Force and Fiction

Everywhere there is pressure. Heavy forces lean on us and orders us around. Do this and do that. There’s no repose.

But then we are also told: Do whatever you want. You are free to choose your life.

And what is more, these two opposite tunes seem to be coming from the same source: The grand anonymous Leviathan who is a blurry hybrid of government, bosses, teachers, media, friends and relatives. They all melt together in one cacophonic but unison voice known to you as The Authority. This monster keeps talking in words that have meaning at first but then instantly cancel themselves. It speaks in clichés.

How can we possibly believe something that always contradicts itself? We do because one part of the message is necessity and the other is flattery. What we must do is obvious. The duties we are given are expressed in a language that can’t be misunderstood. The language of punishment. We know what happens if we don’t comply.

But then the pill is sweetened. In between the barking orders enticing tunes are heard. Of course we want to listen and believe in what makes a lighter burden. It’s not quite as hard to be a slave when you are told you are free.

We are not really slaves. All the bossing around, the duties and expectations are only as real as we make them.

We are not really free. We can’t choose our life because we are already restricted by the present circumstances.

But the most important restriction is the limitation in ourselves. We can’t do just anything because we are not made for anything. However, this restriction is also our liberty. If you could find that narrow path that is truly yourself, you would be truly free. That would be the consolidation between those two contradictory forces, compulsion and freedom; the “I should” and “I want” would be identical.