Chris – I did feel but didn’t say, that the people looking at the earth seemed to be looking at the past, the down to earth who cannot look up, but are imprisoned by their conditioning.
It reminded me of this that came out of helping a woman explore her dream. “The sentence that I have written down is, “You’re not smart enough.” We explored this and I helped Linda to see this as a script, a sort of recording placed there by her parents that could play on endlessly and influence the way she responded to situations and opportunities. But what came to mind this morning is that although this is a simple enough sentence, the sort of put-down lots of children get injected with by parents or teachers or others, it has a much wider significance. I saw it as part of the indoctrination that goes on in socialising children. For instance, we can ask the question, “Where did the parents hear that phrase?” We could also ask what is the statement implying in a wider sense?
Without answering that quickly, thoughts led me on to think of my own childhood and what I have learned about it and my own socialisation and indoctrination. What I realise is that I was indoctrinated into a society in which the working class were kept in place by threats of heavy punishment or even death. As a child I was often quite brutally hit with canes or hands if I dared to move out from the conformity expected of me. So what Linda heard could also be put into other sentences such as, “You are intrinsically no good. You will never ever come to anything. If you don’t do as I say I will hurt you.”
I feel that such statements are a part of controlling people, or are parts of the way adults, themselves indoctrinated, train children to be passive and complying, and so take their place in the social and political system.
It could also be a way of parents maintaining control over the child who is weaker than the parents, the sort of control they are placed under by others in authority over them. So although such statements are in one sense only a few critical words, they may also be part of a huge controlling influence that is part and parcel of society.
This led me on to look at the way nations threaten other nations with death - i.e. war - if they do not conform to the will of the powerful nation. Many authoritative bodies use similar statements or threats to induce conformity.”
But you are knitting – creating – a gold sweater, something of great value and long lasting. Even so you get out of bed feeling depressed – another habit. It took me years to wake up each morning and not feel the pit feeling. But I achieved waking up bathed in peace it never came back again.
Tony