99 steps to reclaiming your individuality Step #13  

The paradox of persuasion:

At a point in time, its causal nature known exclusively only to us, but yet, communicably not unlike a virus spread in a wave of mass agreement, the normative conscious around us was shifted. And equally similar to the many shifts that have occurred over time from one state of cultural normalcy to another, we stood on a plateau still unaware that it was of our own construct, and were humbled by the realization of how insignificant we were in comparison to how vast the perceived reality around us was.  We all have, or will take this journey, because this is an intrinsic part of our makeup as humans. Our erring in choice comes when we are persuaded  to abandon self in favor of something else, and there is no shortage of these types of persuasions,or those that would seek to persuade us, in this construct we call reality.

Now also, we must, we have or we will come to the realization that all we have, all we know is but a reiterating of what was previously concluded and what was previously known. This of course is aside from technological advances, aside from astrological, scientific, or medical advances. The self and the understanding of the self is much different in these regards. The universal truth is that the journey to self is a processional journey, one that is realized only when the realization comes from within, and this can only occur when the self is rightly ordered, and when we have the capacity to cement this in our authoritative position as an individual. The antithetical expression of this realization, to the abandoned self though, is most often a state of melancholy or depression, or the preoccupation in mundane stimulus or consumerism.

Equally the seeming paradox continues when we also come to the realization that the only way to regain or maintain our status as individuals, is to persuade ourselves that our answer to the question is that we were designed to ask questions. And questioning is our purpose and answers are the effluent effects of our questions. There is no ultimate answer, and knowing all the answers will not bring peace, but only boredom.
This certainly is not a new premise or postulate, it is many a millennium old, and for the same expanse in time reiterated and reiterated a multitude of times, in a multitude of ways..

What we have become in our current society is, again, the antithesis of what we were intentioned to be. We have become a society that expects and receives answers. Again the ubiquitous paradox returns; If we are a society demanding answers, then we must be a society asking  questions right? Wrong! We are given the answers to questions that are originated from the same source that is supplying the answers. An example of this rhetorical slight of hand is when a politician or a propagandist declares, "People demanded we be tough on crime, and we were quick to answer, with building more prisons."  Incrementally we have been downgraded in our society to a drone work force, and being held in that state of equilibrium by the illusion of democratic rule and paltry rewards. The critical error in this ideology is that, when the questions originate from the same source as the answers, the questions offered are usually only to meet the self interest of that body. Increasingly the needs of the society are neglected, there is a growing gap between the needs of the select few who formulate the ruse, and the rest of society, and eventually the society erodes or collapses. Again not a new postulate, but one that has been proven and demonstrated time and time again.

At a point in time we as a society were persuaded that the answers we seek were beyond our capacity, government grew. Tyrannical rule was refined to a palatable state for mass consumption. Obstruction and distraction played devils advocate and the disappearing elephant rouse became the parlour trick of every financier, corporation and government body. The grave problem is that we now have all these suspended elephants looming in every corner of our existence, and the one law you cannot change or manipulate for ever is the law of gravity. So the inevitability we face now is not expecting answers as to why, or shelters capable of withstanding falling elephants, but of the realization, that if we don't change the rules with which the game is played. We will be crushed. Not as an act of intention, but as a result of denial.