Tuesday 5 March 2013

Hiding, Secrecy, Not Loving

Suppose you grow up and you come to a discovery that the almost rest of the world is different from you, so there are very few like you.

You wish you were like them, but for all the wishes in the world you cannot be like them.

Now there is an institution you can join that affirms that you are not to behave like them, so then you could be just like them (if only you were).

In order for you not to appear to behave like them, it has to be a disciplined organisation - even quite authoritarian. Or perhaps there is a dress code, one that illustrates your difference (and only has 'general exceptional acceptance' in your group, or in the imaginations of the theatre). Perhaps there is an often stated pattern of living that is more severe than all those people beyond.

As compensation, this organisation loves you, but in a different way, as you are yourself to use that way of love to express concern for all outside - that is, especially those you would be like, if only you could be.

From this institution of doing nothing, you can affirm the rest of the world in its ordinariness as not only ordinary but even as compulsory, and thus who you are as utterly wrong (and especially were you to be outside).

But the secrecy then gives another possibility.

Someone else, like you, has done the same. They have discovered they were not like almost everyone else. They joined the body that allowed them to be not like the rest, and not like as they were once were. The person affirms everything about the people 'out there' from their stance of being 'in here'.

However, on finding someone like him, in here, who is actually like yourself, you discover an attraction within yourself.

If he does for you, there can be a secret relationship. No one is harmed, except for the ideological duplicity in the messages of you two as you condemn those like yourselves.

If he doesn't reciprocate, and you have power when he needs your permissions, you might end up forcing him to act in ways he is trying to resist. His is trying to keep his behaviour consistent with his message, but now he is being compromised by you, as you are saying one thing and now can do another with him.

Of course it could be that you have the power, which he has recognised, and he wishes to reveal your own self to you, by way of using your power to acquire position himself.

Worse than these examples, the person you think is like you may actually be one of those vast numbers about whom you approve, as he obeys the same rules. So what, because in a position of power you force him into activity he both publically condemns and would not do himself.

Even worse, he is not of an age to know whether he is like you or not, but having the same plumbing and potential as you your desires are misdirected.

The institution operates with such secrecy that you can do this and not be seen doing it. Indeed, with the right appearances and the strong message, no one would suspect you of being like those you condemn.

Should you be discovered by some 'leakage' into the outside to be acting in variance to your and the institution's public message, the institution, operated by people who already understand your duplicity, will try to find a secret corner to place you, so that you can continue. They hope that the outside will lose its memory of you, until another leakage occurs. The institution needs to preserve its appearances at all cost.

The worst situation is when that institution has been rumbled. However, this is an opportunity. The question then is whether it can stop being secret, stop attacking people out there like you, and start being that 'love' for all that was the compensation you once felt offered to you.

Few really care if you want to dress differently (though this won't have 'general exceptional acceptance'). Good for you if you demand for yourself a severe ethic of living. Few care if you do have a difference in your relationships. Many do care that your messages match your method of living. They care that you have actual love for yourself, for another and for others - all of these. If you want to deny yourself so as to give time and space for others, then that should be by choice. There are no places to hide; only your behaviour. Secrecy should not be an option.

Otherwise, secrecy becomes a way also for people of any kind to abuse and be 'moved on'. Secrecy offers an attraction and opportunity to all sorts with behaviours to hide.

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