Slaves To The Illusion Of Control

“If it looks real and feels real, do you think it matters if it's real?”
― Daniel Nayeri

Give the power to children to choose between two options, and they’ll be utterly happy. Give power in the hands of adults, and you’ve handed them the tool of choice to finance their own self-made destruction party. Power and control make for a risky cocktail of corruption. Yet as human beings, we inherently long for power.

We want to be in control in this game of life. We never seem to miss an occasion to exert our imaginary sense of control over things, people and outcomes. We act from a place of possession, which emphasizes our need to be the master of our personal reality. In the love department, this desire for control takes an extreme turn. ”This is my wife.”

With possessions, comes obligations. You’re mine, therefore you hold the responsibility of respecting this ownership we have toward each other. Jealousy imprints itself in our hearts because we are incapable of letting such an uncomfortable feeling dominate us. People are so wrapped up in their own lives and glued to their illusionary attachments that they’ll do absolutely anything to convince themselves that they are in control.

While society secretly manipulates the fuck out of our minds, they’ve sold us on the idea that we’re the ultimate creators of our own destiny. We’re so in control because heck, we can choose to do anything we want on a given day. So long as it fits with the frame of what society has in store for us.

Our futures are prefabricated, our minds are infused with daily toxic narratives for our emotional well-being, yet we still cling to the idea that we’re free choosers in the end. Trapped and powerless? That smells like what many rotten marriages feel like nowadays. But we don’t want to face the sound of the music. We’re in control, even if it means being in control of our own misery. Don’t let your ego drink the poison of man-made corruption.