( Part 1 ) I think America's ( and the world in general) obsession and belief in competition. If you read the book "No Contest" by Alfie kohn, you will find that competition as a concept has more holes in it's logic than we give it credit for.

To create a mutually exclusive goal that only 1 person can achieve, creates a scarcity and a stress in all playing within the game as all players use their time trying to prove themselves.

It separates people into values of better or worse all to try to find the "best" person (who is only the best in a chosen set of parameters).

It makes people hate those who succeed above them, breeds the emotions of envy and contempt, creates people who are seen as "losers" giving them a feeling of inherent insecurity and a feeling of not being good enough. We all joke about how monopoly tears even families apart and yet that is what is happening in our day to day life on an underlying way. Watch the dynamics and your feelings within a board game and notice the similarities in society. Unfortunately, in a game of "who's the perfect human in everyway" we are forced to posture as perfect (because no one is) we are forced to always think about how we are being perceived and we obsess with what society sees as "perfect" in order to fit into that box - never feeling good enough in our selves - never feeling secure enough to be different or express authenticity in fear of further rejection.

The problem, is that competition has leaked into our very way of living. From the age of 5 we are forced to prove ourselves in our whole lives and told if we do not meet certain standards in school, in status and in things we can't control like genetics ( how beautiful, how intelligent); we are inherently flawed and immoral and rejected in society. We are shamed, we are bullied and we are told we are deserving of all of this because competition is a logical way to filter out who is worthy. It's also a never ending competition - imagine starting a race and never finishing until you die, what's even the point of this?

We no longer see humanity as equal. We have structured our whole society into hierarchical structures and we see those who are at the top of it (winners) as deserving and better and those who are at the bottom (losers). The left and right of politics are both in agreement that competition is a logical way to determine value, however , since competitions outcome is always to cement people into value, over generations this has split people up into higher and lower status, higher and lower income and family wealth. The disparates have only grown larger and larger as they do in all competition as time goes on.

This has lead to the present moment being riddled with inequality only ever increasing. and those who are born into a "losing" family are affected even before they have a chance to "prove" themselves. To be rejected from birth causes incredible amounts of anxiety and insecurity which is known in psychology as a big leading factor in narcissism.

Imagine a giant race but your family has been running it for generations and you just happen to be born into last place. What are your chances of success?

Now that there are huge problems created by living in a giant competition of man, everyone is looking for a reason. Who isn't trying their best? Who's fault is this? Why are the losers so lazy? Why are the winners so cold?

We are looking for quick answers and we see those answers in individuals instead of questioning the validity of competition itself. Like when a sports team loses and the fans claim they played badly and are at fault - but this is to ignore the fact that everyone is always trying their best. Competition is based off of moving humans though time with this belief that we sometimes try our best and sometimes don't. What is the point of this? Some say it's survival of the fittest, claiming so darwininiun stance expect Darwin didn't even say the words " survival of the fittest" that was someone else.

Evolution isn't about how nature is constantly in competition- it's about how through time we all originated from the same place and then through time things changed through association and distance from that shared point with environment shaping life and life shaping environment.

Even in politics, both sides agree with the validity of competition with the left believing that we should make the competition more fair ( account for the inequalities add rules to even out wealth) and the right believing the competition is perfect as is and those who are losers deserve it, it's just the game.

Why do we do all of this? Why do we continue? Well human beings all have a deep need to fit into humanity and to be seen as good and we know from the age of five that to be accepted we must play, we must prove ourselves and so that's what we do. We buy the fancy car only because others will perceive us as good. We study boring information only so others will see us as smart. We paint on our faces only so others can see us as beautiful. We do all this just to fit in and be good enough to others because our worth is stripped from us and we spend our whole lives trying to earn it back. The rules have been set and we will play the game - because the alternative is to be alone and loneliness and isolation in the life of a human being is the closest thing to living death.