April 24, 2012
Why do we create fences where there once was none? We are a species that sees the limits of our world and then dedicate ourselves to overcome them. Yet the systems that we erect within society dominate our lives. What can we do to tear down the limits of our experience? How are we able to alter our systems to treat the one in front of them with care and particularity?
The Retard. In the process of stepping back and observing society and its actions, one alienates themselves from it. Repeating this over a nomadic lifetime forms a being that does not resemble, concern, or identify itself with the same or similar matters with any of the collective community. To truly think for oneself is to unknowingly or knowingly choose a life of loneliness, subjugation, and oppression. To find like minds not only becomes a struggle but an impossibility. When one's priorities do not conform to the collective consciousness, they become exiled from their human brothers and sisters. No longer limited by society, faith may act as a tool for the subject so that they can harness their superhuman god-like abilities.
As a result, the creation of themselves and everything they touch will shine brightly. But all the while this faith is in vain, for they will never find what they seek. The treasures of their creations will be overlooked in most cases. If they are not overlooked, society will systematise them placing the content in boxes and distributing them as dogmas. Society then "grows" as a result of these systems which originally came from pure intentions. The human inability to take content without categorising and identifying within it is nothing more than a corruption. Systems dominate our minds, and when no visible and organised systems exist, we make them. Thus we can observe the newly formed graph that can relate to us exactly how we feel or ought to feel, disconnecting ourselves from any actual feeling. The organisation of our minds manifests itself outside of our minds and is then forced upon other people in our world. We spoon feed information that is poisoned from a corrupted perspective. If we do not conform to those expected normalities then we are pushed out of social relationships.
We claim with pride that we live in a "free" society. Unfortunately nothing could be further from the truth. The weapon of oppression is now rarely a sword because the weapon of the consequences of nonconformity has been found to be much sharper and cut much deeper. When the understandings and mental distribution of the collective is directed through media, corporations, and government, we lose ourselves to our surroundings. We model our humanity on the factories that we have created. The noble ideal to give every individual the freedom to pursue their own happiness has been taken away. We now live in a world entirely full of unhappy people and our systems attempt to make this model sustainable. We now think we find happiness through material goods and entertainment, but at the end of each day we sigh as the hole in our hearts remains unfulfilled. We now claim happiness but have lost its understanding, that is the conditions required to necessitate happiness. And our oppressors very well know and even play on this fact.
Adam's Song. Let us look at the human and how it functions. Adam is a biological creature. When he is wounded then he must tend to his wounds in order to recover his health. He lives in a garden and eats the fruits of its environment. He explores the garden to learn its nature. When something is needed, he will employ tools and structures to accomplish his intentions. When he feels hungry he tracks food and dines and when he feels cold he covers up with resources found within his environment. When himself or his environment do not act in accord with his overall well-being, he employs the necessary methods in attempts to transcend the situation at hand.
Now let us examine the problem when we introduce many Adams. Now Adam is among a society of himself and he must learn how to cope with this fact. These other Adams then must fight for their survival because of the limited resources and man power. As a result a nomadic tribal system is formed assigning duties to each Adam. But how are we to keep the peace in such a society? Develop a strong sense of solidarity. Together the tribe may stand strong and because of its relatively small formation, they are able to create a close knit community.
But there exist other tribes who are nothing more than “savages”. They must protect their newly formed society with force. They therefore then study their opponents strange lifestyles in order to discredit them, enforcing an 'us and them' mentality. As time goes on the tribal wars continue and the ability to effectively communicate with each other remains an impossibility since they have been enframed to perceive only their tribal members as “real” humans. Truth was the words of the elders and superstition was the paintings in their heart.
Generation after generation continues like this but over time the tribe builds a more accurate representation of knowledge and as a result learn how to cultivate the land. The once hunter/gatherer tribe situates itself on appropriate soil. As a result of this alteration of lifestyle, many new considerations manifest themselves. A conception of property is formed. How are they to protect their land and as a result themselves? And now that they are situated enough to store equipment and food, how are they to distribute it? A conception of ownership of things outside of what is on one's person is formed. And who is the one to administer over such matters? Well that depends on the society's needs at the time and each individual's abilities, most likely a renown warrior.
