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I remember in High School how the bell would ring between classes and the halls would fill with literally thousands of students. The air flooded with noise of incessant chatter. We had exactly seven minutes to walk through the corridors crammed beside each other, herded through gates and stairs to our destination. When the next bell rang there was dead silence except maybe a note wafting out of nowhere lightly brushing the floor.
Everything moved along like clockwork and we were the cogs in the machine. What amazed me was how well other students handled it. They all had their games of cliques and gossips to keep them occupied. It was at this time I felt somehow I had fallen through the cracks of the system. I was very much there but since I didn’t quite fit in anywhere I could stand back and watch it all go by.
When I graduated, I found out quite abruptly that my parents expected me to go to college. I’m sure you’ve all heard the deal: “Go to college, get a degree so you can get a well paying job. Then you won’t have to worry about anything.” Or as the seminal punk band, Minor Threat once put it, “Go to college, be a man, what’s the f*n’ rush?” It all seems designed to push us through system after system before we have a chance to even realize what’s going on.
We’re told from all directions, “If you dress right, then you’ll fit in”, “If you act a certain way, you’ll get ahead in life”, “If you look a certain way, then you’ll be attractive”, and on and on. Who told us this stuff anyway, but more importantly, when did we buy it?
It was at this point I discovered underground punk rock and a rebellion ensued. These guys were saying what I felt, passionately rejecting what was f*d up about society. Music became my refuge and singing with a punk band was a way I answered a world that made no sense.
It wasn’t long before I realized that even punk rockers, counter-cultures, and rebels have protocol. You gotta wear the right kinda clothes and have the right hairstyle. You can’t be too well kept; you gotta be messed up just right. Do the right drugs and listen to the right kind of music. You gotta have a black leather jacket. Oh and don’t forget your black studded belt. “Who’s punk, who’s not, what’s the score?” as the band Jawbreaker noticed. If you don’t look the part you’re not part of the club. Is that really much different than your dad dressing up in a suit and tie to climb the corporate ladder?
We live in a world of social games where we’re constantly trying to fit into one group or another for whatever promise it offers. Even when we think we’re asserting our independence and originality; are we really? Or are we just buying into another set of unwritten rules? We may look different and act different, but the prisons are the same.
It doesn’t matter if we work like dogs earning minimum wage or if we have a steady day job and steady home life. In all walks of life at some point this feeling of discontent can hit us with a sinking suspicion. We’re left feeling that we’re lacking or missing something. And we’re not quite sure what it is. Like the Talking Heads song, one day we wake up, wondering, “how did I get here… same as it ever was.”
Somehow it just doesn’t taste right. And there’s an unanswered void looming in our hearts. Colin Wilson, author of the best selling book, The Outsider, describes this feeling as: “being told we’re having a cheeseburger, but somewhere in the back of our minds we know it’s nothing but cardboard.” We’re told this is the path to fulfillment, but we’re constantly left empty, searching for our next meal.
Lost in the myriad rules, systems, and promises this modern world has to offer, our simple humanity goes ignored. Or as lyrics from the band Fugazi say, “I had a name but now I’m a number.” While we play the games, disguised for our families, friends, and relationships, we lose sight of what we truly are or what we’re capable of.
We go on with life, hiding ourselves, hoping nobody recognizes our deepest wound. This, my friends, is the essence of the problem.
It cannot be ignored. Even though we have tried and continue to try by stuffing ourselves with new toys, styles, techniques, and religions. Until the shadow of discontent grows louder and louder trying to get us to recognize we have been living a lie.
This must be faced head on, with a clear and open mind.
The fact is if we don’t know our truth or can’t seem to value it, then this modern world will not recognize it either and we can’t expect it to.
Perhaps in the recesses of our minds we know our truth, but then it’s a matter of whether we actually believe in it or whether we’ve bought into the front we’ve built up over a long, long time.
Once this deeper void is clearly recognized it can cause great changes and revolutions in our minds if we follow through and answer this insight.
As Wilson writes, “our one need is to discover how to lend a hand to the forces inside us, to help them in their struggle. And obviously if we are only vaguely aware of these interior forces, the sensible thing is to become more aware of them and find out what they are aiming at.” Realizing this, is what causes people from minimum wage workers to high-class execs, to abandon the life they lead and search for this missing Self.
