Limited Control

We do not have much control over our lives. Seems that there is an incongruence between the amount of time and energy wasted on what we think we have control over and what we actually have control over.

Our lack of control starts before we are born. We had no control over our birth situation and circumstances. We did not choose our parents or our country. We did not choose our family’s spiritual traditions. We did not choose our ethnicity or the color of our skin. We did not choose to play this game. We were thrust into existence and now must play with the character we were given.

It is a trope in American culture to celebrate our freedom, liberty, and our ability to choose our destiny. We certainly do have more choice and freedom than the citizens of some other countries, but we don’t have the choice and freedom we think we do.

In politics we are led to believe that we the people choose our representatives. While there is a hint of truth to this it is mostly misleading. We are given a choice between two candidates that have already made it through the filter of two very wealthy and powerful institutions in the Democrat and Republican parties. Their resources and influence decide which ideas and candidates are acceptable for the general population.

I believe it is important to vote, but I warn against being too captured by a system that limits your control to two choices. Our political system and voting process isn’t designed to give the people full control over their destiny. It is designed so the limited few with power can keep and further consolidate that power. All the while pacifying the masses by presenting an illusion of self-determination.

This is a cynical view of our political process. So much is out there telling you how important ‘your’ voice is, and how much ‘you’ matter. I’m simply trying to offer a counterpoint to that overused and exaggerated rhetoric. When a politician expresses how much ‘you’ matter they are only doing so in order to get, or retain, your vote. Your vote only really matters to them because it allows them to keep their job and hold on to their sliver of power.

In the last 20 years we’ve experienced an explosion in media that caters to the individual. The cable news networks and social media companies have realized a business model centered around the idolization of the individual. These companies can make you feel very important. They’ve realized they can keep your attention by making it seem as though you are the finally bastion of truth, liberty, sanctity, decency, justice, etc.

They’ve built a business model around the false empowerment of the individual. By making us feel like we have more power than we do they can hold us hostage to whatever message and products they are selling. And what’s more is if something doesn’t go their way then they have a scapegoat.

When a politician or a political party lose an election they can look to the electorate and say, ‘you didn’t try hard enough’. They can absolve themselves of fault by shifting blame onto the individual. The problem wasn’t with their candidate or their messaging, but with the inability of ‘you’ and everyone like you to get it done.

The incongruence between how much control we actually have and the amount of control we think we have is one of the most important issues in America. This false sense of control is what has led to this era of extremism. The powerful media companies have divided the people by presenting comfortable, but false, realities. False realities that inflate the power and responsibility of the individual while at the same time demonizing the ‘other’. The ‘other’ being anyone whose views and values run counter to the values of this curated and false reality.

This has resulted in a stagnation of conversation and ideas. It has resulted in so much misinformation and disinformation that an actual debate on a course for the future is almost impossible. It is almost impossible because there isn’t a shared set of facts or a shared reality.

Most people are just doing the best they can with the situation they’re in. And the most controversial thing one could possibly say right now is this: Almost everyone is doing what they genuinely think is best for them, their family, and their country. Very few people want to see the grand experiment that is America fail.

The unfortunate reality is that we do not share a foundation of facts. We can disagree on a plan for the future. That is how progress and the evolution of human society works. However, currently we’ve been lured into false realities by very powerful institutions. When we don’t have a shared reality with a shared set of facts then we have no foundation to build a future. We’re just left arguing with one another over nonsense in a muddy hole.

Realizing your limit of control is quite scary. The psychology of why these institutions focus their strategy on the individual probably has something to do with our base existential fears. No one wants to be told that they don’t matter or that they aren’t very important. But I’ll say it, ‘you don’t matter all that much and you aren’t all that important’ – at least when it comes to the agendas of the cable news and social media companies.

Your true value is inborn and has been with you since the beginning. As a conscious being you are important. Your importance as a person doesn’t need to be proven by some outside action that you’ve been coerced into thinking was of your own design. Your mere existence gives you worth.

The major issue with this incongruence of perceived control is that we spend so much time and energy on things that don’t matter. The hours spent being hyper-engaged by cable news or social media robs us of our agency and time. Time that could have been spent on the things that really matter. If you aren’t sure what really matters other than news and social media then I’d suggest you need to turn those things off and start spending your energy trying to figure that out.

What we actually have control over is where we place our attention and how we spend our time. We shouldn’t give our attention and time to institutions that only wish to monetize that time and attention. We should be using our most valuable resources of attention and time on the things that enrich the human experience not exploit it.

You have much more control over the well-being of your family and friends than you do the next election or overall direction of civilization. I believe if most of us would focus that time and attention on the things that we can control we’d actually improve the trajectory of society. We’d have more control over the bigger picture by focusing our attention and time on what we actually can control.

I appreciate your attention and hope you found value in this.
Thanks for reading.