Remaining within the borders of one area, a town is formed. Each Adam by now has found their role to perform within the new system and this results in class divisions. No more is each a part of the whole because the parts are able to work independently of each other. As a result we have a social disintegration within the community. The farmers do not mingle with the warriors and vice-versa. Each is then assessed on the function they serve and those with power are the measures of the importance of each function.
In time the sustainability of such a system is questioned and the leaders are forced to adapt their approaches in order to obtain and maintain control. As they look around they consider much larger societies. If they are to survive they must break away from their own independence. The rulers of Adam Town depart on their journey to a favoured empire. They shake hands and as they depart they leave with new aristocratic titles. They have traded their beloved community for their new lucrative positions. They now stand as kings who report to the empire in their newly modified society. The land is now owned by the empire that protects them and thus requires compensation. What is owned by one is now own by the empire. Exploitation becomes common practice as a result of either need or greed of the rulers.
Over time technology is developed and as a result so is the market system. Our empire is now able to build factories and manufacture a wide range of products for consumption by exploiting the planet's resources. The printing press encourages an intellectual boom in which new conceptions of everything arose. As the private markets produce and political battles continue, the economy takes shape and a framework is portrayed directed towards capitalism.
Land then becomes a commodity and our humanity is lost in systems. The past systems that have grounded our present one haunt our ability to create effective and caring social structures. In the battle for power our species has divided itself into many different accounts of what a human should be and we therefore become bitter towards certain “types” of people. The constant search for what is in our brother's pocket divides even the closest of us and we isolate ourselves from each other. We form an understanding of the world based from how we are treated and comport ourselves into that role. Our only priorities become the priorities of the collective will. The only choices are to try and get your hand in the pot or become an outcast.
Daily activities become easier when close together so what could be a better idea than to form large cities? The activity becomes too cumbersome for our minds to understand so we retreat into the foetal position and reject understanding of anything. The collective understanding will work best for us, so what motivation do we have to go beyond it? The desire to know about the person in front of us diminishes and our collective will becomes no more than feeding our greedy mouths, obtaining the “ideal” lifestyle through enslavement within employment, and stabbing each other in the back to get there, only truly never getting anywhere.
Damn Fences. We have entirely fenced off our lives. We erect fences around our bodies, minds, and souls. We situate ourselves inside the borders of those fences to gain a sense of security to cope with our situatedness. We desire security as our media has frightened us from going outside. Adventures have been written off as we live out “safe” and “secure” lives. We rarely take chances because of the fences around us, for it is difficult to tell if there is electricity flowing through them.
Let us first remove humans from the equation of our environment. Where can we see fences? We can understand difficult terrain to act as fences and these can possibly be utilised or modified by the presence of life. The oceans act as fences that separate the masses of land and their altitude. Gravity and the atmosphere of Earth also act as fences. We can think of these subjects and understand nature and how it functions. We can also recognise that it is our human nature to jump these fences. We can utilise areas with difficult terrain for particular projects or even alter the terrain. We sail across the ocean with ships. We build space crafts to pierce through the walls of the limits of our own atmosphere. We create air planes to travel the skies. Our list could continue for the limits of our human drive is what we make it.
If we are such driven creatures to go beyond these fences, then why do we create so many of our own? I am a planet walker and have spent countless amounts of time walking through a diverse range of conditions and the one thing that I notice absolutely everywhere is... the fences! These things are seriously irritating! I can walk roads for days or even weeks and get stuck in a jungle of fences. “Private” property has taken over our planet and it is now a hardship for one to just be able to exist and travel by foot. Massive amounts of beautiful wilderness remains cut off from our human experience. And all that is in the way is a fence and a strip of unoccupied private property. And what are we to do? It is extremely rare for me to see a fence that would not be extremely easy for me to pass. However, I do not like performing acts against the law. I see wonderful beauty behind your land and I only desire to get there. But your property says, “NO!” and gives me no opportunity to question with, “WHY?”.
