The lawmakers keep pushing new laws and regulations at us, and so-called researchers of society are finding ever new problems or activity that must be regulated. System, order, reporting, coordination, follow-up, obligations without personal choice – much of this has been good, but we have to stop now and think what we are doing.
When all is tightly regulated from birth to grave a sort of heaviness or burden may materialize. There is enough system, there may even be too much system in everything we do. People are voicing this kind of concern in many places now – they don’t want to be part of it anymore.
It is all preordained – children must have pre-school methodical supervision, school is systematic and you have to be there, higher education is heavily targeted at what society needs, work is tightly regulated and disciplined and takes 40 years of your life, work is organized in large companies or the bureaucracy, life as a pensioner is full of rules too – maybe you can not live where you want and take your money with you. We spend our whole life in institutions.
It all starts when you are a child: you must have supervision all the time, when you are a year or two it starts. Individual playing and gaming is not allowed, you must participate in the grand scheme that will make you a useful contributor to the welfare state. Gradually you are becoming what you are supposed to: a tool in the development of a grand system. You no longer have free will, you are ruled by habit, there are rituals to follow. But the compensation is great for the material wellbeing is great – no wonder because you are working hard – you can shop many things large and small, watch TV, go to the movies, play golf, drive a car, travel…..
And criticism is increasing, the system is a creaking one . School dropouts are huge, depression is increasing, 20% of the workforce is sick or on welfare, children are bored.
So we must think about changes: “Your life must not be a burden every day – you must make your pain go away” (The Byrds)
And we should start with the children: They should be able to do what they want, and they should be able to do it on their own, we should try to foster creativity by letting them think what they want, then let them do it, so they can have fun. We should teach them that they must find what they love to do and then we must help them do it. This is the principle of a good life too – this is what you should do for the rest of your life. Decide for yourself – do not let the system do it.
Rules must be broken too – there are too many – and the unneccesary ones must be taken away.
Adding to the structure and rigidity of society in a never ending process is surely not the aim. We tie up people physically and mentally – they become production machinery, sleepwalkers and animals of habit – and unhappy too.
Our politics should change, many essential systems like the systems for money, fair distribution of goods and wealth, ecology, power politics need amending. It all ties in.
The possibilities are obvious. We can all do our part by thinking independent thoughts, being ourselves, find our essence and act it out. This is your choice: just do nothing and be engulfed by the system, or do something nobody else does. When we all do the latter it will be good to be here.