– Jeff Singh –
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Hopefully this article rattled things a bit. Comments, questions, and discussions are welcome.
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Meanwhile, check out The Outsider by Colin Wilson; plus influential bands: Dead Kennedys, Minor Threat, Fugazi, Rites of Spring, and Bad Religion for further exploration.
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Join us on this rebellion to break free from social conditioning…
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In his article, ‘Shadow of Discontent’ Jeff says, ‘lost in the myriad of rules, systems, and promises this modern world has to offer, our simple humanity goes ignored.’
Despite all the knowledge and experience accumulated through centuries, human beings have not been able to produce a society in which the individual can flower in freedom and goodness. Throughout their life most of the people have to struggle for equality, justice, and peace. Not finding an abiding happiness, they feel frustrated and this brings about discontent.
An individual, however, cannot separate himself from the society and blame the outside world for this feeling of discontent because he is part and parcel of the society. The individual and the society are inter-linked with each other and are constantly feeding each other.
If individuals are confused and full of inner contradictions, they must produce a society as the existing one where there is so much conflict. This conflicted environment in turn shapes individuals. This is an endless cycle.
The ultimate source of our problem is in the way we think and act. A person who is serious about this, must recognize the fact that our own thinking has created the society in which we live.
An individual, bereft of the joy of life is at the same time directly and indirectly responsible for a conflicted world.
For most of us life as we actually live remains unexamined. For example there is a blind and mechanical pursuit of ‘progress’ and ‘success’. Achievement of power, position, prestige and status is considered as the aim of life. All struggle for personal pleasure, competition in all spheres of life and the system of reward and punishment are part and parcel of present day existence.
It is assumed that rules, regulations, imposed discipline, ideals, religions, rituals, and gospels will solve the problem. Attitudes and habits formed as a result of these various influences are taken for granted.
There is an urgent need to go into all the compelling assumptions and to examine the whole process and design in which the individual is caught.
Thinking that is responsible for the feeling of discontent has also devised so many ways to avoid and run away from the feeling. There is always an attempt to extinguish this flame of discontent through so many different ways.
Jeff, rightly says, ‘We go on with life, hoping nobody recognizes our deepest wound.’ But he says, ‘it cannot be ignored, even though we try, stuffing ourselves with new toys, techniques, and religions. The challenge is to face the problem ‘head on with a clear and open mind.’
This implies clarity of perception and directness of approach which is free from all cynicism, revivalism, idealism, or escapism. One can find the right response only when one is passionately concerned about it.
Good article touching on points about life and how we live it. In my own experience I have come to recognize that we cannot live in perfect harmony, as much as we are searching for Nirvana. It seems there is a need for “contrast” in order to discover the purpose of living. With contrast we learn and grow; have opportunities to become different than we already are. Love is the ultimate reason for existence and the reason we subscribe to what has been created is to feel loved and be loved. Without love, there is empitness, bitterness, jealousy, hatred, and so on.
So, the best anyone can do is to acknowledge the things in life that may not feel good and strive to bring into one’s journey people, places, things and experiences that do feel good. Through giving, a person can receive and by being true to one’s self and not try to be something different only then could there be peace and flow in their lives. We live in duality (yin/yang); therefore, there will always be the opposite presented….black/white; good/bad; dark/light; cold/hot; rich/poor; healthy/unhealthy; punk/business person and so on…..
We cannot undo what has been created; however, we can create our individual reality within the larger/greater reality. There is no one reality, instead each person lives within the boundaries of what is real to them. Through higher awareness and deeper understanding of what “life” really is all about and why we are even born, a person can come to terms with any feelings of emptiness, longing or feeling lost. As above, so below…..no matter if we are alive or not, the passing of time continues and the cycle of birth and death moves on. So, for me and those I share the message of hope, love, joy and happiness; being in the world but not of it is the key to survival of the chaos and drama bringing magic and miracles into daily experiences.
Hey Eileen, thanks for your good response. You bring up some great points that would be good to get into more depth.
I just heard a comment in a discussion relating to all this… ‘Non-duality has no problem with duality… paradoxes are perfectly fine from that perspective.’
Now that may require some belief in non-duality, so let’s break this back down to reality…
As you mentioned, “We live in duality (yin/yang); therefore, there will always be the opposite presented….black/white; good/bad; dark/light; cold/hot; rich/poor; healthy/unhealthy; punk/business person and so on…”
So instead of trying to eliminate contrast, the question is, can we be perfectly fine, at peace with contrast? See, then this contrast has beauty, then we can appreciate this contrast.
