Glass houses

At least once in our life we thought: Why do I behave so conformist?

So why? This is an hard question to answer in a few lines, but I believe that we obey because we feel we can’t disobey.

The question now turns to “Why we can’t disobey?”. We may say we are comfortable we our life and don’t want to lose that comfort; the law and costumes are the one that guarantee our lifestyle and common peace; etc… but most of the things we obey are not related to these issues, and there are lot’s of people that live with no comfort, no opportunities that still cope with the conformity.

Why do people rebel when the government says: “Take this vaccine”; “Stay at home”, etc… and don’t rebel when others suffer, have no safe job, no money to eat or to have a comfortable life? Because everything nowadays is focused on We and the Others. The world is loosing solidarity day by day.

Our frailties and fears are our glass house. And we look at it, and we look at the stones the world give Us and the Others… and we think: I need to survive.

But there are simple things that we obey day-by-day that are not based in any relevant social issue, they are just convenience. When we are hostages of a Digital life, in most cases, controlled by big corporate that looks at each user as a coin in their pockets, we are obeying for convenience. We are living in the conformity imposed by economic practices, by marketing, we are building the nowadays normality.

One thing in common between convenience obedience and survival obedience, is that all of it is framed by economic practices, by power relations.

So we obey because we can’t disobey, because we have no power and we have to live the little life.

But there is something we can do. First we have more power that we think, if not alone we have more power together. If we can’t we have the power of choice, the power to think and choose. There are some inconvenient choices that will makes be more alone, other will bring us joy and freedom.

Break some wall of your house, start with the small things, listen to all the points of view and build yours.

Agostinho da Silva once said (not exact quote) «a cat fulfils itself as a cat, why does man have to be always seeking to fulfils itself as something else?». Find yourself and be yourself, build your own walls, and forget the big bad wolf. Find your balances in life. Happiness is not in a bottle of coke. But above all, be in solidarity with the world.

• Phote by Lisa at Pexels