The Need for Control
We are born into a realm we don’t understand. We are here, and we lack the knowledge of how to be anywhere else. We will have many questions, for there is much to learn about this universe.
Initially, there will be more experienced beings who control our life experience. They place us in the locations where they want us; a crib, a chair, on the floor, etc. They control what we put in our mouths, what we wear, when our diapers get changed, what stimuli we will be exposed to, and pretty much everything else.
As we grow, and better understand our world, we make more and more decisions for ourselves. We gain more control over our own lives. In fact, most governments have official ages for when we will be treated as adults, the point at which are expected to fully “control” ourselves. But, is this the reality of our lives?
Unfettered freedom won’t work and, in fact, it doesn’t exist. We are all constrained by our inability to overcome gravity or to run beyond a certain speed. We are constrained by all of our physical limitations, as well as the limitations of our intellect, education, aptitudes and attitudes. We are constrained by behavior norms that have been agreed upon by our society. You see, we need other people to help us live our lives, unless we want to return to the primitive hunter-gatherer mode of survival. Even in those times humans lived, traveled, and hunted in groups. Prehistoric humans had to behave within the norms of their groups.
We need forms of control to make a society work. We need cooperation, collaboration and peaceful competition in order for communities to function. If everyone behaved in completely random, unpredictable ways society would collapse. So, we surrender a little of our freedom, we submit to a little external control in order to gain the benefits of a cooperative community. Even within our families, we want our loved ones to be able to rely on us (and want to stay with us), so we give their needs and wants a measure of control in our lives.
No one is completely free, but how much control should others exert on your life?
We have evolved to a point where, in my view, external controls have become very excessive. Governments pass laws, at various levels, to restrict our ability to live as freely as possible. They seek to harness our energy for their gain. They manipulate our education system and the media, in attempts to control the information we receive and how we should think about it.
The questions that far too many people fail to consider are:
1) How much of my life do I want controlled by someone else?
2) How far from myself do I want those controls to be?
In my view, whenever we consider governments, or prepare for elections, these questions should be in everyone’s minds.
Thoughts?