One of the downsides of adoring social psychology (don’t let the writer’s hat fool you: I have a degree in Sociology, and entertain fantasies of going back) is that it’s hard to feel unique. It’s hard not to see your own behavior as part of a larger system, and I often find myself acutely aware of how my life is just one of many affected by the cultural environment I float around in — as well as my age and peer generation. This is both frustrating and reassuring; Both my accomplishments and my failures are just so typical. My life and lifestyle may not be typical in the sense of Wal-Mart/TV/9-to-5 consumer culture, but I still fit tightly into the social system that surrounds me.

And is that a bad thing? Is it a bad thing that, in my early 20s, I swung around within an international subculture, testing the limits of my own excess? (How usual!) That even though I didn’t experience the “New Economy” first-hand, I got a great hit off of the Clinton-era wealth? (How standard!) Is it a bad thing that my personality development has followed the typical pattern of questioning, exploring, and resolving? (Stay in line!) Is it bad that, now that I’m in my later 20s I think about babies? (Instinct is hard to fight.) That, when I get into something, I tend to get obsessed…something others can label as getting wrapped up in a fad? (”You’ll get sick of it within a couple months,” they said six years ago.)

I don’t think it’s bad at all. Just because one is aware of how the greater social influences effect their personal choices and lifestyle, doesn’t mean one should necessarily resist those decisions (doesn’t mean you should necessarily follow them, either). We’re social creatures. It doesn’t matter if you’re aware of how social psychology works or not: you’re still going to be a willing victim to its whims.