The thing is we have our identity so wrapped up in ‘what we think we are’ in comparison to the other, and we feel, for ‘me to survive, the other must not.’
For starters, can we find a commonality in the contrast?
The article ‘Conditioned-Mind’ goes into this a bit more…
http://Awake-Free.com/Conditioned-Mind
Is there a real Self, or a one Self? That is really for authentic personal experience to figure.
For now I just want to share this great juxtaposition of the Pink Panther as Alan Watts describes the paradox of contrast and non-duality…
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Hello….You are welcome Jeff.
You wrote: So instead of trying to eliminate contrast, the question is, can we be perfectly fine, at peace with contrast? See, then this contrast has beauty, then we can appreciate this contrast.
My response: this seems to be the whole purpose/goal in finding the closest link to Nirvana. By embracing the negative and only taking the positive out of any experience; then we are able to minimize any contrast that comes into our life. Also, by not taking things personally, defining boundaries and keeping an aura about oneself of unconditional love, then contrast becomes a walk in the park. It appears to come and go with ease to a point that one can recognize it as contrast but it does not have a “heavy” effect on the mind and does not ensue into drama and stressful experiences.
You also wrote: The thing is we have our identity so wrapped up in ‘what we think we are’ in comparison to the other, and we feel, for ‘me to survive, the other must not.’
For starters, can we find a commonality in the contrast?
My response: When we let go of any “identity” and recognize that we are a spiritual being having a human experience for the purpose of growth and higher awareness; then we are not wrapped up in what/who we are. Instead we see life and our experiences through differenct colored glasses that brings us onto a different path and shows us our real/true journey. It is not about survival;rather it is about becoming and BEING. We never really die; we just transition and move from one state of being to another. As above/so below…..there is no separation; there is no end or beginning. Life is meant to be experienced so we can appreciate and value the five senses: smell, touch, hear, taste and see.
I am a massage therapist and life coach. In my daily practice I see how all this affects an adult individual. Through life’s ups/downs, influences of others, lack of the ability to be in one’s personal power or individuality; they have created an image within that does not match who they really are. Touch is a very powerful tool and sadly many people do not have or receive touch/love in a way that is meant for the soul/spirit. Love has been beaten down to something it is not and because people tend to look outside themselves for whatever they feel is missing, then they create contrast to feel better; but it can actually make them feel worse. Hence we have hate, war, conflict, etc.
You wrote: Is there a real Self, or a one Self? That is really for authentic personal experience to figure.
My response: I beleive there is a physical self and a higher/spiritual self. The higher self watches over the physical self and communicates through the ethers. If a person is in a high enough state of awarenss they will pick up on the messages sent and use the information to help in their growth and journey on earth. It does seem that personal experience is the only way to truly understand what or who the self is. Without having the synchronocities, dreams, meditations, Ah, Ha’s, pieces of the puzzle put in place, knowledge, wisdom and so on…..I would not have the understanding I have today. Although I am very aware, there is still ALOT I do not know and continue to find out both on purpose and through the universal channels that send messages and bread crumbs. 🙂
These points can diverge into much more and the conversation can take many paths. I have been studying and learning in depth for the last 10 years (since my own “awakening”). I am always happy to be connected with others, like yourself, who seem to be at the same point as I am on my journey where there can be sharing and the ability to understand better about who we are, why we are here and the purpose for living.
FYI: my husband and I are actually writing a book about Control Drama and how to be in it but not of it. Intend to have it published this year sometime.
I look forward to more conversation. Thanks for the link (I will check it out) and the Pink Panther video: always loved him. Good information there too….agree with what he says. 🙂
Have a great week.
Namaste,
Eileen
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RT @AwakeFreeMind: Pink Panther & Alan Watts explain Paradox of Reality & Non-Duality: http://t.co/WNHc0Qdi5q | From: http://t.c …
RT @AwakeFreeMind: Pink Panther & Alan Watts explain Paradox of Reality & Non-Duality: http://t.co/WNHc0Qdi5q | From: http://t.c …
RT @AwakeFreeMind: Pink Panther & Alan Watts explain Paradox of Reality & Non-Duality: http://t.co/WNHc0Qdi5q | From: http://t.c …