the control game

The rules are simple, either control people or be controlled. Neitzsche, in Good vs. Evil, probably explained the Game in the most understandable terms (at least his explanation is the easiest for me to understand, even if I completely disagree with most of it), there is the herd and there are the Ubermensch who control the herd. Parents start teaching their children to play this Game from birth, and if they don't do a good job of it, the schools are there to further indoctrinate the people into the Game (but that's a whole 'nother post for a different day). What everyone seems to ignore is that to play the game at all, whether you obey or command others to obey, you must abdicate all responsibility for your own actions, blame or be blamed.

There is no more respect for autonomy, yours or anyone else's, when the rules state so very clearly that noone is to be allowed to make their own decisions, to define for themselves what is right or wrong. And the self is destroyed in the process. I know some of these selfless people. I find it hard to believe they have no depth of character, that the appearance, what other people think of them, really is all that matters. The more I try to scratch beneath the surface, the more meaningless fluff I find. It seems to me that in the process of giving others the power to make all decisions for them, giving others the power to define who they are, they have so lost touch with themselves that nobody else can ever really know who they are either. Is that what life is all about? I find it quite frightening that for many people, the answer is yes.

you know what? we don't have to play the Game at all, we can opt for freedom and autonomy instead. the only thing that keeps any of us playing is our own fear. I recognize that my fears (and I might say I ain't skeered, but you know I am the same as everyone else, it's just my fears are more exposed to scrutiny) impede my ability to make important decisions and I turn to others for the answers and give away my power and my autonomy. What I need to remember is that it is my power to use or to give it away. I cannot make informed decisions if I am not well enough informed, and it would serve me well to recognize this fact and to choose wisely whom I allow to make certain decisions for me. When an authority grants me neither the information nor the chance to decide, I am very wary of allowing them to decide for me, and rightly so because they are playing a Game I don't want to play anymore.