The Rat

There are conditions of daily life that occur on a regular basis for the majority of humans.  These include a lack of opportunity to experience self-determination, a pre-arranged location, and an income; without which you’d be unable to survive.  These conditions, seen as normal and necessary, are actually preferred.  When an adult has reached the age of eighteen years, most of their orientation is focused on creating them for themselves; this, in order to achieve “worldly success”. 

In fact, under the current arrangement, you congratulate each other for having secured a “good” job.  This “job” grants you “freedom”.  “Freedom” in this case means moving out of the home of your parents.  It means being on your own.  It means having the chance now to stop living off the “job” your parents held, and starting your own.  You are “free” now and willingly join the ranks of the others in volunteer slavery.

You see, freedom is an illusion in this scenario.  It is dangled out there like the carrot on the string.  This carrot is never to be eaten.  It merely hangs there, inches away, just out of reach.  It is the unattainable dream and it keeps humans eagerly moving out of situations they consider confining and constricting into brand new cages, created just for them.  There is a reason it’s referred to as the rat race.

The rat is free to move – yet just in a specific path and within a pre-defined area.  It can only do so when the door is opened by someone else, someone who owns the box.  The rat is fed according to how “well” it “performs” and thus kept alive – all by the owner.

The lack of ability to choose how you spend your days is a condition of slavery, not freedom.  This is regardless of compensation. Reaching the age of maturity and choosing the same path chosen by the adults before you is the single choice offered.  It is inside of an enclosed system that depends on continued servitude.  If choices are limited in scope and number, you are controlled.

In a system that included self-determination, things would look vastly different.  There would still be adults providing for children and each other, yet they wouldn’t necessarily start and end their “work” day at the same minute.  Variation would rule the process and each day would differ rather than follow a specific and predictable pattern.

“Work days” would be replaced by days.  In such a system the continuation of the race would be the driving force. The purpose of your chosen activity would be visible and understood by you, and it wouldn’t necessarily be a paycheck.

This way of life is unimaginable not because it wouldn’t work.  It is a vision of life that exists elsewhere, just not on earth.  On earth, self-determination of each sentient being has been replaced with servitude.  The many work for the few, follow orders and obey.  To join the ranks of “adulthood” means you willingly engage in this prescribed path.  Chains are not necessary; the invisible tie that binds you is the necessity of money.

In a system that is not controlled by beings with an unspoken ownership agenda, life is very different.  There are conditions in place that provide life sustaining necessities for every man, woman and child.  The whole notion of debt is not present and its opposite holds no meaning.  Freedom is a hollow notion without enslavement.

Control is another empty concept in a world of self-determined beings.  Certainly care for the young and their safety means providing safe places for them to thrive. Yet it does not mean a strict schedule of mandatory schooling and regular testing to ensure conformity.   Unique abilities are sought and discovered in such a world.

The whole idea that an entire population could successfully run their own lives sounds ludicrous, not because it is, but because the generations of elders before you have paved the path so well you see no other possibilities.  Ideas of right, wrong, good and bad surround and include adjectives like success, failure, respectable and disgrace.  These ideas have been fed to humanity as a steady stream so that policing them is no longer necessary, you police yourselves.  You do so not with guns but with words.  Congratulations are generously offered when a “job” is secured.  These affirmations by your peers and society in general hold a great and invisible power over your actions.  Going outside of the expected ands accepted behavior of polite society is frowned upon and seen as selfish, perhaps childish; strong words for a people who value freedom as much as you do.

The effect of failure and disappointment is more than enough to hold the system of slavery in place.  The reference here is to areas on the planet that have systems in place to provide these “opportunities” for paid servitude.  There are countless areas of rampant starvation, illness and poverty that could only exist within a system of hierarchy.

You have not been told the truth about how it works and therefore move through the maze unaware of your effect on the whole.  The restricting of each being to a daily struggle for survival creates conditions that seem beyond your scope and ability to change.  This is by intent.  Hopelessness is a false notion and one you had to be taught.  Children have no such notions.

You can change all of this with a systemic alteration of core beliefs.  These would include a shift from “owe” to “embrace”, “learn” to “become”, “earn” to “expand”, “follow” to “be”, “debt” to “give” and “fear” to “love”.  Sustainable freedom includes ideas that fly in the face of societal norms, conformity and current standards of success.  These will take time to understand and appreciate as valid options.  Every step towards unbinding the ties of slavery moves in that direction.  This cannot happen overnight.

Pay attention to the youngest among you.  This does not mean handing them the reins yet it does mean considering their ideas for life as valid options.  Their focus on community and play and a constant sharing of information is evidence for the truth of your connection. 

You are One.  The “success” or stagnation of just a single human affects the whole in ways that are felt rather than seen.  When each component of life is provided for equally – the whole thrives. 

Change is necessary.  Maintaining a focus on self-determination and allowing alternative paths will provide fertile ground.  Patience and acceptance are key.  Let go of judgment, and understand that ideas around good and bad have been fed to you intentionally as a steady diet of manipulation. 

Decide what freedom really means.  It is never true if slavery exists for any one of us.  Freedom cannot be granted; it is synonymous with life and can only be realized.  It exists because you do. 

Freedom has not been taken from you so much as hidden.  It is visible beyond the maze.

We are the Ones we’ve been waiting for.

~Sophia