Freedom Starts Beyond Archetypes
Humans, in general, don’t see each other. Neither as humans nor eye to eye, let alone I to I. Everything most of us see are symbols like clothes projected on an apparently autonomous being in front of us. Thus, people will largely try to pin you down.
Parents will pin you down as their child, your spouse will pin you down as their spouse, your children will pin you down as their parent. Similarly, friends will pin you down as their friend. The tentacles of expectations, build upon fragments of a complex collage of what your role in their life must exhibit, will put a pressure on you.
And those are just friendly neighbors so to speak. After all, the lady in call center, who will pin you down as an entry in Excel sheet and see you as an item to gain bonus or promotion, doesn’t give the proverbial about you being more than her food. Not that dissimilar from a street gang that will simply see you as a potential prey or competition at best.
Well, and you can certainly imagine quite vividly where the politicians or billionaires (but basically all people who have also the means to enforce their expectations from you because their manic fans, opportunistic sycophants, and fearful slaves pin them down as their lords) want you to have pinned down. And don’t get me started on how and where ideologies pin you down.
Indeed, as can be seen, it’s nothing personal. Still.
Freedom means not to be pinned down. Refusing the archetypal boxes you were assigned and perhaps also accepted. Once you unpin yourself in this way you will see how damaging and cruel it is to pin others down the same way. Why would you force shackles on them?
The only reason I can imagine is that you are afraid because you think that, with the other person unpinning themselves, your archetypal connection crumbles and the relationship dissolves. Hence, you lose the whip of expectations, carrot of offered favors, and prospect of final gain.
Really, just try to treat all people who project parts of their world on you as the same kind of humans you are, disregard all social and archetypal roles, and you will immediately see the anxiety and rage. And also all the pretty insane coping rituals. Oftentimes full of active or passive thirst for control or at least vengeance.
Well, people are perceptive and they will feel that something’s off, they will sense the loss of a crumbling illusion. And, as the fear will be getting the better out of them, they will fail to see that the link was never broken. That it, in fact, became even more profound in virtue of its ensuing purity.
On the other hand, there will be those who will see. Either because they already pulled out the pins that hold them paralyzed in place or because they will firmly grasp the unique chance which popped out before them when they briefly saw their illusions shatter.
And so, by freeing yourself and going beyond archetypes, literally by being what you truly are, you also free the world. Because, ultimately, you are that which does not reflect anything, to which no archetype can stick.
Unsettling as it may be, be that. Or rather, know that you already are that.
And be free.
