#481 – How do you rebel against control?

The need for autonomy is intrinsically human, a necessary part of self-determination. When you feel you own your life, you assert your personhood.

These last few weeks, I've been feeling oppressed by the time-keeping app inside my laptop. If I want to be paid for my work, I need to stay on. And if they (the powers that be, whoever they are) decide that I was using my time non-productively, they can and will withhold pay.

It's like working in Airstrip One, under Big Brother's surveillance. And if He doesn't like what he sees, I'm in danger.

So I comply. I clock off to go drink water and clock back in only when I resume “tasking”––that’s what they call our work.

Yesterday, by 1:30 p.m., I’d completed my forty hours for the week. I felt free, unencumbered. I could use my time for my purpose—write my things, work on my stuff.

But then I just breathed, wallowing in my obligation-less afternoon. Unable to even come up with a dinner idea, cooking was off the table. My mind was on strike.

I still needed to do my morning pages, which I’d skipped to hit the forty hours before the clock reset. I grabbed the notebook, but there were pickets guarding my brain—No! Resist, resist!

It was only when I put on Charles Mingus’s Mingus Ah Um, around 5:20 p.m., that I began to scribble.

So much freedom in that music. So many things happening at once. They may seem out of sync, random, and yet they coexist in harmony; and not only does the sky not fall, it expands.

Writing, once again, helped me see. If my mind went on strike after one week of limited autonomy, how must my son’s mind (and soul) feel after ten months with none?

The only way I can support his return to self-discipline and self-determination is through understanding. Compassion. Radical love, no strings attached.

What does self-discipline look like when it's your choice?

Love,

Carolina