What Are We?

Friends, as the known world collapses around our ears and our leaders run around like headless chooks not knowing what to do, perhaps it’s time we did a quick reality check, really confronted ourselves, tried to cut through all the crap we’ve been fed about what we are, what we should be, how the world should be.

Where to start? Why not at the beginning? Each one of us began life the same way. We were pushed, pulled or extracted from a woman’s body while she shrieked in pain. We were covered in blood and tissue and someone belted us and we started yelling. Eventually we were cleaned up and then proceeded to drink from our mother’s breasts which then led to our first urination and the expelling of faeces, a rather unfortunate, messy process that continues throughout our lives.

Eventually we learned to control our expelling functions and how to sit on a toilet, one all white and shiny, and how to wipe ourselves and wash our hands. We also learned to transport food into our mouths in a reasonable manner, one which did not put food all over our faces or our clothing.

Dressed in pink or blue, we then began to learn what our roles were, what was expected, what was frowned upon. The indoctrination was prolonged and intense and conformity was highly rewarded. We were kissed and applauded when we succeeded and we were smacked, shouted at or sent to our rooms when we transgressed.

Then television came into our lives. We watched cartoons and childrens’ shows and saw what we should be doing, what we should be thinking, what we should be eating and drinking. Yes, the commercial world got into our minds very early and began to shape us so we would end up dutiful consumers and we would prize whatever the advertising agencies presented us with.

Religion also got into our minds too and we were introduced to the concept of ‘GOD’, and told He watched us and wrote down all our sins and that if we had too many, when we died we would go to Hell where we would burn forever. And we learned about politics too, that this ideology was good and that one was bad and we watched our parents disappear into voting booths and we wondered what they did and longed for the day when we could go there too and do mysterious, adult things with a pencil.

Eventually, we got through school where conformity was also prized (and questioning wasn’t) and then we went on to become producers of something, a service or a product or a skill that made lots of money and that money was all important and you needed to make lots of it because having lots of it showed how successful you were.

During this period our hormones began biting and we began to be motivated by strange, compelling urges and we began to do secretive things both by ourselves and with members of the opposite sex. Some even found their own sex alluring but were told by some this was quite normal while others said it was disgusting.

Then love hit us (or was it lust?) and, blinded by it, we felt we just couldn’t live without a special person. We couldn’t see the reality of that person but then the truth was that we couldn’t see the reality of anything else either. Reality was what we were told it was and we believed it to be true.

We were told that wars were a necessary part of life in the world as was poverty. We were told that some countries were good and others were evil and the colour of our skin was important and even that some skin colours were superior and that flags were important and should be prized and worshipped. We were taught to accept the existence of wealthy people who lived in mansions and drove exotic cars and not to question why others, obvious failures, lived in slums.

Eventually we got married and performed animalistic acts upon each other making lots of bestial noises and, just as nature planned, conception took place and, in nine months, a new baby appeared and, without thinking, we began the same process with it that we’d experienced ourselves, “Bub, bub, bub!”

The truth is that we humans, just like all other primitive animals, learn by imitation. That’s why the world never changes. That’s why we, whether individuals, couples, families, groups, communities, states, nations, make exactly the same mistakes over and over and over. Talk about pointless perpetual motion!

Can we change the process? Sometimes I think we can. We just have to think outside the square, question all of the stereotypical views and values that  we have been programmed with (many of them promoted by those who are advantaged by them) then, once we decide what kind of world we want, smash the mind-deadening cycle of fault-ridden indoctrination that is stopping us from ever achieving our true potential.

Yes, given the state of our world a reality check is surely in order, some serious questioning. Are we unique, free-thinking individuals or are we merely another mindless generation, innocent victims of repetitive, lobotomizing indoctrination?

P.S. Is your answer a reasoned one or just a conditioned response?