What does it take?
How deep – and contagious – is your fear?
Why would you bother?
Who else might you choose to become?
Decades of cultural conditioning – supported at every turn by others equally conditioned and rewarded for being so – leave us wondering what’s true and what isn’t. In my era, that cultural conditioning came from the process of parenting and its many surrogates (i.e. teachers, doctors, priests, ministers, government, etc.). In today’s era, it comes from technology… having gone from desktops, to hold-ables, to wearables to implantables. Today, for a much younger generation, there is a direct line to the constant press of the collective voice that claims to know how another should/must be. In today’s world, the droning is 24/7. The Borg have arrived.
To exercise the choice muscle, there must be Space to do so. A pause. A quiet moment when the now-become-a-whisper of our own internal cues can be discerned. Without that pause, there is no alternative to what is always present. And yet, for many, the emergence of that pause triggers chaos in the body; flashes the blinking signs of INTRUDER ALERT!… warning us that the stream of intended consciousness – the collective transmission of ‘right’ and ‘normal’ – is being interrupted. In the pause is the Space. And in the Space lies both the freedom and terror.
It may be that we stand at the precipice of losing the last generation that knows Life without the constant, implantable pulse of compliance. Perhaps we should be paying attention….
If you have not already done so, I encourage you to read Stela Murrizi’s blog post on What do you see reflected back at you, when you look at me? In her words, you can find the process of exploring, discovering and embracing an alternative to cultural conditioning – and the freedom that awaits.
Below, you’ll find a brief audio file that captures what it takes to carve out a different path for your own evolution. It’s not always easy – and it’s always worth it.