When you are a child, your parents, your peers, your teachers, your uncles and aunts are very anxious to define you, and what they are going to tell you is that you are a free agent, you are responsible. That is to say, you are an independent first cause. You are an origin of action and thoughts and feelings, and we can praise you or blame you for what you can do; and above all we require of you that you love us. You love your parents, you love your brothers and sisters, not of course because we tell you to do so, but because you would want to do it yourself. You are required and commanded to do certain things which will be appreciated ONLY if you do them voluntarily. Now, you see, when your identity is defined by society, you cannot resist it. You dont have the knowledge, you dont have the wisdom, you dont have the resources to understand that something is being put over on you. You cannot but help believe the definition of you as a free agent. But you believe yourself to be a free agent as a result of not being free, that is to say, of being hopelessly unable to resist societys identification of you. So, in the whole sense of our personality there is a contradiction, and that is why the sense of ego, of being oneself, is simultaneously a sense of frustration. The feeling of I-ness, so far as most people are concerned, is a feeling of tension between the eyes, and behind them. ~ Alan Watts: Life is a Hoax youtu.be/66iq40acSGM
Posted on: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 17:50:14 +0000