There’s no such thing as ‘a framework within which we could grow’, no such thing as ‘a logical context within which we can thrive and realize our potential’. Within the framework (which equals ‘the reality that we have been provided with‘) there can never be such any such thing as growth, which is another way of saying that if growth is suppressed then so too is life itself. Life is a movement in the direction of ‘opening up’, not in the direction of ‘closing down’; it is when we take the risk of reaching out, not when we demonize , not when we conform to the constrains that have been placed upon us and never think what we’re not supposed to think, or ask what we’re not supposed to ask. Life isn’t what happens when out of fear of ambiguity we allow a system to define everything about us; that’s the ‘big cop out’ – that’s our way of avoiding life.
There’s no such thing as a framework within which we can grow, only a framework within which we can stagnate, a framework within which we can be manipulated and abused or within which we ourselves can engage in manipulation and abuse (if we happen to be in a favourable position, a position that allows us to do this). This is technically a game and there’s no growth possible in a game – whether we’re the winners or the loser in it. Growth is not permitted within the framework only optimization, only ‘development along the lines which the system itself approves of’. Everything is about optimising the process that is already underway – which is the process of ‘extracting benefits from the lower levels of the power pyramid and shipping them up to the higher levels’ (which we’re generally OK about because our skewed understanding is that this extraction business is beneficial to all. This is the principle behind the idea of ‘trickle-down economics’ (when actually it’s all just the one way, of course). This is the central deception – what’s good for the system is detrimental to our well-being and there’s no way it can’t be. We are being exploited and at the same time we’re subscribing to the (highly dubious) belief that this is (or could be) somehow in our interests.
What’s good for this system is good for ‘who the system says we are’ (or ‘what the system says we are’) and so this of course is not exactly what we might call ‘supportive’ – even when we try our hardest to be ‘who we’re supposed to be’ it’s not supportive – we just fall into the trap even more this way. We might imagine that we’re ‘in with a chance’ but the truth of the matter is that we’ve been recruited into a project that only benefits the players at the top of the power pyramid. Everyone else is going to be burned; it’s a classic Ponzi scheme, in other words. What’s being ‘supported’ here is ‘the system’s version of who we are’ and what this means of course is that it is supporting itself – the system supports itself and we try to buy into this by being the system’. The MCVR is a life support system for the false self but this doesn’t mean that it won’t be ruthless in punishing ‘who we think we are’ – the scheme is an abusive one, not a fair one (as we hopefully imagine).
The ‘love’ that the system has for us – the generic units making it up – is strictly conditional and ‘conditional love’ is just another way of talking about control. Conditional love is another way of talking about abuse. Conditional love means that we throw ourselves at the mercy of the all-powerful authority, which will then promptly proceed to abuse the hell out of us. The way that control works in this context is that we are continually being promised the sun, the moon and the stars but we’re never actually going to play the game well enough to deserve it. It’s not possible to be the ‘ideal adapted person’ (the person we’re supposed to be); it’s not possible because that’s an abstract value and abstract values – as any perfectionist will tell you – are unattainable. We can never get there and because we can never get there we will never get the reward that has been promised us. There will always be some flaw to trip us up, some error to stand between us and the Promised Land. This way, we end up being down on ourselves rather than seeing the abusive system for what it is. We end up abusing ourselves on behalf of the system, in other words.
There is a deception being perpetrated here therefore – the deception being that the system is our friend, that it is there to help and protect us, that it is ‘just’, that it has integrity, and so on and so forth. The system is a false friend however – it’s a friend that takes us by the hand and leads us to our ruin, whispering sweet nothings in our ears as it does so. Once we’ve been ‘hooked’ in this way then the next thing is that we are slowly but surely reeled in and at this point the true nature of what’s happening gradually starts to become clear to us and the euphoric phase of the process gives way to the dysphoric one. We’re not benefitting from what’s going on and we start to see that we’re not and at this point we can either double down on the comforting narrative that we have been given by the system that is feeding on us (and become hard-line / die-hard supporters of the establishment, fans of the establishment) or we can wake up from the dream (the dream in which the system is our friend and protector) and go through the pain and anguish that this new and highly unwelcome awareness brings with it. We either allow ourselves to be disillusioned (terrible though this feels) or we ‘buy into the lie’ even more (and we will actually become the lie in this case). We ‘double-down’ by embodying the lie in our own lives, which means of course that we no longer have the option of separating ourselves from it. We throw our lot in with the abuser, the exploiter, foolishly hoping as we do so that it will take care of us.
When we double-down in this way then it becomes necessary for us to change gears, it becomes necessary for us to accelerate and escalate the aggression (which means adopting ever-more distorted narratives about what’s going on and why we’re right in doing all the abusive stuff that we’re doing). ‘If you’re not with us then you’re against us’, we say and this polarization vindicates us in everything we do, and what we’re essentially doing is demonizing everyone and anyone who refuses to pledge their allegiance to the Great Lie in the way that we have done.! If you’re not part of The System of Denial then this means that you have to be denied. You then have to be ‘shut down’ for your temerity. If you don’t show absolutely unthinking ‘Loyalty to the Lie’ then you are the worst in the world, you are – in everyone’s eyes – ‘a truly terrible human being’ and no punishment will be regarded as too much for us. We will deserve everything we get, in this case…
To ‘grow’ within this framework (the FW which is the System of Denial) is thus a complete impossibility. No one grows by swearing allegiance to a lie and then persecuting the hell out of anyone who dares to tell the truth! Instead of growing what happens is that we become ever-more distorted, we become more and more ‘an echo of the system’, more and more a mouthpiece of the system, more and more a functionary or agent of the system. Instead of growing we sacrifice our actual potential in order to be rewarded – as we imagine – by the Authority that tells us ‘how to be’ and ‘what to think’. We lose who we really are (we ‘lose our souls’, we might say) and as a result it doesn’t matter how many ‘benefits’ are conferred on us – what possible ‘benefit’ could make up for us selling our soul to the Great Deceiver, after all? What advantage could come our way as a result of us ‘pretending to be who or what we’re not’, and ruthlessly bullying anyone who refuses to get on board with this folly? In this Ponzi scheme there are no winners – even the System itself isn’t the winner in this case. Even the System doesn’t win here for the simple reason that ‘the System’ is only an idea in our heads…
Image credit – brooklynstreetart.com
