There's comfort in the crowd. There is safety and familiarity. That's why most people stick to what they know and are afraid to take a chance. To break the mould is dangerous and foolish.
What will I do for money? How will I support myself and my family? What if I fail? All of these are conditioned responses typical of people built to be pawns for someone else's machine.
Better to remain on the inside, work your ass off for someone else and play it safe. Or you might decide that working hard is not worth it and instead become a slacker without motivation enough to scratch your own arse.
Either way, the end result is the same; a world filled with people who need to be shown the right way to live and work. People who cannot think for themselves, who are manipulated by men in red ties and the lure of bright shiny things. People who have forgotten, and need to be taught how to access their creativity.
The thin script that runs beneath all human activity, and most especially with regard to daily work, is born of fear – fear of being alone and isolated.
But that's exactly what needs to be done if we are to be free.
We must be willing to walk the road alone. We must disobey the hidden authority that Freud called the Super-ego, that Lacan called Big Other, the one that dictates through society and its agents how we should live and work.
Eirch Fromm, philosopher and psychologist said in 1960;
Obedience to the “authoritarian conscience,” like all obedience to outside thoughts and power, tends to debilitate “humanistic conscience,” the ability to be and judge oneself. In order to disobey, one must have the courage to be alone, to err, and to sin.
Eirch Fromm | Psychologist
Authority is the enemy of the creative spirit and of the integrity of the individual self. As such, one of our primary roles in life, not only as creative people but as human beings, is to go it alone, break the mould and follow the inner voice.
But only if we are brave enough.
Additional Writing
I have been writing on this and similar subjects a lot recently. To get these almost daily writings, head over to The Reflectionist. For more in-depth writings on the science and art of creativity, check out The Creative Mind.
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