The following piece was conceived after reading one too many shallow comments posted on my Facebook (Fb) community scroll by old classmates, acquaintances and complete strangers given the reality of our current world troubles. This piece was written for this same Fb community. It’s an exercise in writing as much as anything, an opportunity to play with words and express some thoughts. After being posted on Thursday morning the initial reaction has been very positive.
Enjoy!
Ted
July 2, 2009
Why is your life so empty?
By
Ted Burnett
Why is your life so empty? The answer -- You've been lied to your whole life. The trouble all began when your parents brought you home from the hospital. Your role was to fill the void in their marriage, to plug a gaping hole. You did well for a brief time until you became a bundle of problems, yourself. Over the years, they told you who you were and what you would one day become. It was a lie. They insisted that you give up your integrity, dignity and sanity, in order, to live in their house and by their rules. Your needs were repeatedly neglected for their wants. Your childhood was an unhappy one.
They introduced you to church and convinced you that you were born a sinner. You were told that you needed to perform in some ritual to become a Church member in good standing, before and at the pleasure of the congregation, to purify your already clean soul. The trick worked and worked so well that you kept returning each Sunday morning to hear how you were a sinner and how God was angry with your innocent self. You swallowed the hook, line and sinker. You fell for the spell.
At the age of four or five years old, you were sent off to elementary school. There you were defined by your attendance, behavior and performance on assignments, papers, tests and exams. You were defined by your grades and ranked, accordingly. It was a lie and you have let it dictate your life ever since. During the first eighteen years of your life you were given a set of beliefs that were rooted in prejudices, fears and illusions, but well-meaning. It was never based in actual experience by any the above. They too were all lies. You are now cut-off from your fellow man by an inflated Ego, from your humanity and now you’re all alone. The world seems like a scary place, but that’s just another illusion. Without integrity, dignity and sanity, you graduated from high school lacking in self-esteem and in self-confidence, both, are critical for having any real success and personal fulfillment.
Now in your thirties and forties, you’ve never found your talents and it’s finally showing. Without your talents, you won't ever know how to rise up to your full potential and how to reach your destiny. You are not an actor, an artist, a composer, an inventor, a musician, a philosopher, a poet, a sculptor or a writer. You're none of these. Therefore, our society constantly reminds you that your best chance of "success" is in playing some foolish role on your own little stage for the “world” to see. It’s a short-cut straight to hell. Thus, you begin your first act, at the church, getting married to fill a spiritual void. It doesn’t work, so you have a baby to try to fill that same void. It doesn’t work, either.
Over the years, you tell your children who they are and what will become of them one day. You insist that they give up their integrity, dignity and sanity, in order, to live in your house and by your rules. Their needs are repeatedly neglected for your wants. Their childhood is an unhappy one, just like yours was. You tell them to get over it or simply bribe them.
Success, by today’s standard, has been defined as having lots of money, power and fame. It's to appear happily married when you’re really not, it’s to drive a luxury car or a big SUV, it’s to live in a McMansion at a prominent address and to send your children to private schools, it’s to be members of the country club or the next best thing in your small mind, it’s to run with all the “right” people who also haven't found their talents nor have they risen to their full potential and found their destiny. It’s all one big lie.
This is why your life is so empty. Wake Up! to this truth while you’re still young enough to do something about it.
How did you like that display of fireworks?
Have a great day.
Ted Burnett
Copyright © 2009, 2010. All Rights Reserved. “Why is your life so empty?” by Ted Burnett.
I am available for speaking, consulting and political advising. My other essays can be viewed at my blog – http://www.toxicnation.blogspot.com/. I can be contacted via email at – tebjr1@yahoo.com. My bio can be viewed at http://www.tedburnettresume.blogspot.com.
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11 comments:
Okay, okay. I'm awake!
Actually I came to similar conclusions long ago. Now I'm trying to figure out what to do about it. I'm in the mood for complete upheaval.
Thats deep & oh so true.
I think the realization makes it more difficult.U are awake and still helpless...
I look around envying at many who find their happiness in possessing and look forward for the next which make their life interesting...
me too join with anonymous .did realize it long long ago.
While I can appreciate the ideas here, they do seem to be incredibly negative and one sided.
Conformity, while frowned upon by some, is necessary for a society to function. The fact that this conformity is reduced here into a wholly negative and oppressive entity is extremely ignorant.
