On changing identities

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Paternalism is still very much alive and viable. In fact, much more so than in the pre-emancipation years. As I have always maintained, life and government is like a bowl of water, it never goes anywhere but around the bowl, we remove from one side to place things to the other side, and nothing is really accomplished, merely rearranged to give the illusion of progress. In modern societies, progress is measured as the distance covered on a trajectory, but a trajectory, is a societal and political construction designed. like ethics and religion to lead the masses.

With all the pomp and fanfare of a Rose Bowl parade, it has the appearance of progress, and the people have the feeling of accomplishment when one initiative or motion is established; but for every one that is won, one is lost in polarity. For every value or vote that we gain in favour of our desired objective, we lose one, we lose our values, we prostitute our ethics. But one may argue, what is ethics and values? Indeed! What are ethics and values? They are filters, a kaleidoscope through which we view life and the cosmos; a mere perspective; a resident in the institution of paternalism.

And if we view the world with lens that are circular or square, we will always see a scene that is similar in shape to these lens, hallmarks of a monolith, and it beccomes a banal way of seeing, thinking, and rationalising our cosmos? A way of justifying our very existence? A societal construction, based upon the value system in which we were born and a normalcy we have been socialised to accept, and assume. But, this ethics and value system is and remains a societal construction, and with every deployment and passive exercise in daily usage,it continues its reign of reification and deification; becoming permanent fixtures of our lives, inhabitants of our psyche. And we become the emmissaries of its perversion.

So how do we change our identity? How do we defy or regurgitate the tunnels of deference and defeat that have already been dug? Do we deconstruct or reconstruct our image, or value system? And if so, how do we do this? Do we shed the rugged and worn layers of belief and preemptive notions for a passing fallacy? Life is a fallacy, a gossamer, a subjective illusion; it exists only within the convoluted crevices of our desires. We harbour desires for that which we see, but what we see is an illusion, a mirage constructed of duplicated pillars of tawdry frames, made manifest only by the illusion of our memory, imagination, and the desire to duplicate; because duplication represents stability, and reassures us of continuity. And reality? It is the emptiness that remains after the demystification of the delusion.

To change our identity, we must shed the old coil, we must step outside of ourselves and assume another identity, but first, we must, in abstract objectivity, create that identity that we are eager to don. It is not an easy task, since the danger in all identities lie in their illusory subjectivity. Indeed, it is not an easy task to bear slings and arrows against the sea of troubles, but, awareness is a wall that can, with minimal effort, deflect penetration.