Layers

I have reached a point where, although I may deduct there are more layers in my personality and spirit than I have had the opportunity to see so far, I estimate, out of fixed factors such as mathematics, probabilistic ans sociology, that those other layers, yet undeveloped and unsolicited (and I am talking here about positive may-have-beens) will probably remain dormant forever.

We are complex beings, yet we have after all a fixed (once it belongs to the past), one way path through this life. Whatever our dreams might be, the reality we have chosen (aware or not of our choices) pins us down year after year and offers no possibility of ever drawing a line and judging for ourselves how far have we strayed from what we could have been. We can never see our alternative paths followed, for comparison and we can never see ourselves and our ripples in the greater picture, made of the people we have met and affected in one way or another.

It is nostalgic and pensive though to get even a vague glimpse of what there is unawakened in us, of what echoes some other circumstances of life can produce inside the big human temple each of us is. it is like feeling in the dark a bouquet of possibilities, but without... strength (?) ... luck (?) we can never make be what it might be... we cannot feel on the real, authentic track with our life.

The limitations make sure of that, of the "not"-s in one's life. There are many: outer limitations (first the thoughts of them made me create this new post), and inner limitations - the trickiest. For if we may shake ourselves of the false ideas surrounding us socially, we have layer upon layer of delusion on the inside, and many breakthroughs and shedding of a layer prove to be just another new crust, as unsatisfactory as the other.

Even this feeling of unaccomplished, of wasting the time with struggling to grow up, defend oneself from tough situations, with the many mundane activities that seem to go nowhere can be ambiguous: is it a spiritual or mental exhaustion or is it for real a grasp of the difference between what it is and what it could or should be somebody's life?

I will choose the second option, at least for the purpose of this post, based on the same ambivalence I used to have with how things taste. Nothing from the foods I ate as a grown-up tasted objectively great (meaning that here I am not taking into consideration how food tasted after a long time of not eating), and discussing this with others who felt the same I met the theory that the phenomena is due to the changes that distinguish an adult taste buds from a child's. I kind of resigned myself to believe this, until, one day, I traveled in an area new to me and I found the good old tastes in some of the foods there (mind you, moderately expensive foods). My taste buds were OK, yet the food had gradually changed over the years and it basically became slop. Yet the generally accepted belief was that the grownups loose their capacity of enjoying such a basic element of life because ... they became adults. It is easier this way, presenting the fact as a truism would generate no consequences, only limited nostalgia. No panic about where is this world heading, and why generation after generation we feel like we are loosing something instead of gaining...

To get to my initial meaning of layers that I had in mind - it was that of social layers. These, regardless of politics and regime, are pretty well sedimented, and usually those who treat societies as machineries need to be able to count on their sedimentation. Meaning that a person born middle class (if this still exists, although in some countries is considered almost extinguished), it will most likely remain middle class, even if the benefits of this statute will vary over the span of its lifetime. Because it is brought up to think middle class, and the only elevator upwards would be the educational system, which stopped being free long time ago. There are always exceptions, but the way we respond to the medium while being children is so deeply in the core of our personality that we may choose to be different, yet underneath that is the emergency way of thinking and being - the one we developed in.

There are times in history when the societal layers open up "for ventilation", and for a brief period of time people can go up or down, and create a change of life for them (on the outer side) and for their offspring (this time also on the inside). I have seen such "successful" people, unhappy at the core, because they were transplanted in a completely strange medium to the one they have grown up in, yet forcing themselves to look adapted and natural, in order to support this leap for their children. The jump, I think, can be easier when it is a group jump, and those who were once in similar conditions now share the new place in society and also their feeling of eternally being disparaged. Probably that is why some of the simplest types tend to gather their extended family around in such situations, sometimes with negative effects, like for example creating groups of influence, and isles of friends and family that clog the circulation in the new area of work or living they are in. Many of the unpleasant ordinary people that have found themselves thrown into money and functions after living a simple childhood are not mean people to start with - they just don't cope with changing the "layers". Some adapt better their exterior appearance and habits, by copying what they perceive around them in the new surroundings. Some not. Usually when large groups change layers by a twist of history the effects are disastrous, like in the communism experiment. Yet I would rather consider that the communism was a conducted experiment, based on some ideas applied in a very debatable manner, yet ideas, shifted around in order to offer decoys from the feeling of panic generated by the ordinary people who had changed the societal layer.

Take a couple of these historical moments, and one can see how the world is like a huge selector of people. random or not, these changes, these "mix and spread" type moments, leave their marks for the future. What were my many ancestors doing during the world wars? Were they peasants, merchants, soldiers, were they migrating from a land to another? How was their layering, inside and out?

I am not inclined towards genetic determinism, not even social determinism, though it might seem so. I am merely considering what chance does an individual have during its own lifetime of becoming "himself", provided he has first to overcome a disadvantageous role in life?  I think there exist waisted spirits or souls just because society is not curious about the "newcomers", but rather obstinately occupied with preserving a pretty inequitable status quo. When some have too much and they got it all figured out for their offspring, for generations, others have nothing and others waist their lives struggling in between, and the bridges between the societal layers have been blown off or reduced to the abilities of being slick and pretense in order to make believe, clearly we are over the top going downhill as mankind, or someone is foolish enough to play God here on Earth.

Those who have should not be obsessed with how dangerous it is to relinquish some of their money and power in order to ensure a common ground of well being for the entire bottom layer, and in order to open up some permanent channels in between all the classes. History will repeat itself otherwise, and with unpleasant hiccups would mix and spread again. Or maybe this is being prevented by false pressure valves - that is also possible. But even so, gradually we will be out of great minds and great souls. Already many who are at the top smell like "plastic", are fake and boring. Many of the remaining thinkers are bored and dry, or tend to resemble walking computers. Keeping the lid tightly closed produces this infusion of non-quality and boredom. Fear is the base of this status quo enforced on society, the fear of those who are not happy being where they shouldn't be, yet they would rather feel lavishly secure than try to discover their real place in life and leave their post to maybe another, whose destiny is to be there.

Of  course I am biased. I think with my personal brain, therefore subjective. I witnessed a societal upheaval during my life, real or apparent, i tend to say both, in different percentages, but I could not change my layer... not the right age. I was just a spectator, and then the valve closed, and maybe I did not wanted to accept how stuck I am for years and years. Stuck in my way of thinking, in my limited schooling which waisted years of my life during which the best results were redundant, because nobody followed through; stuck in my ideas, in my impressions about myself, in my hopes. then later in my dreams who faded away and became poorer and poorer. I can't help functioning in a certain way with my mind and soul, but this way is of very little use in the layer I am in.

Or maybe I geographically kid myself, once more, and I am just lonely, in a niche somewhere, where the only advantage was that look towards some things, rather than being immersed in the same things with no time to look or think too much.

Oh well, it is spring once again, and the sun is still free, and the vast and useless information on the Internet creates the empty sensation of community with the world - like a fool's gold...