The More We Try To Control…, The More We Need To Control
We appear to be constantly engaged in the act of “controlling”, both internally, and externally. In fact, it appears as if the entirety of our existence is spent in this act, and wasting precious energy in the process. Humanity indeed appears to be stuck in what appears to be an intractable “quagmire.”
Look around…, you’ll see everywhere our hand in everything. Humans, from all corners of the Earth, and all walks of life constantly engaged in trying to control.
Trying to control EVERYTHING. Wherever we see that something’s “not right”, or “out of line”, or in some way just “not where, or the way it should be”, then out comes the club.
The club comes in many, many different forms, from the the very subtlest of individual, and interpersonal manipulations, to the mass forms of laws and policies, ideologies and processes. Then, when all this fails we resort to good old fashioned “punishment” and “reward”, “pleasure” and “pain”, just like you would use with a dog.
What do all these modes of control have in common? They’re all products of thought.
In fact, we appear to be living under a system that consists solely of this type of control by living under the “thought system” of money. Just look at it. We use a “substance” for living that when you lack, or loose, you experience all forms and types of pain and suffering.
Let’s just look a brief example:
Government, seemingly, at all levels, routinely employs the tactic of “monetary fines” in an attempt to gain “compliance” for whatever means. And we all know the word “compliance” is just another word for “control”. So out come the “fines”, and of course, the bigger the fine, the more pain, the greater the attempt to control.
Furthermore and conversely, government’s use money to “reward” us for “correct”, or “desired” behavior as well. We can see an example of this in the form of the numerous “tax breaks”, “refunds”, and “incentives” the government uses to again, gain compliance for some desired objective.
And then we have the whole system of “laws” and the “penal system” for those who won’t submit to the milder forms of control. And then finally, ultimately for those who can’t be controlled by any of the above mentioned means, there’s just good old fashioned violence, destruction, and death.
What a way to live huh?
Welcome to Planet Earth the Salusa Secundus of the solar system.
However, the more we deem things are “in need of control”, the more control — i.e. the more force we attempt to exert in the effort. This activity, in tern appears to only ever result in having the exact opposite of the intended effect, as it invariably only winds up exacerbating, or further enflaming the entire situation.
We then respond to the up-tick in inflammation with yet still, unbelievably more inflammation-creating behavior in whatever form…, e.g. more laws, more government, more policy, more prisons, and on, and on, and on… whatever it is, just more of it.
How intelligent of a species are we really anyway?
