The Self & The System
I’ve been pootling about my social media, doing my best to make it structured and coherent. This weeks theme is self and as I was navigating my own anxiety when this blog title popped up as a thems to explore. I was obsessing over my social media numbers, post insights and website stats.
I got thinking about the pretty ones and that fact that there is no way round it. The prettier ones get more action. Then I thought I’m lucky I’ve got a good face. Even if I don’t do my best to maximise on its ability to perform. Then I realised what a weird unfair advantage to have. That it is indeed an unfair advantage. Now I’ll be clear I’ve been using my social media to promote by anti-aesthetic as a way to question the system. It’s a political stance. Then I had to think about it the advantages of having a symmetrical face. It’s biological programming that takes us way back beyond the history of humans and made me consider Jordan B Peterson and his take on hierarchical structures that are inherited via genetics. That the system goes far beyond the truama of consciously choosing. The System is deeply subconscious programming that is embedded in our DNA, not just our thought systems. Scientific or non-scientific.
We exist within structures that are bedded in our very genetics, that goes beyond infrastructure, accepted practices and even our very DNA. Social Media and particularly Instagram perpetuate as the system that has led me here. Writing. That on a very deep level. I am the system. I am genetically biased as to who I choose to share my sex life with. I’m biased as to how my trauma prays on in society and that even as much as I like and want to deconstruct myself. That there are some things I have yet to break down in myself. That I am system no matter what I might want to reject it. That accepting myself as am, that there are some things with myself that I am unable to change. That these might be the definitive lines of separation consciousness.
That then makes me question on a very deep level what is the self. Where do our choices of individuation play out in the development of character or even the curatorship of an Instagram profile? That’s a very funny thing to learn about ourselves. That we have inherited the systems we operate in and I wonder where that leads us at this current crossroads of humanity. Who am I? Who are you and what have inherited? More and more this seems to be the conversations that I have been left with… the conversation that we couldn’t have with the people nearest us. The trauma we have inherited. In fact, in many ways this is how my long-form conversations came about. That I have been resolving all the messiness of the world. Starting with conversations about our parents. Those things that we can’t resolve around them that we have to console to resolve in ourselves in our choices. What I see more and more what drew me to the Systemic Trauma work that I do is it is unlocking the inherited and see what is not our responsibility. We did not cause apartheid, white privilege, capitalism or even eco-anxiety we inherited it. It’s not ours and we don’t have to carry it. All we have to know is that we can put it down.
We have to put the burdens down to move beyond the system.
I am the only one of me in the world. However there is a chance my soul is shared. View all posts by kimberleen
Originally published at https://thelifedoula.com on May 9, 2020.
