What is established above what is true (and how it defines who you are)
We have all wished we had the ability to read other people’s thoughts, and it makes sense that we have, since we live in a society condemned to the thinking of others. Independent judgement means creating problems; it means stepping outside the line of what is established, because what is established is considered correct. Is it really? Obviously it is not, yet the irony lies in the fact that even though we know what is established is not correct, we continue to approve or accept it as real. Because the majority believes it, or is expected to. Since we cannot read other people’s thoughts, we are disconnected from them; they do not know what I think, and I do not know what they think. I do not know what they are thinking, but they ought to be thinking “this”, because that is what is established.
y are thinking, but they ought to be thinking “this”, because that is what is established. Most of the time we do not say what we think; we disguise it with pleasant words or simply say nothing. A man is expected to react when he sees a woman walk past, especially if he is with other men. He must say something to prove his virility and show the others what kind of man he is by desiring what is programmed. In other words, if you do not adjust to the programmed daily situations, people will think badly of you. And that is very important, because if people do not like you, doors will be closed. You will have no friends, or no one will love you. So you have to learn a role and perform it, so that others think of you what they are supposed to think. So they do not think you are strange, different, that you are mad… not that you think it yourself, but that you do not believe it. Women are expected to wear make-up every day, because… what happens if one leaves the house without it? She is seen as a woman who does not take care of herself or lacks femininity. We have believed in the single established standard and have begun to judge everyone according to those criteria.
Comparative grievance among our peers is the law of the jungle, not driven by the joy of being more, but by the fear of being less. Because in truth it does not matter to us whether we are first or second; what we do not want is to be last. We do not want to be singled out. Once you stop playing the role established in our societies, you move closer to another branch of judgement, in which what others think of you is not important, because it is only a declaration of what they think about themselves, conditioned by social standards, but rather what you think about yourself. If you are short, it is because there is someone taller than you. And it is when you are next to them that you become aware of your smallness, but that thought arises only because that person is beside you. Before they appeared, you were at your own height. And you still are. The question is: why do you feel small? Because it is logical. Why do you feel inferior? Because I appear to be. Nothing is what it seems. And logic is illusory. It is not the other who challenges you with their height; it is you who become disturbed by your smallness. Due to the established belief that the big fish eats the small fish. What someone shows by caring about what others think is that they are afraid of what they themselves think and believe about who they are.
