To disobey is to learn to live well

Fragments of thoughts — Philo analysis

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Monday 7 October 2023. I want to feel free, to get rid of the norms that imprison my desires. I want to discover my uniqueness, to live my life with all the strength of my soul... It is at this precise moment that my mind laughs with all its might! But I am quick to answer him: I know, Mr. Judge (understand), it doesn't happen like that! I don't wake up one fine day and tell myself that I'm going to disobey someone or something. Since I also don't tell myself that I'm going to obey an authority or anyone other than me. The activity of obedience is too subtle to be revealed to me at once. All this to say that I did not consciously or expressly choose it. And yet, she managed my life well up to a certain level... From a young age I was taught to behave well and to deal with rules and laws. From then on, I learned to obey the rules imposed by my parents at home, to then go to school and learn to obey other rules...

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First lesson:  

Family, school, here are the first structures to which one belongs without really having chosen one; just as one does not choose to have a first name or to be registered on the civil registry lists either. Our birth marks our “registration” in a group, in a family structure to begin with. Learning to recognize and “respect” this framework is one of the primary goals of our education. This framework is also at the origin of the moral nuance that divides the core of our existence into good and bad. “Good” to honor rules and moral values and “bad” to counter them.

During these young years, no thought was given to the possibility of denying obedience to these “instances.” Our operation meets the satisfaction of our needs. We may be occasionally disobedient but nothing more because, there is no sensible background (analysis) in these attitudes, except an attempt to test the limits of what motivates us to stay in the game. Moreover, we quickly understand that belonging to a group is linked to our need for attention and love and that breaking this belonging would condemn us to exclusion, to a kind of social non-being. For example, a punishment that a child receives is not just a deprivation that occurs in the physical world; it is above all a benevolent deprivation of attention, a violent exit from the set that until now welcomed him with warmth and understanding. What can we do in the face of this premature ostracism? The only thing that an excluded individual is interested in is trying to get back into the frame with others at all costs.

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But these “settled moments” that shaped my childhood and my teenage life, - where I had perceived obedience as a kind of prerequisite for excellence - were not enough, because as an adult, I continued on this same almost linear path, ordered by doses of obedience. University, studies, titles, diplomas, work, work, work, couple, couple, marriage or not, children, family, home, school, vacation, work and so on... until the day when nothing was right or almost... That fine day, my “excellence-obedience” hit an impassable limit: the time of a psychological physical discomfort, an emotional shock accompanied by a violent realization...

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Second lesson:

Obedience is the result of continuity, behavioral regularity or even a way of being; it is only in the sense that it makes people talk about it. Obeying is the touchstone of any system, the act par excellence of subjects that guarantees and ensures the longevity of any type of structure. Following the rules of a system automatically means complying with its authority, - family, social, political, economic or other -, to a power value greater than the moral value of one's own person. To say that someone is obedient, you must have seen him operate and act in a servile manner on several occasions because, the importance of such a qualifier is indicated by the creation of a trend. It is commonly called: servitude. Therefore, it could be said that to obey sounds uglier than to disobey, if this last verb embraces the possibility of discontinuity, of any resistance, of an admission against an established order.

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Typical phrases kept coming up in my head day and night: “I am unhappy”, “I do not like my life”, “I am not happy in my work”. But what is happening to me? Did I really miss everything? How do I get out of here? It was only at the moment of an overflow of obedience that the magic happened, since exhausted by all these dictates external to me, I finally decided to disobey. It was the cry of the heart. Say “no” to what I did before to do something else instead: to create my life in my own way and according to my own rules: existential, practical, concrete. I disobeyed the life shaped or expected by others to finally obey myself and my own aspirations. This first act of resistance marked a significant change in my life: I immediately ejected myself from the subject-object duality to finally become something else. I was no longer a product from a set, but a person who was able to create my life according to my own desires. I became myself...

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Third lesson:

In terms of sociopolitical ontology, obedience is considered a virtue and disobedience as a decoy. Obedience involves a form of regularity dear to the viability of a system, while disobedience arises as a surprise effect that undermines its stability and the law of causality. It is obvious that in this sense, disobedience damages the cohesion of a whole, since at its side everything becomes spontaneity, astonishment, contingency.

However, the act of disobedience has a certain aesthetic because, breaking the rules, revolting, rebelling, reveals the courage to become yourself accompanied by the desire to exist fully. Therefore, disobedience is an inner cry, a kind of incontinence that makes it impossible /want to stay in the frame, where you were before in terms of being (attitude) and doing (action). It is an event that makes people talk about him as different from those that preceded him. Therefore, the primary characteristic of sensible disobedience is its unpredictability, linking it more to a kind of crisis, of rupture, as a clear distinction between a “before” And a “after”. 

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Liberation. Disaster, disorder, chaos. Saying “no” has all these colors. Cézanne was right. The plans fall with the appearance of color. But chaos always contains the mark of something new. Every miracle lies in the power of transformation. Doubt, fear and uncertainty are overwhelming, but the vital impulse, tirelessly victorious, draws brave lines on the flesh. We are dream makers; and dreamers are the ones who change the world. Now alone in my home, I am amazed at my daily discoveries. Healthy ideas and new facts come up without warning me. What happiness, finally delighted to live! Accepting my condition and taking control of my life gave me the strength to be reborn. Navigating in the shadow of my unfolding future, the one we fear but the one that saves us. I have found the meaning of my existence. I revisit the balances, the links and the measures... I find authenticity in the look. Everything has to be redone but so much the better. Traveling is getting to know each other.

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End:

In the end, it could be promising or just interesting to stop believing that life is a battlefield, that you have to constantly prove your worth to be there and to be a part of this world. Being there is a gift, we can only welcome it as such. But what our lives are made of is the result of our contribution. We can be happy as well as unhappy because we are the masters of our own paths. Our choices dictate our conduct and the outcome of our actions. When we let others choose and make decisions for us, we are giving them our own life. It's up to our Power to act that we are giving up. The meaning of disobedience is hidden right there: reanimating the power of the will, activating the courage to decide for yourself. This vision necessarily involves the words that shape our thoughts, because we are beings endowed with reason. All the qualifiers we assign to life (hard, complicated, complicated, beautiful, beautiful, sad, magical, terrible, etc.), update the context of our reality. If I think life is hard, I make it hard. Each word carries a power of actualization in the real world and I am the agent who makes it effective. This is how my thinking actively participates in my future.

We have the freedom to choose the meaning of the words that will dictate our lives while controlling our attitudes. We can obey anything and become slaves, just as we can disobey everything and become rebels with no identity and no purpose. But above all, we can measure our state of mind, accept and control our emotions and thoughts. To become the unique beings that we are. Creating our lives in our image; this includes both sensible disobedience to others and norms as well as enduring obedience to our humanity. The dynamic of life embraces opposites and can actualize either a state of servitude or a state of resistance. It is up to us to see on which line we place the fate of our future!

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