose tinted glasses that unafflicted others do. (Additional reading: Optimism bias.)
You could try an online depression test like this one:
I'd say you're still quite early in what I hope is a long and interesting journey. I for one have no problem with your identifying with a fictional character-- to the contrary, it only shows a desire to recognize portions of yourself in others, whether the others are "real" or "fictional." When you find that reflection of yourself in another, you can't help but feel that click.
As far as not being terribly tolerant of others, particularly those from your former community-- that's also common. Lots of young people who grew up in small towns go away to the big city and come back and of course they notice how provincial the people are who are left behind. You're changing tribes, which is something that's only been possible for maybe a half century or so. All I can say is to try and understand the people you now don't understand. If you grew up religious but now don't believe, it's not as black-and-white as you're right and they're wrong, and it never is in a system of belief. My (non)religious beliefs probably line up with yours, but they're BELIEFS- if we're wrong, then we'll learn eventually, and if we're right, we'll probably never know for sure, because we'll just be dead. So unlike engineering, which is more often a matter of polarity, black/white, right/wrong, what is "right" or "wrong" about belief? When it comes down to it, nothing-- and if you want to introduce logic into it, you're asking to "lose" the "argument." Better not to argue, but to tolerate those who see life differently from you.
It may be that, in science, you've discovered a new "religion," and you wouldn't be the first. There's much to be said for it-- to question everything, to measure twice before you cut once, to relentlessly analyze with that formidable mind of yours. At the level beyond your ability to know, there's still a layer of belief, however.
Unlike electricity, thread size, azimuth and bearing, or photochemical reactions, we humans are maddeningly unpredictable (except when we're maddeningly predictable), imprecise, and illogical. Many of the greatest minds of history have made humanity their field of study. Some have been religious, some haven't been. I would counsel a similar course of study for you. Bring your fine engineering mind to it, listen instead of talk, observe rather than judge.
Travel...both in the temporal (jump on a plane, a tramp steamer, a bus) and in the realm of the mind (read Montaigne, Borges, Sun Tzu, Maimonides). Find a deep pool where you find you love to swim. Ideally, find a few people who swim in similar pools.
As for the negative side of what you saw in the character in "There Will Be Blood," I think two things-- first, he wasn't evil. That side of him drove him to great accomplishment, but also to the death of his son. He was more complex than you're giving him credit for. In a way, he could be a cautionary tale for you. Second, I think you rightly recognize his thought error in wanting success at the cost of others' failure. True success in any venture cannot be done alone. They must buy your product, read your book, hire you, work for you and not quit, marry you, decide to bear your children, hold you when you need holding, bail you out of jail or other trouble. Will you make a sound if you fall in the woods and no one else is there to hear it?
Ultimately, lighten up, Francis. You've learned a lot but you have a lot to learn. Fortunately, you're smart and aware enough to take it in. I have faith in you.
It is always hard to extrapolate from too small a reference sample. I would be a total misanthrope if I judged mankind by the cliques of people I've come across in a few situations I've "survived". There are some professions, companies, neighborhoods, schools, etc. that seem to attract selfish people who have high self esteem by deciding that what they are good at makes them superior. Their narrow interests and what they are impressed by seem more and more ridiculous, and we are slowly gaslighted out of our own core beliefs . The only way back to sanity is to move on from those people and find some people you like to converse with. (Books are comforting at times, but good conversation is a sanity imperative.) I think you need a friend, a real friend. But the more unique you are, the harder it will be to find one. The internet is a good start. There are a lot fewer lonely people (and budding misogynists) because of the internet I think. Also try watching the PBS version of "Sherlock". Last night's show was a brilliant look at the loneliness of the highly intelligent person...
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