How ironic it is that we are all seeking to have some degree of control and yet at the same time constantly giving our real control, the only control we ever had, away.
This is our struggle of existence.
But in our desperate daily doings to survive we are readily and greedily accepting ideas that are not our own. We are being sold superficial beauty, and the price, according to Nietzsche, is a terrible depth.
L.I.F.E. Defined
L.I.F.E. appears to be a beautiful surface.
Skyscrapers of media, computer, and scientific technology walk among us like proud giants seducing us. Many human beings live seemingly rich and free lifestyles brimming with easy travel, fancy gadgets, and financial wealth and freedom. The world is a wonder to be held.
But let’s look a litter deeper at L.I.F.E.
Learned
Ideological
Fantasy
Externalized
We learn early on and are hypnotized by a lot of ideas from L.I.F.E. But as Nietzsche believed, ideas are things we own … and the more you own, the more it owns you. If you believe in the fantasy of L.I.F.E., that great collective meaning grandiosely externalized and fed to us like The Matrix, then you are letting it control your destiny for you. You are all living in the prison of L.I.F.E. … and its walls are made out of control.
L.I.F.E.’s mission is quite simple: to keep you in it. It is composed of endless control structures all aimed at survival of our species by radically improving our situation. Tantalizing technology, social traditions, media, material possessions, and financial wealth, are but a few of these structures.
But what if I am not a big fan of one or all of these control structures? What if they are causing me suffering?
One of my greatest fears is meaningless work, and I have a recurring nightmare of sitting in a corporate cubicle all by myself doing nothing at all. No supervisor comes around to check on me. I am like the poor suffering guy in the movie, “Office Space” who just wants his stapler back. My stapler is a living that has meaning … not performed for control, or to further the great engine of L.I.F.E., but contributing to the world with the thing at which my “I” is best.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with joining a massive group to survive, but does this mean we have to abandon free thought and free choice to do so … trade our “I’s” for controlling “Me’s?”
No.
How to Snap Out of It
We must examine the meaning, the M.O.L.E. which we have assigned to existence. How much of this meaning is part of L.I.F.E., and how much is our own?
When we look to the outside for control, we give the “Me” the the wheel. L.I.F.E. is just one giant family of “Me’s” frantically seeking out external ego-based control structures in order to better survive. But survival that does not include free choice and free thought leads to suffering because it imprisons our “I’s.”
That is the terrible depth below the beautiful surface of L.I.F.E. to which Nietzsche was referring.
If you want to truly control, let go of external control structures and instead look inside to see the bright light of faith and confidence that results when you give your “I’ the wheel … when you let go of external control. And you will see that you, and L.I.F.E, never really had control anyway.
Real control is letting go.
Then all that remains is what we’ve been actually seeking all along: our true selves.
Yours in the joy of the “I,”
Phoenix Richardson.