Society Influence Quotes

“Awareness of our conscious thinking patterns and unconscious behavior predilections enables us to examine the defining question of how we began to take certain values for granted. Once we accept that we are a product of our culture, we can begin the act of deliberately redefining our sense of self. By engaging in an intensive cultural investigation and undertaking a studious period of reflective self-examination, and by exercising disciplined behavior, we can alter our character. Using American society as a looking glass allows me to see how a dominating culture sculpted my self-image. This societal mirror reflects me in a either a positive or a perverted manner. Looking both inward and outward, therefore, is an essential step in seeing oneself clearly. An interior and exterior analysis is the critical initiating act in taking charge of the ultimate configuration of our conscious self.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“None of us remains invulnerable to the demands of our physical survival or stands aloof and insusceptible to the shaping influences of society. We live in a social world and the prevailing cultural norms affect each of us.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“A sundry of generational defining events foment a reverberating resonance that assists us communicate with one another. No breath we take stands alone; no breath we exhale remains independent from our past breathing cycles. We are similar to a massive sponge collecting electrical impulses that fire our internal generators. Each gulp of air that we take fills us with new experiences; each breath builds upon billions of our prior sense impressions. Each happening in our orbit bonds us with a hodgepodge of preexisting mental fragments to produce our current personality. Each of our independent decisions and discrete actions we correlate with the external physical environment and interdependent social relationships. Our personal actions are interrelated with our cultural milieu. Just as a butterfly flapping its wings in a rainforest can contribute to formation of a hurricane, our separate and joint actions operate to shape the environment, and in turn, the evolving environment continues to mold us.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“None of us exists in an isolation tank. We stand in blood and brains and in familial relationships with our brethren. We exist within the backdrop of experiences provided by our families, teachers, friends, church, social events, newspapers, books, television, film, art, music, science, and self-exploration. The pattern of our personality hat is comprised of the many fine hairs shed by our gargantuan society.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“Each of us is a massive composite figure. We are constantly filtering a barrage of sounds and visual images. Newspapers headlines scream to gain our attention. The radio blasts out its top forty. Billboards proclaim the newest film stars. Fashion magazines tell us how to dress and act. Each day sprouts its insider news tidbits. Each news day the media mashes another international or domestic crisis into our mental pulp and soufflés the macramé of political scandal or social untidiness into edible sound bites for us mentally to digest. Inside each of us resides shavings from this visual and electronic onslaught. An unseemly deluge of external stimuli shapes our ego formation.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls