Thread by @caitoz

From Ego To Empire, All Our Problems Stem From The Impulse To Control

"The human organism arrives in this world squishy, defenseless and easily startled, which it turns out is really starting things off on the wrong foot."
medium.com/@caityjohnston…

Because of the size of our newly-evolved brains relative to the birth canal, humans have to give birth to what are essentially fetuses, far more helpless for a much longer time than the offspring of our animal cousins.

Our formative impressions of the world are that it’s an unpredictable land of giants who make unexpected loud noises and sudden movements, where we have to scream our heads off to get what we need and where we’re incapable of articulating any complex desires we might have.

We’re just flung into this scary environment that we do not understand and cannot control. So it’s not surprising that we start forming strategies to exert some degree of control in order to feel safe and secure.

As our little heads get fuller and we begin to use language, we discover that one way we can exert control over this scary world of giants is with a conceptual framework known as “me”.

In reality there is no hard, solid thing that could be called a “me”, either scientifically or experientially.

This is what various spiritual traditions are pointing to with the word “ego”. Not to any solid thing, but to a behavioral tendency to energetically contract around an imaginary “me” construct. It’s where nearly all of our suffering comes from, and it’s why the world is a mess.

This impulse to control begins with egoic contraction, and depending on how forceful that contraction is it can lead to the impulse to control loved ones, communities, the environment, and every human being on this planet.

Someone whose egoic impulse to control spills over onto others can become abusive: beating their children, manipulating their family members, terrorizing their significant others, doing whatever it takes to give themselves the feeling of security with the people around them.

Someone whose egoic impulse to control spills over into their communities might become a bully at school, a tyrant at the office, a malicious gossip, a domineering preacher or cult leader. Again it’s all about bringing the people around them under control to feel secure.

Someone whose egoic impulse to control spills out indiscriminately might try to amass as much control over as much wealth as possible so they’ll be able to influence vast collectives of people.

And that’s why we’ve got these oligarchs now doing everything they can to amass as much wealth for themselves as possible while keeping it out of the hands of everyone else.

It’s why vast fortunes are poured into manipulating the political/media class to control what people think, how they act and how they vote.

It’s why we’ve got wars and regime change operations around the world brutalizing any nation that tries to insist on its own sovereignty.

It’s why we’re destroying the ecosystem in which we evolved by beating it into submission rather than learning to collaborate with it.

It’s why we consent to a system of competition against each other as rivals instead of collaboration with one another as comrades.

It’s why egocentric dominators are endangering us all by waving armageddon weapons at anyone who doesn’t move exactly the way they like.

All ultimately because of our big heads and their relation to the size of the birth canal.

People whose impulse to control is especially pernicious seem to labor under the delusion that if they could just control every single atom in the universe, everything would be fine.

The path out of this mess is the path away from domination and control and toward respect for self-sovereignty. We can begin walking this path ourselves, on our own, away from our own impulse to control and our own egoic contraction.

In the @MontereyAq there’s a huge circular tank built into the ceiling where sardines swim around in a circle all day. This creates a whirlpool effect which carries the school, but you’ll notice that there are always a few fish swimming against the tide.

It would be easier for them to swim in the same direction all the other fish are swimming, but for whatever reason a few of them are saying “Screw this, I’m going the other way.”

That’s really the best course of action we ourselves can take in a sardine tank that is spinning in the direction of domination and egoic contraction.

We do this as our part in slowing down the egoic whirlpool that is spinning us toward extinction. We do this because maybe other sardines will turn around and join us. And we do this because it is right and true. Because a life devoted to truth is the only life that satisfies.

Let’s be the dissenting sardine. Let’s turn around from the egoic momentum of our species and each extricate our unique corner of humanity from the energetic contractions of selfing. Free the world from our delusions so we can know true peace.