“Do not use if you cannot see clearly to read the information in the information booklet.”

In the information booklet.

You live everyday life by rules, regulations, idioms and beliefs that are embedded into you and you can’t tell when it happened after you’ve grown and became an adult. You accepted them after thinking along the lines of “everyone is doing it and so will I” or “looks obvious to me” without much mental effort. You follow the crowd, blending in with countless others, because it is the natural decision requiring no effort of weighting for and against and accepting responsibility for this choice.

The older you are, more conditioning you have. You keep growing more and more of those layers, believing that they protect you from this strange and dangerous world, that they describe it in one way or another. And you see other people who share those layers, concluding that the world you both live in is correct. You have an opinion about falling and rising fuel prices, best place to go shopping, best car dealership or great food, and you share it with others, finding confirmation that they are indeed important to both.

Everyone around you seem to have a family, kids and a circle of close and not-so friends – or maybe not. Your kids go to school every day, and you honestly believe that it is best for them. Of course, everyone I know, you say, does it without a question, why should I do it differently? It’s the law, you may even say, it’s … unthinkable and immoral to deprive our kids of all this wealth of knowledge that they will need later on in their life.

The problem is that you did not make a conscious choice; you let it slip and be formed for you, just like great many other things. I can already hear angry voices condemning me for all eternity to circles of hell – I am criticizing their way of life, how could I even do such a thing, you say! You did not live our lives and don’t know what we went through to get where we are now!

“Beware! To touch these wires is instant death. Anyone found doing so will be prosecuted.”

On a sign at a railroad station.

Your reaction is the focal point. You instantly came to the conclusion that I am attacking your point of view and went forth defending it without a second thought. This is a response that has been conditioned into you, and it is very well explained by Steve Pavlina in his article “What Lies Beyond the Haze of Social Conditioning?”:

“The most common way to shrink someone’s perspective is to put them into a state of fear.  Make them feel their survival is threatened.  Fear shrinks perspective.”

I am not afraid, you would say, I am just a little worried. About fuel or food prices, about the taxes or those goddamn terrorists I keep watching about on the TV? It is affecting our country; it is affecting our economy and even more so it is affecting me! How can I keep myself blind to the fluctuations and instability of the world I live in, it’s not possible and I will not risk my life and life of loved ones and be always on guard!

“For use by trained personnel only.”

On a can of air freshener.

Problem is that you are powerless to do anything about it. You cannot affect stock market, you cannot change fuel, gold or cocaine prices – you cannot even change the price of a toilet paper you buy at Seven Eleven.

Things like that are conditioned into us through continuous exposure to mass media and advertising and you do not even notice how it is done. It has become the norm of life, the de facto standard everywhere and you cannot make a step aside without bumping into one. When you drive to work and grab a cup of coffee from café, you see words written on the cap “Caution, contents may be hot”. Who thought of this stupid idea that coffee has to be cold! Of course I need a warning – after all, if I spill it onto someone it would not be my fault that they got burnt – it was clearly stated on the cap!

It is there and there is nothing you can do about it, so let it be as it is. Let these warnings guide you gently and carefully through everyday reality, reminding of dangers that wait at every step, promising that if you read and understand them, there is nothing to worry about. Submerge back into the world of no responsibility and soothing breath of air conditioner, furring in the background.

Let your children go to school to get good grades because you see your future in them, something that you’ve failed to realize in your life. Be proud of putting extra hard work and dismissing wife’s concerns about not being at home when needed the most. Keep telling your friends that you had a great weekend that was spend lying on a couch, hitting tenpin or visiting newly opened gourmet pizzeria.

And be a pawn. Not even a living cell, who strives for its survival, but a lifeless and deaf inanimate object.

But …

If you decide to change this even by little, there is a chance for you. Not everyone can be saved and I am not promising it to you. If you decide to get a glimpse of what yours and everyone else’s life around you looks like, then the best course of action will be to start noticing. Start noticing all the idiotic warnings around you, all the unnecessary rules, regulations and policies that are, like the debris, prevent you from achieving results. Start paying attention to things people say, how they say it and more importantly why they say them.

Once you awareness about social conditioning grows large enough, you will be able to change your perception of the world, but for love’ sake, do not force it upon others. Nothing has truly changed a person other than him/her, and if you have found your grain of freedom – simply show it to them. Adults will be more ignorant and aggressive towards it, but children will be its fertile ground to grow and flourish on.

And this will be only the beginning.

There are plenty of resources online that will guide you through stages you’ve never thought about, things that you never dreamt could be possible. Darkness is absence of light, and once you realize that you lived in the darkness that was penetrated by occasional rays that you never managed to notice, you will cry.

And realize that you lived someone’ else’s life, someone who was put into you without agreement or need. But those tears will be tears of joy, not sadness; joy of feeling the possibilities beyond conditioned world, the true world with infinite edges and perspectives, of which you have seen only one.