So, walking down the street today, i suddenly think-"what the hell am i doing?...Im walking along paths that someone else has laid for me. Im being told where to walk, like a laboratory rat in a maze."...Everythings so damn linear. And controlled. And artificial. If we had fields and not streets, id be free to walk and run about wherever i wanted...but as it is a have to walk in lines and turn the corners where im supposed to... Has anyone else noticed this? I doubt ill be able to walk down the street again without thinking of myself as a lab rat. Lovely. Xx
Rats in a maze? We are more like beads in a Galton Board or maybe I am just being a deterministic arsehole.
Nah i think the beads have more freedom. And it hasnt got the poor helpless creature connotations, or the connection with cruelty and control. Xx
Well, yes, it is much easier to be a bead than a rat... as a bead doesn't have the consciousness of the futility of its existence, and it doesn't have sense of being and aspiration toward originality, as us humans do... we are more worse off than the rats... or beads. But yes, we have the pain of rats (which is great) , and the freedom of the beads (which is none)
I've had exactly this same feeling, and exactly the same reaction you did. Welcome home, this site is made for you. Linear people are not comfortable here. What you described is a metaphor for life. Walking prescribed paths perverts our true nature, breeding conformity and insecurity when the path to follow is no longer clear. Freedom is seeing all the possible paths set out before you and making conscious choices about which one is best for you at that moment. You keep your options free and go with the flow. You become much more trusting and confident in your own decisions and intuition, not needing society to guide you in every step you make. This is true freedom, living in the moment, taking responsibility and defining your own being.
lol, i like your sig Thanx...It just suddenly strikes me just how unnatural this world is sometimes. And i think it IS getting into peoples heads, and messing with them. It cant be good for the "free spirit"...What you said about "walking the prescribed paths"...I think theres more truth in that one sentence than ive read in a long time. "The path is no longer clear"...Its like people have forgotten that its not natural to live like this. They accept it. There are babies being born now who believe the Earth is grey. And why? Why all the control, the sequence, the confinement? Why have we disabled ourselves? Is it a fear thing?...I often wonder. Xx
Yes, you're right. Fear of straying off the path... The path is security, go off the prescribed path and your life gets much more interesting, more risky but more exciting. And yes, they treat us like rats in a maze. The same operant conditioning used on lab rats is used upon humans. Almost all social situations are programmed for us, so various interests can use them to their advantage. So the military program, the religion program, the educational program, the consumer program, all try to mold us so we behave in certain predictable (and profitable) ways. They define paths for us to follow. We sometimes get to choose between programs, but often we are pressured by family & peers to follow a prescribed path. Remember high school? Talk about peer pressure. That is where you really get stigmatized for not staying on the popular path. High school is intense social indoctrination. That's when kids pickup and settle into the attitude towards life they will live the rest of their lives. Life is a maze if you want it to be. Or you could just make life amazing. It's your choice.
