Taboos to Freedom

Taboos to Freedom

This is the  idea that what excites, interests and makes you curious about life can sometimes be missing and try as hard as you like, it can’t be found. Sometimes certain negative ideas and feelings about life’s fascinations are what will stop you from discovering what turns you on.

Where is this coming from I hear you ask? Well because I have been involved in aged care for so long, I have met many people who have retired. Some entered into the spirit of exploring the joy of life and some never made it. But why didn’t they?

What if the problem isn’t any sort of finding what interests you, but one of strongly felt emotion. What if shame, embarrassment, or just a sense of downright wrongness about an otherwise interesting thing is enough to turn you away and stop you from being turned on.

What if it’s socially, culturally, ethically, economically, religiously wrong to be turned on. What if there is a work ethic that says anything not to do with working, supporting the family or the poor is wrong and would lead to the detriment to others who rely on you and is therefore bad.

What if you came to this country, poor, and worked real hard to support your family and knew that an education and hard smart work would make you and your family, secure and that hobbies and interests outside of this might even damage your chances of security and happiness. And what kind of a person would you be then?

What if you as the next generation’s child learnt this truth, even though now, there was plenty of time for personal exploration in a time of plenty where not working so smart and hard was perfectly alright. What kind of person would you be now, still a bad person?

Do you think that the truth you learned from your father and mother, that of responsibility and the work ethic  might prejudice your chances of finding anything  worthwhile to do in terms of interests and curiosity.

That might be why you can’t get excited about anything. The work ethic taboo would stop you feeling any good you might ordinarily feel.

But it doesn’t have to be the work ethic alone that makes you question the kind of person you should be. The social, cultural, ethical, economical, religious aspects of daily life are full of taboos that prescribe who you should be and what you should and should not be doing.

Religiously for instance, a Muslim might really want to rock and roll and not permit themselves to feel anything but disgust, as to feel otherwise would be disloyal to their religion.

All the culture and the religion, and the social norms we were meant to uphold, or even revolt against,  the class status and the financial status, the economic ideas, political ideologies, and every erroneous conclusion we have ever made about anything, can bring us to Dismiss our feelings about the very things we would otherwise love to be involved with.

But there are some things you can start to think about, that might help us see into our taboos.

·       A look at language for instance. Any time, we say “ I /you should,  I/you must, I/you should not, I/you must not”.

·       We could explore those times when we  are Critical of interests, explorations, and fascinations that seem clear to us to have negative connotations and feelings about them.

·        A sense of the kind of person you’d be [usually in a bad way] if you allowed yourself to be turned on.

Other people may be doing the exact same negative taboo thing and their reactions to some fascination you just got excited over, could be telling. Are they dismissive of your evident excitement. Do they make little jokes at your expense? Is there a slight wind of depreciation? Often, another persons reaction is telling about how they view the interesting, the curious, and the fascinating in life.

In this way you can predict that these people might very well cut themself off from being interested. Their taboos don’t allow them to be the kind of person who can be excited over “small things.”

 IF they were however, to get excited over some culturally approved activity fitting into their world view, I’m sure their taboos wouldn’t get switched on, but perhaps neither would they discover everything else that could be food for a good happy fulfilling joyous life.

Taboos are powerful things, aren’t they? On the one hand they provide the Moral parameters to be a good person, and on the other, they squash everything that might challenge that narrow notion of good and upright. Don’t be fooled, taboos kill. They kill off passion, curiosity, interest, energy, and zest for living. Taboos maintain deadening standards, that’s all.