The "C" Word

kay suggested i write about the 'c' word.... you know...... control.

i've been scratching my head and drumming my fingers all week about this, and finding it difficult to begin to talk about it. hmmmm...... where to begin .... where to begin ... where to begin.....

maybe with a definition? 1. To exercise authoritative or dominating influence over.

that conjures up a feeling reaction similar to being grabbed violently by the arm and either being forced to perform a behavior, or being restrained from some action. force and restraint; rigidity and no room for compromise or flexibility.

from one perspective, the element of control contains a capacity for contrasting characterizations. one, resulting in force and rigidity, and the other aspect, more cooperative and conjoining.

actually i prefer the gentler implications of the word: conduct: 1. To guide the course of; manage or direct.

however in this context, it appears control, in one sense, is about a dominant force exercising power over a weaker, more submissive object/subject. so there's the inroad for my discussion on 'control'. how did control impact my life, with me being the weaker force having power exerted upon me by a stronger force? how and why did i develop coping strategies in reaction to the experience of being encroached upon as a victim of someone's control pressure, the exertion of their will over me as a dominating force? did i fight, freeze or flee?

looking back into the origins of my life, where patterns of response and reactivity would have had their genesis, i can clearly see how the mode of response would have been 'freeze', for me. the first perceived encroaching force would have been that of my parental figures who would enforce their wishes upon me, and who would use force as a regulating mechanism in order to get me to adjust to their behavioral expectations.

prior to language, sensory impressions registered as an overload of sight, hearing, touch: big, looming, punishing, angry, threatening forms, emitting their scary powerful energy at me, tense facial expressions, violent physical contact, loud words with clicking consonants spit out, their volatile energy resonating against the target of my soul. barking out do's and don't's; orders and warnings of consequence: do, or die. nothing tender in contrast to balance or neutralize the impact of the fierce,fearsome temperamental energy thrust upon me.

no options, but to conform. no way out. nowhere to run to escape the raging storm of 'influence'. a helpless dependent infant creature, powerless to do anything but to conform to the demands of the powerful force overseeing my life. what would such an infant creature do? how would such an infanct creature defend itself against such affront? it could not escape [no legs yet]. where would it go even if there was an option for egress? no, there was no way out. all the infant creature could do, was abandon its own need set, and replace it with conformity to that of powerful overlords. it would become scared silent, and rendered impotent to express its own life force. eventually, it would have worn the yoke of suppression for so long, that it would forget it ever had a choice to begin with.

its power had never been recognized, nurtured, and honored; never encouraged; but rather, was stripped; replaced and supplanted with the will of the 'governers' of the system in which it had been born and bred: a system of rewards and consequences.

even before language develops as a means of communication, the creature learns not to touch that hot oven, or bear the consequences. if it is docile enough, it learns very quickly, that to insist on having its needs met is suicide. so, out of fear of being punished and/or deserted, in order to protect itself, and advance its own survival, it yields and ultimately surrenders to the power of force, which establishes, shapes, enforces and reinforces and conforms its patterns of relating to power systems that demand adherence, or risk rejection, abandonment and obliteration. it is rendered devoid of its own power.

then....the child turns two. all that in perhaps less than 700 days of reinforced treatment. thus describes the situation of a life born and groomed in the factory of such a controlling governance.

and so, the stage is set for repeating lifelong patterns of self abandonment, retreat from aggression, avoidance, and isolation. curiosity is strangled; creativity crushed. the creature becomes an automaton taking it cues for survival from powers that would control and curtail its highest expectations and deepest aspiration: to be and to become a person, fully human and alive.

my head hurts now ..... to be continued...