Sure, parents do put a lot of pressure on kids, but then so peers. The only way a society can function is to create these boundaries, and while they can seem oppressive, there simply is no alternative to it. To reduce this structure of corrections to a simple bile of negativity is immature and serves no other purpose than to encourage people to fight against nature and society..a society to which the individual will eventually have to return.
aside from that I appreciate the poetry of the thingy majig
Sinjinn,
Thanks for sharing your comments. However, what you are arguing for is a straight-jacket fit for this society to wear. Secondly, our society is anything, but natural. It's completely artificial and built on heavy amounts of brainwashing, conditioning by man's cherished institutions of family, church, school,
"capitalism", "democracy" and society.
It's dysfunctional and we're all drug addicts, as a result, to mask our pain and suffering. This truth is very ugly, but so is cancer. The question is -- Whether we should have the surgery or not? I'm advocating for the surgery, but first we have to agree that it's a cancer that's killing us.
Ted
I really love this and completely relate. But there doesnt seem to be any answer. This is our society in a nutshell. What other ways are there? Please help me find a new life
I think you are full of shit, and confusing people instead.You keep saying "wake up" yeah! We are awake. What is your solution? Just keep following you where you can make money from people who really want a answer. It is the same cycle you are like the others trying to get advance from innocent people looking for direction. What is next Atom? What we need to buy from you to know the true? Money , money , money is all about money...
What's he selling? This is on his blog for free.
I was labeled a sociopath when I was a kid. My IEP report stated that I have "severe antisocial disorder," with a "lack of emotions." They called me disturbed.
At the same time, I only met the psych twice. He based everything he said in my IEP on those two brief visits. Once in middle school, where he had me fill out some multiple choice tests, and once in high school, where I was pulled out of class to have a meeting where he tried to have an informal conversation.
The people that don't integrate well have been labeled through all of Western/European influenced society. The labels change throughout history but the reactions never do. Once we were witches to be burned at the stake, now we are sociopaths--or shy, stupid, defective--take your pick. Still things to be feared.
I went into a computer lab a few years ago. A man was threatening to kill everyone. He didn't have a weapon. He was just shouting. I was the one to stand up to him, and get him out. What I witnessed there was bystander apathy. It's a documented group-think phenomenon. People will go along with anything if they feel it helps group cohesion. They react the way the group they're contained in reacts.
There are multiple examples of such occurrences. The one you're all mostly familiar with is probably the Kitty Genovese case. Lady is stabbed to death in front of 38 witnesses. The rapist/murderer notices the witnesses, runs away. Comes back ten minutes later when no cops show up. Finishes. The group didn't help. It's all about group cohesion.
Same thing happened in China, recently. Two year old kid gets run over twice, ignored by 18 bystanders, some of whom even went so far as to walk around the blood. An outcast woman dragged her out of the street. Then she went on to be heckled and chastised by the social network, by members of her neighborhood, for her decision to be different and help.
It's interesting to note that almost every time that these things happen, if someone intervenes, they are an introvert. It's because they don't always cross check their response with the group response. They just react.
There have also been famous cases where crowds gathered around a building someone was threatening to jump off. When one person shouts "jump," the rest of the crowd always begins to shout "jump" as well. The individuals never know why they did it when questioned after the fact. It's known as suicide baiting. This is why police disperse crowds that gather around potential jumpers.
This is the way society is structured. Group cohesion matters above all else, and it sometimes turns us into monsters. We are trained to be this way, against our initial instincts.
Overly-extroverted people--they're infantile. They could not survive without the world of condemned introverts thinking for them in positions of authority.
And it's not working anymore. What we witness on a daily basis is massive-scale bystander apathy. People know things are fucked. Yet they do nothing. They feel they cannot because the group does not. This isn't normal. And we see outright hostility towards those who say so for the same reasons. Because it makes people uncomfortable and scared to think that this isn't normal. Things are not alright.
What a beautiful article this would have been? A little reflective but lacking in fundamental knowledge.
Its poise against faith ridicules the whole concept. Its disgruntled poise against parenting makes it sound despicable; like one taking a vengeful fits against ones upbringing. The very same mold of child rearing being criticized is the very same that produced great talents whose successes are the envy of our world today. Maybe you could have left the hate aside and do some objective reasoning here.
Um, actually final anonymous, he's selling 'Jesus'. Look at the rubric in the title banner. I feel the empyiness described here, but the notion that religious escapism is the cure is as phony as the all the other causes listed.
Fine post nevertheless, and the best of the comments here...
DavePage
Who are you? Whats your conditioning and what is the real you? Does you ego need fixing are you in agreement with yourself. Is living a life by defining your values more 'full' than 'empty'? Can you think too much?
I can't answer any of these posts even my own.
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