Mandate society II

I've been working all evening. Yup as in 9-5 job work. It is now midnight, and it is cold outside. I'm inside, on my second Gin and Tonic and listening to Brahms Intermezzi - all cozy, warming and emotional. I saw James on Sunday for dinner, and he reminded me that I have a blog, and should fill it in more often. I am doing his bidding.

Following on from my previous thoughts on a mandate society, I had more thoughts.

Humans are strange. Humans coupled with their 'beings' are even stranger. Give someone conciousness and the ability to think, and they become lazy and prefer to follow-on like the proverbial sheep. Humans wouldn't be humans without the need to learn from everyone else - life wouldn't work, let alone move the way it does. We do have extraordinary abilities to imitate and nest someone else's egg in the hope it hatches into our own canon of influence. Even the most seemingly 'individual' of us returns with mandate from others in this way. Yes I know - we wouldn't ever have a 'being' if we weren't able to learn from those we respect. But sometimes mandate to do something is accepted too much 'as the way it is'. This process is probably a majority sub-conscious - like lust - part concious, but the actual mechanics being totally sub-concious.

Isn't it wierd, however, that we are all afraid of giving mandate back. 'Rubbish', I hear you say. I think it's true: Jon here likes to play the organ or piano well for people in the hope it might influence them, and for them to respect me lots because of it - there is no fear there. But is that really me? Is that really what I could be showing people - allowing them to decipher? No it's not - it is simply my training in something beautiful that I'm sharing with others; true, my technical flaws and the idiosyncracies of my playing might be endearing, but the music is only seasoned with the inner soul that makes ME.

I wonder, whether our fear of revealing ourselves to others (and society expectation has no small part to play here), stunts the growth of society and is a flaw responsible for years of war and rubbish. By keeping our human soul, what we really think and feel, inside us like a locked diary, we harness our own personal development, we lacerate any attempts to be open, and we reduce the palette of subconcious mandate available to society and thus to ourselves in response. The wealth of experience people could take away from us currently ranks in the 'poor' catergory. Of course we can be worthy, and do good things, and that we must continue, but the actual effect of our true selves is negligible when it is hidden.

We fight the love of food because it will make us fat, we fight the want to love someone because it is not what we 'expect' in a partner, we fight the need to express real views in case there is something to be gained from agreeing with whoever we talk to, we set up rules for friendships that filter things into different boxes.... Do we as humans end up reacting against the very person we are and pretend to be the very person we're not - all because we have carried away too many false mandates - too many 'they've considered what they're doing so I shall do it too' mandates from others.

Does this make the whole of life false? Does it make friendships false and ultimately unsatisfying?

No. We can fight it, and the rare glimpses of reality and soul in others are recognised by us as a concious mandate. The glimpse of beauty and love in someone else is a things to behold, and my life is regularly richer because of it.

JL