Chapter Four

     The gentleman next to me said suddenly and without warning “ We’ll feel comfortable, high up in our positions of stature.  Ignoring this system of control made possible through bred conformity, ignoring it because it was us that established it.  Many turn a deaf ear.  We’ve started to acknowledge its presence only once we realized this system had become more commonly confronted.  It was easier for us before, when we thought no body had noticed.  We discovered a new way to think, a new way to reason - one that would benefit us.  “Us”, Those that created it.  Those of “us” sitting high on our pedestals.  We had established a way to control the majority.  To control the way they think.  We never considered the possibility that as the majority would grow quieter the minority would become louder…We’ve in turn seen the destruction of our creation but on a scale that none of us could have anticipated.  Mass destruction.”  To implode; Im - plode {Verb} Collapse or cause to collapse violently inward, inward.  Figurative: Suffer sudden economic or political collapse.  I wasn’t quite sure how to respond to such a statement.  A pat on the back, maybe, I don’t know… It was obvious he spent quite a bit of time thinking about this.  Though considering his home life I would imagine there was very little else to do.  I did, however, mention our education system devising a system of control.  “From as early as kindergarten where spontaneity and creativity are discouraged, while children who have adapted into this system are praised and rewarded those who show even the slightest sign of individuality are punished.  Even Medicated.  As we get older it doesn’t change, it becomes easier for those who find it easy to conform.  But we begin to see Standardized testing where some of the more intelligent children are failing, teachers teaching for the test and school systems asking certain, “unreliable” students to sleep in on test days.  Though, the problems is not necessarily with the educators but rather the system itself.  It’s impersonal, its bias and its generalized.”  He quietly nodded at this fact he started to continue but I stopped him earnestly knowing that from here we could touch on just about every level of the political and religious systems, the next most obvious being the health care system.  This is neither the time nor place for such a conversation though seeing as we are tightly squeezed into a tiny air tight compartment with a hundred politically and religiously active citizens that find comfort with such a generalized system of control and no means of escape. 

     If anything it would help those unconcerned and incidentally ignorant citizens who find little reason to pose such “pointless” questions.  Glancing around the plane I noticed for the first time how varied a passenger detail we actually had, I wasn’t exactly the type to just fall down next to someone and jump into casual conversation.  I enjoyed casual conversation and at times envied those that could freely converse with strangers on a plane or in a waiting room, I didn’t lack the skills in conversation as much as I lacked the skills in starting a conversation.  I get bored easily, probably too easily.  It may not necessarily even be the topic of conversation itself but rather the people involved in conversation.  I’m very selective, especially with friends.  It’s not that I see myself as superior to anyone either, I seek a degree of understanding and acceptance that a wide array of the general population doesn’t share.  Possibly due to the conformity we are taught at such young ages.  I’ve just noticed that in this conservatively unbalanced society people are unwilling or incapable of understanding, everything I find worth talking about seems to be attached with the possibility of being offensive to someone.  Though I suppose just about anything could be offensive to someone.  Its interesting I was reading this book, “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” There’s a passage on page one forty two line twenty eight “ The cause of our current social crisis, he would have said, is a genetic defect within the nature of reason itself.  And until this genetic defect is cleared the crises will continue.  Our current modes of rationality are not moving society forward into a better world. They are taking it further and further away from a better world.”  I’ve, personally, noticed a difference in the process of thinking between myself and others.  Matters that seem unimportant to most are to me all that matters and worries that occupy the minds of so many I have a hard time understanding their importance.  Much of it I feel is fed to them through society, be it the media or popular opinion.  From your seat, though, I’m sure I must sound consumed. 

     I can’t understand why so many dwell on things that offer so little!  Why they cannot understand that they focus on such negative aspects of life, inspired more by superficial thought then spiritual and personal growth.  Their unhappiness could only be explained by their own ability to attract unhappiness.  Have they forgotten that our thoughts no matter how abundant are still controlled by us?  No matter how far I go I’ll always return to reality, or some form of.  And once I do everything that I thought during becomes nothing more than a blur.  These airplane blankets are nothing, made from discarded material left from cheap halloween costumes.  What could have possibly been going through their minds as they manufactured these blankets?  It’ll be fine.  Especially since this highly evolved creature of wealthy suburban america has left his air on full.  Instead of twisting it off he turns it away from him, towards me.  He’s the type that if you bumped him accidently while shifting in your seat you would get nothing more than a blank stare and a careful nod.  The disgruntled mail man or the loner high school kid in full black or military attire with or without a trench coat comes to mind.  I pictured him an older man rocking erratically in a rusty rocking chair on the porch of his house on the side of a busy highway with a shut - gun either pointing at passing cars and quietly laughing to himself or practicing his sneer and script in between yelling at joggers or school aged kids climbing off the bus.  His expression suggested he might know I was thinking about him, or maybe not at all at this point who knows. 

     I was driving home late one evening from a town north of mine, I went visiting some friends who were there in school; shortly before getting home and feeling that familiar anxiousness prior to arriving I was driving much too fast and rounding a corner when I noticed a family of raccoons crossing the road.  I tried breaking and swerving a bit to the left but it had been in vain, I ended up hitting all but one.  Amazing sometimes which memories are triggered with seemingly dissimilar events, I felt terrible about that for the longest time and still occasionally think about it.  Something like that grounds you.  Thinking about the few that I hit but also the one that I didn’t. 

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[S Sanders]

Is there any way that the settings could be changed so as to add spacing or some break between the paragraphs? It would make it easier when scrolling down to read. Just a suggestion. I know sometimes this is difficult to do when transferring from a file, etc.