Insidious Insights

The cages are of my own making. Is it not so for most of us? Except that, at this age and stage, I can walk quite easily through the first-floor bars, their being neither too tight for my older frame, nor yet all clad up so that only an open door might provide egress. It is now as though the ribs contain but light-filled spaces, allowing one freely to breathe. We each know such cages. And we each know the other cages too, the ones that we keep dark. We each can have these conscious curtailments that define our existence, mostly of our own making. We can draw our curtains. We can close our doors. We can lock away our treasures. And from our own windows we can survey that which is without, from within. But not all cages are of our own making; many get imposed on us by our acculturation, our circumstances, and by the power of others. How to stay clear?

Such has been the insidious effect of this 2020, with its social distancing, its laws and regulations forbidding this and that. We find ourselves in the cages of our dwellings; or in the confines of our automobiles; or visiting each other from a distance; like prisoners of our collective dilemma.   

As a friend writes, “[I’m] Going into my mind because going out of my mind is not an option.”*

Yes, the cages that define our comfortable rooms, that contain our hopes for the future, that outline the very superstructure supporting our individual existence, needs be thought about. Or else we shall but go our habitual way from room to room, or mayhap venture outside, yet stay leashed to the expectations, and the conditioning, and the perpetuation of unquestioned traditions imposed by our history. Since babies, have we not been stopped from unfettered freedom by the bars of our cribs; by the locked doors and cabinets of our childhood; by the fences of our yards; by the rules of the classroom; by the expectations on us of being a responsible adult? It all has been structured to keep one safe. The societal cages make of us a species apparently free to move around the globe, (particularly before the advent of Covid-19,) yet still, we were enabled to do so precisely because we were expected to follow conventional rules, regulations, and expectations; it made no matter how different the society was into which we were able so freely to move about. After all, barring places like North Korea, we did travel fairly easily. After all, except that one needed a visa, and a passport, and proof of financial wherewithal for the journey, one could just about go anywhere.

Given the new framing (as seen in the picture above,) that sense of freedom is what I got when actually walking through the walls of the superstructure of the building in situ. There was the delight of being entirely within my rights. There was no guard to harry me off the property. There was no time-constraint other than that which I chose. There was nothing other than the differentiation in the sizes of rooms that could curtail my process. Except that all the cages were on one level. And the stairway, although nailed down the first five steps to the landing, was entirely loose up to the second floor. To hazard going the next four, to the loose board at the top, merely to get a glimpse of the vaster expanse before me, was risky at best. But at the very least, provided I thought about where to place my balance, I was safe enough, temporarily. The superstructure was not yet ready to ascend to a second floor.

We progress through the Memes of evolution in simultaneous apprehensions of horizontal and vertical accretion. We comprehend but barely, at times, the significance of the cages into which we become conditioned. We at times do “go out of my mind.” And that fear of not being able to understand, to be conscious, to be alert, can indeed be scary. So, yes, it is best advised to keep ‘going into one’s mind,’ for in our better perception of ourselves, within our world, we shall indeed be broaching the universe of what it means to be free, to be compassionate, integrative, and healing.

(*By permission: Mike Jablonski) 

                            “Going into my mind because going out of my mind is not an option.”