On power

Growing up, I had this weird feeling that something is wrong with this world. I remember myself at about age three, when I was fighting with my brother... Fights happen either naturally or caused by an environment, including stereotypes of all the people around you. A child does not choose to fight. Usually, or at least how it was for me, a child has just one way of dealing with the situation, and sometimes that way happens to be a fight. Sometimes my parents stopped fights and punished both kids. Now I recall myself standing in the corner trying to understand why am I being punished?? Not only I got into a fight, which was not pleasant for me because involved heavy emotional impact, but also got punished. Back then I failed to understand the reasons.

Throughout the school years those unsolved puzzles added up. For example, I recall trying to memorize some communist lyrics (The Soviet National Anthem, I believe, – it is not rhymed well, makes little sense to a school child and is hard to memorize). That was a pain and the only reason I was doing this is because people were telling me to, including teachers and my parents. What I failed to understand – is why memorizing it, if there is no reason for it (that were the Perestroika times, so I was already not so communist-brainwashed, but communist school books still remained unchanged). The same question remained for the whole school – what is this for? Can’t there be an easier way? Can there be a pleasant way of doing this? I knew there is a way, because I actually enjoyed some homework… Always getting A+ for it, too.

Another colorful incident happened with some essay (must have been grade 5 – which makes me 11 year old back then). Quite usual situation in a public school – the topic was something I could not relate to, nor I cared about. Me staying up late, but inspiration just does not come. Me – wanting to go to sleep, get an F for it, and keep struggling through the pointless school in the dream-like state. My mother coming up with 100 reasons (I won’t list them here – I am sure you heard them all) why I should write the freaking essay and proposing to write it herself. No, I do not want to write this essay, because that would be submitting to a force and because I do not want to write this essay. No, I do not want my mom to write this essay, because that would prove that I cannot handle public school. And yes, I sat down and written an essay. The inspiration came out of nowhere… On the topic, but not for a quite conventional essay: I have written a brilliant satire, an over-politically correct essay full of smart words and complex sentences.  That, of course, did not pass my mom’s censorship. That is when I broke into tears. By then, it must have been long past the midnight, I was dead tired and emotionally exhausted arguing with my parents. I threw away my essay and there would have been no way I attempt another one now!

I went to my room and slowly started pulling sides of my notepad (used for lecture-taking and in-class assignments. Essays were written on separate paper). I ripped the notepad half-way, but did not finish it. Later I scotch-taped it back together. This was the moment of unbelievable mix of feelings of pointlessness, aimlessness and helplessness. An angry 11-year old kid “controls” his emotions. Instead of letting it all out, he hid it inside. For later. For a nice surprise at teen age and maybe a couple in adulthood. Sweet. Nice kid? – maybe. Polite kid? – possibly. Normal kid? – not a chance.

Now tell me this: how do you know what you want if the last time you did what you want was at the age of 3? How do you know yourself if you don’t know what you want? Do you still wonder why 80% of people study what they do not want to study, and work where they do not want to work?

Is there a way to live without such problems? – Of course, it’s called following the way of one’s heart. Now we have come to the point where either agrees with that or says that in real life, there is always a compromise. And in general, people settle with a “middle way” – in other words, prostitution. Prostitution is everywhere. I call it prostitution whenever you do something to get something or make a person whom you help own to you. You kind of get your way never really expressing what you want to the other person. A whore (be it male or female) never really does what she wants – she calculates what effect a certain action would have. This moment of a road fork can be tricky: do you choose the way of heart, doing what you want or do you choose a middle way – a bargain, assuming that you have to bend to the circumstances? This is tricky to choose, because people often mix up two different types of wishes. The first type of wishes is set by heart, intuition. The second type is set by your unconsciousness, aberration which is only there because you allowed it in most likely during your childhood, when you think that what other people are telling you must be the truth and the way to go.

For example, a guy walks down the street and sees a girl. For example the wish to rape her comes to his mind. One sort of guys would control the wish and walk by, second sort of guys would go with the wish, third would analyze where the wish coming from and if from unconsciousness, would find the cause and get rid of it. Notice, that in the example given, neither first nor second sort of guys solves the problem. In fact, they both do just the opposite.

Think about it this way. Who does something to get something in return? – Somebody who cannot just go and get it himself. The weak, if not to say the losers. This is clearly seen in a mindset of females in monarchy Russia (including the communism). This is when the myths of powerlessness of women appeared. Over generations women improved their skills of making others do what they want and… skills of looking powerless, thus further supporting the myths of their powerlessness. The bottom line is everybody is powerful, that is everyone can choose and do what he or she wishes. But combine the myth of a “good” life (be it a husband, lots of cash, or dying natural death) with the myth of powerlessness, and you get a prostitute.

Why do I say that a “good” life is a myth? It comes from the fact that one way of life can be “better” than the other only if you judge. If everyone in a society has a common idea of what is “the best” life – you get unification, depersonalization, and globalization. “Good” life means learning to do a shitty work on your school assignment rather then learning the way you like it, the way that is most suitable for you personally.

Now I play a mind-reader and assume that you think that this essay is written by a mentally-challenged individual with deep psychological problems rooted in his childhood and therefore the essay and its ideas are false and completely useless to a “normal” person. Also I assume that you think that I am blaming my parents, society, somebody for problems I have to be fixing now. Since I have assumed all this, I would add a couple of words to address these issues.

Firstly, I am sorry, but I need to point it out to you, that the author and its personality, psyche, etc., have nothing to do with the validity of the ideas he expresses. An analysis of author’s psyche might show you how the ideas appeared, but an analysis of ideas should be carried out separately from the author’s psyche.

Secondly, I ma not blaming anybody, because I am leaving judgment for the judgment day and because blaming means splitting things into “good” and “bad”. In fact, judging is another form of prostitution: you setting price tags on your actions (or somebody else’s). What is better: this job or that job? – well, which one you like? Things are the way they are. Whether you call it a therapy session or an attempt to find my way of heart. The only one way of heart.