I do not desire to perform any acts of hate and only want freedom. Your systems cut that freedom off from me. Let us step back and consider why a fence is closed. Why do you not want me to come to your door? I spent a week before knocking door to door working for a charity and it was terrible. People were so rude and the entire experience was nothing but sad. When someone comes to your door why do you immediately become defensive? Why do we not want others to interact with us? If I am thirsty and come to your door for water, you would probably give with extreme hesitance and suspicion. If I asked for food you would tell me to get a job. And if I was just wandering you would close your door, advising me to keep at it. But I want to be at your door because I have no other doors to go to, and maybe your door could open up a chain of doors for both of us.
But your doors, hearts, and minds, are closed and locked. And you secure them all off with your fences. I stand outside of your fences and stare at the beautiful wilderness behind your property and cry.
Damn Systems. In order to maintain the status quotient, we pigeon hole people with paperwork. We ask leading questions that require a particular lifestyle to be correctly answered. If one stands outside of those questions, a lie must be employed or the product and/or service is rejected. Questions like address, occupation, and phone number are questions that require particular lifestyles in order to be answered. Identification requirements are no different. One is expected to be identifiable at all times and if they choose not to ascribe to this practice then it will cause great controversy with authority figures as well as the rest of our systems.
The rigid structures in your systems have caused me most, if not all, of my hardships within life. You expect a certain type of individual to stand in front of you, and when you stare at one who has deviated, you are unsure how to proceed. In the end you either work around the system's follies by lying to it or sending me on my way.
Conformity is the solution for those with a broken or suppressed spirit. How are we to avoid the systems fucking us over? Become the archetypal image of a person that it expects. Lubricate the cog by accepting the oppression. That is, to alter the self to adhere to the system's requirements. You lose your very self because you do not understand what the systems are doing to you. As a coping mechanism, you create social axioms like, “You can't fight the system” and “There is nothing you can do about it”. These understandings then enslave you to continue in your own meaningless existence. You have become the product that society has intended. Great work dear comrade!
I am by far not attempting to rebuke the employment of systems. Quite the contrary. Systems avail seemingly unlimited potential for our species. I am merely shining light on our current systems. When one identifies within these systems, horrible acts can occur outside of them. When these systems rule over us instead of us over them, we enforce conditions on the masses that results in unhealthy behaviour. Our systems then point the finger back onto ourselves for the reasons for this unhealthy behaviour, but nothing could be further from the truth. But it is ingenious to place blame on the individual without considering the background conditions that caused their experience and consciousness to develop as it has. This mechanism will keep us in line and hating each other. What better way to control the masses than to shirk the responsibilities of the systems by placing them on its undesirables. We then form social stigmas and hold them against “types” of people because of course, they are the problem within society. Oh wait, it is actually you that is the problem within society because it is you who carry out and encourage these destructive practices.
Our Nature. What is our nature? What does it mean to live in accord with one's nature? In order to go about answering this question we must stand back and examine what it is that we are and how we function on an organic level. We must remove our cultural understandings and examine the foundations of the human being. We must examine our natural desires and comportment within our environment. Independent of this or that era, we must look at what is and ignore what is not.
We are social creatures that are directed towards love. We live in communities and play a role. We integrate within structures to avoid demise. We are creators and can use our gifts to secure future comforts. We create close social engagements and form relationships. If attraction is reciprocated, we create mutually beneficial unions giving us the opportunity to extend our bloodline. We desire comfort and security and these are brought about by obtaining the most beneficial connections with people who most appropriately fit within our own particular psychology. We strive for what is beyond our capabilities and as a result tend to over time achieve any dream that we so desire. The possibility for our species is to go beyond itself.
We are curious creatures and look into the stars and wonder what they would be like. We closely examine the moon and spend many years developing the necessary conditions needed to be able to travel there and eventually exploit her. The barbed fences only act as a temporary setback to our heart's desires. We examine our surroundings and obtain multiple understandings of the resources of our planet. We then utilise those resources to create and employ tools to assist us in accomplishing our goals. We learn to manipulate these tools in order to further expand the possibilities of the resources that we have been blessed with.
Now let us take this model and apply it to our psychology. We implement systems that have no actual existence within our world, that is they exist only within our own minds. These systems are then employed, maintained, administered, and developed by people. Over time these systems grow and become too large to make significant changes to. There are too many people keeping up with and utilising these systems on a day to day basis to alter its infrastructure in order to reflect the current period of time. The result is disastrous and the system obtains a mind of its own. No longer is the system controlled by anyone but instead it controls the population. The right and left hand are in vertigo.
