IJSP Number 5, 2023

102 In spite of the reproaches such an idea could be exposed to, we should not spare our insistence and stress it again and again. As we know, life is very tricky and full of temptations coming from the outside world, real or virtual. Although everyone wants to know oneself, such a noble dedication is constantly derailed and biased by the insistence of external influences such as the ubiquitous social pressure made to match internal whims or unconscious desires. As a consequence, one feels that one has to conform and to pay homage to what others (real or virtual) say, think, suggest or expect from us. On the surface it is what they expect from us, but at a closer analysis it is what is expected from us, perfectly anonymous and ubiquitous, hidden in the mist of opinions and beliefs propagated “in real time” by every cell phone. In other words, there is no they (as someone concrete who can or could be addressed, found or discovered – some hidden world controllers, i.e.), bad or perfidious, always plotting against us, but rather just a pressure, a teleological dynamic demanding conformity and obedience. And, the most dramatic and subtle aspect of this dynamic is of a systemic nature, meaning that we all participate in and contribute to the process that surveys, controls and ultimately enslaves us. More than that, we are, in the meantime, so dependent on this surveillance and control that we, as they often say, cannot imagine life without the internet or cell phone connection (see the newly coined nomophobia). Of course, psychologists, psychotherapists or psychiatrists are no exception – they too have their smart phones and, in the above-mentioned co-dependence, their smart phones possess and control them. Social pressure is here for everyone and, unfortunately for us all, it is here for good. Probably only controlled folly can save us from total enslavement and the drowning in the bits and pieces of endless information and redundant images our devices are constantly providing. Ironically speaking, with a subliminal hint from Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four , we should rejoice in the fact that our devices still have that red button. 5. SOCIAL PRESSURE AND PERSONAL MEANING Social pressure is the contemporary expression for what A. Adler said of social involvement as an escape from the feeling of inferiority inherent to us all [18]. But we can exaggerate or emphasize our inferiority feeling (which easily becomes an inferiority complex), and, in a desperate endeavour to escape or overcome that feeling, to throw ourselves in the medium offered so generously by the social environment (real or virtual, it doesn’t matter as long as it collectivizes us). Although such an escape is approved by all it does not resolve the cause. The feeling of inferiority is still there, neglected or ignored, with a lid on it to hide it. And, what is more serious than that hide-and-seek game, is the game one plays with oneself, because the inferiority feeling is probably the most intimate part of our personality, the basic instance that drives us towards life and its great achievements (at least according to what Adler says). It is our inferiority that pushes us towards development, knowledge (of the self, too), achievements, success and overcoming