This is something I personally need to discuss. Control is something that I find really hard to define, and really hard to express.
Is it the idea that I can do something? Wouldn’t that be competence? What about the idea of making someone do something that I want them to do? That would sound more like ordering or dictating. What if I nudged them to do it slowly? I guess that would be influence instead.
But control sounds like all that. Control, as a verb, is defined as “to exercise restraint or direction over; dominate; command”, “to hold in check; curb”, “to test or verify (a scientific experiment) by a parallel experiment or other standard of comparison.”, and “to eliminate or prevent the flourishing or spread of”. The first definition is the closest to what I’m thinking of.
To Dominate. Command.
That’s not something we can do easily. I don’t even think we can do that at all sometimes. We can force it for sure, but we can’t control many things. Often we say that we can’t control the weather, because it’s nature. If the wind blows, we can try to control it, but how do you control wind? We divert wind, making it turn turbines. We use wind to cool us down, because we realise when the wind blows, our heat moves away from us. But then if the wind blows too strong, whatever we have might blow away. The same goes for water, the same goes for the sun, for the natural world around us. We can’t control nature.
Then why do we think we can control other human beings? Are we not also natural? Why do we think that our thoughts and emotions should be forced onto someone else? To Dominate; Command. How could we command another human being? Are we not smarter than the wind? How does the wind carry intelligence that we do not have? And yet, we can’t control it. Is it the lack of intelligence that gives control? Perhaps control and intelligence are contradictory.
What are the control points for humans that we try to so hard to keep to? Societal norms: you need to be like this and that in order for us to accept you in as part of society. And we conform, falling to the influence of our forebears, of whom have held up traditions from generations before. Unaware, we are controlled, we are dominated, commanded. We listen, we follow. But we are natural, and we flow. Perhaps in itself, intelligence is control. Because we understand, and we are diverted, like the wind.
To Dominate; Command.
But there are many times, when I want to control myself. I am the raging wind, I am the wild dog, untamed. I want to be in control because I do see the societal norms and traditions, and I want to be a part of the normalcy. My mind is quite clear on some of its expectations, but somehow my natural body does not seem to follow suit.
My body goes against me, my emotions are not in control. I get flustered, I get upset, but these are things that I do not wish for. I am not dominated by myself, I am not in command. Instead, my emotions win over. I am dominated by my natural state, and I am overgrown internally.
There are scenes of huge winds, crashing waves, and the turmoils of natural disasters. These happen inside me, with my emotions. I feel like a volcano, bubbling deep inside, seething. I feel angry. There are times that I feel like there has been a grey day of rain within my heart. The sadness of loss pouring a downpour, washing away all sense of hope. All constructs of control that were set up, just slipping down the hill like a landslide.
Nature takes over my control, and I lose control to nature. I am dominated, and I am commanded by my emotions. But somehow, somewhere, there needs to be an assistance from somewhere else. I find that is the point where I find my place in religion, specifically in God.
I let Him control me; I let God dominate, command.
But that’s really easier as in idea than in the practical. Next week for part two I guess.