Developers are reduced to nothing more than patch workers. The systems they work with on a daily basis are too vast to make any true developments to because they do not understand the systems that they work on. It has taken a life form of its own. The amount of redundant functions continuously increase year after year as people leave. The entire system ends up being ran by people who have no idea what they are working with. They are trained to make alterations and add-ons, that is to work on a part. To remove any parts of the system is a vast and unprofitable procedure and is thus usually avoided. But the system itself has gone beyond their control and each day develops another extension that will one day become a functional redundant part, forever growing the enormous monster of our systems that reigns domination of our society. This is our dragon that wreaks havoc on our way of life by scorching it with fire.
If we do scratch an old system and replace it with the new, the migration process still leaves us unsure if things are in order. The new systems developed reflect that of the old because those systems are known. The core policies and procedures remain untouched. Even though stories of the building were demolished and rebuilt, the foundations of our systems remain the same. We piggyback our understandings whether or not those understandings were found to be beneficial. And why? Because to start from scratch, that is from the ideal, is not a profitable endeavour and can take much time if done carefully. But none of that matters. We are only human beings. The all mighty dollar is worth so much more than us. A creation of man becomes worshipped by man and acknowledged to be greater than man. Again I congratulate all the progress we as a species have made. I clap my hands for your handy work. Thank you for doing your part to actualise the current state of our human race.
Representation. Throughout our known human history we have been creators. From the origins of our very nature we are built to create new life. From there we are built to create and employ the necessary tools to minimise discomforts. But we have missed the meanings found within our creations. When we examine our creations we are able to better understand its creator, that is our creations are representations of us. We can build an understanding about our lifestyles through the examination of the fruits of our labours. Our physical, mental, and spiritual capabilities and understandings shine brightly through the essence and functions of our creations. Each artefact tells an extremely long story.
But why has our toils backfired on us? Why do our creations no longer represent divine manifestations? Where did we deviate from true health of humanity? This question can be answered when we consider that all creations are manifestations of their origin. And what has our origin become? The problematic manifestations of our society comes from the systems of our past piecemealed together. Over time these layers of sediment form themselves as the foundations of our own thinking. The system is the best because it and everything that we have ever known has always functioned in that manner. We are indoctrinated into the understanding that these systems are effective methodologies to employ and satisfy our creative and social desires.
As a result, we create while adhering to the confinements of our systems. Our creations then represent its creator as the creator has no mind of their own. The psychology of one closely relates with the psychology of the other because they have both been enframed in the corruption and confinement of human ability. The result we are left with is an inferior product. A product that has made its way to you as a result of the corrupt and oppressive system that you have ascribed to. The results of your labour does not represent an ideal individual but a brainwashed one. And this representation stands as an accurate portrayal of its creator.
Conclusion. What does it mean to go beyond our own limitations? Why do we create limitations when none exist? If we are beings that can walk on the moon then why can we not walk on the soil of the wilderness behind our private property? How are we to tear down our fences?
The answer to these questions lie in Descartes' Meditations and post-modernism. We need to demolish our structures. We need to rethink our systems carefully and create strategies to resign our old ones. We need to look around our world and make some decisions as to how we should live our lives with all our brothers and sisters within our environment. We should implement systems that are designed to respond immediately to its wounds and then develop the system taking into account the inconsistencies that it found. “The system will not let me” needs to be replaced with red flags and a referral to the developers who can resolve these inconsistencies and thus remedy the problem for all future scenarios. Cases with vast background conditions need to be handled with care and particularity.
Our education systems need to become more holistic. As a result of the industrial revolution, we have each taken on very specific fields of study. This in itself causes our minds to close and our attention to only be focused on a particular area. All the while we lose sight of the bigger picture and this causes mistakes to be made that will disintegrate our community. This is because absolutely everything relates with everything else. If we only study one particular field, the integral relationships that other fields of study have to and from your own field of study is lost. In the end we are left with a faulty component that is plugged into the system only waiting to malfunction when the necessary conditions for its malfunction are met. Each field of study is many fields of study and these relationships will further expand seemingly forever, that is if one chooses to put in the time to become, a superman.