There is an analogy to the times we are living in that I find most poignant but have not shared with you yet. I have picked it up by one of my teachers in life who also communicates in videos about worldly and spiritual matters within German language space, and it is way too relevant to confine it to the German speaking world only.
We are living in "A WORLD OF CHILDREN" and he describes the process we all find ourselves in as "growing up".
More specifically he points to the need of coming to grips with actuality and how actuality comes in stark contrast to the mental images, concepts and narratives most people prefer instead - the blanket terms we have all grown up to cherish and to want to defend, even though we factually do not live in conditions anywhere close to those original "promises".
This is true for the vast segment of the population who believe everything they have been told in media, education and upbringing, but it's also true for many activists and people engaged in the futile effort of changing the world to something they want it to be (regardless for what moral reasons). I used to be like that for a long time until I ultimately understood what the man I learned this from meant:
The world we would like to have is not how the world is, the world we would like to have is a concept. The world we are trying to prevent is nothing but a concept either, maybe noble, moral or whatever but it is a concept.
Instead what counts is to simply acknowledge WHAT IS. To see it for what it is and to get with it. Sounds too simple?
When things don't work out the children put the blame on those "in charge" while simultaneously re-enforcing to themselves and each other the idea that the teachers and educators are somehow there for the children's good and that it couldn't be any other way: "But we need the educators and teachers in here, everbody knows that. It's not a perfect system but it is the best system we have"
And all the other fairytales we so desperately want to be true and hang on to, regardless of what actually is.
Even if all the rules made by the teachers obviously infringe on the rights and well-being of all the children, the kids never question the mechanism of putting someone else in charge for their lives. On the contrary: the children keep demanding there to be new educators when an old one leaves or has been caught doing something terrible. Just so that the kindergarten can keep operating and no child needs to come to terms with their own problems and situation.
In the kindergarten system all responsibility inherent in living and thinking beings is delegated to other people, and this is precisely how our society behaves. We see the actual, the worsening conditions in society, in the monetary system, in the narratives peddled in the media that are harming our young ones. We feel we have less and less economic freedom despite working more and more hours, our pensions are no longer an unbreakable promise but a mere lip service probability and our elderly people are systematically being robbed and abused.
And yet we keep closing our eyes to the reality that surrounds us, putting ever new people in charge we would normally never even trust with our car keys, in the hopes that the fairytales we have been told since we were young could still somehow be true despite all our experience to the opposite. Every day.
It's like a child in denial. It's the behavior of an immature, naive toddler who puts his own palms onto his eyes in the attempt of not being seen by anyone.
And so the analogy goes that we are finding ourselves in the time right now that we are forced to grow up, to re-evaluate our actual situation and to rethink our answer when life asks these questions of us. Will we stay and keep playing the children's game or will we get up and leave?
Aunt Nelly in the kindergarten has had enough and is now kicking the kids out the door so that they finally realize that the world they so vehemently wanted to exist never existed at all, and that grown-ups take the world as it is, not as they would like it to be. Grown-ups make their own decisions for themselves, they deal with situations as they arise themselves and they make preparations for what they see coming down the road. Kids on the other hand cry and simply lack the maturity to be ready to deal with drastic situations if and when they unfold.
And so it is in nature that young ones left out in the wild are easy prey for predators. Something that we in our children's world have largely forgotten and ignored because we have delegated all our responsibility to other people and institutions. But it doesn't mean that staying in the kindergarten will keep us safe at all. there will be the promise that it keeps us safe and secure yes, but look around you: When has that ever been true.
It is said Ben Franklin once said: "He who sacrifices freedom for security will have neither." And whether he said it or not, he does have a point.
As hard as it is. The longer we trust those educators in our kindergarten the deeper we are getting into danger territory. The teachers will keep making rules for everyone as long as they are tasked by us to do so, but the consequences that come from these rules will be even more drastic than all the austerity we have already endured holding on to the narratives we have swallowed all our lives. The longer we choose to stay in the kindergarten the more drastic the contradictions between fairytale narratives about our "just system" and the actuality that is unfolding all around us will become.
I say: Let us leave the kindergarten now, and learn to live a life of responsibility we have so long denied to ourselves. It will be worth it.
Hard maybe, scary at times, but worth it <3
unsplash.com
unsplash.com
unsplash.com
True
Freedom = Responsibility
Lovely article