The conventions of life -- country, religion, community, family, laws, customs, cultures, etc. -- make it easier to live life blindfolded. They are chains that imprison. They are the great erasers of individuality. Convention allows the Masses to be One, and the One becomes as if nothing. Convention forces a person to be just another of the same that was last, and another of the same that is next.
We are afraid to face another person without these conventions of life firmly in place. People who do not follow our accepted conventions are ignored, cast out, imprisoned or killed. The severity of the punishment for not following convention depends on which conventions the Masses hold most sacred this decade. All non-conventional individuals must be restricted to allow the Masses to walk blindly through each bland, repetitious day.
An Individual frightens the Masses. The Masses run from, or hurt, whoever frightens them. The Masses have the power to destroy. The Individual has the power to create.
However, the conventions of life also create a situation where the safety of the individual within a group is relatively assured, day in and day out. As long as everyone within the group agrees to follow the same conventions, the group prospers. Conventions that are necessary for individuals to function as a group. For example -- "As long as it harm none . . .". These same conventions usually allow the people outside the group to benefit -- as long as they also follow the conventions, either intentionally or unintentionally. When a group develops conventions that persecute individuals or other groups then the safety of all individuals and groups are jeapordized.
Reward and punishment within a group depends entirely on convention. Acceptable goals within a group are defined by convention. The group itself exists only because of convention.
There is magic in stepping outside the bounds of convention. The limitless horizon can only be comprehended from outside the walls of convention. Freedom and creativity live outside the chains of convention.
Or maybe it is as John Lennon sang so magickly...
Imagine there's no country. It isn't hard to do. Nothing to kill or die for. And no religion, too.
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