Through contraction

The development of the self begins through contraction. We start life as a blank slate full of possibilities and we slowly begin to understand where the battery limits lie by being told what we cannot do. Rules are set and we observe how our peers are behaving and when we veer too far we are proded back into submission.

Ostensibly, everyone who is born into a culture learns to suppress instinct in one manner or another if it does not fit within the boundaries of what is expected. The building of walls within our psyche is how we learn who we are supposed to be.

Authenticity is often in conflict with this way of educating a child but human beings are deeply fearful of being singled out and rejected and parents will often push their child into obeying even as they know their spirit is being choked.

Growing into the self involves learning that much in what we were taught in childhood was convention rather than useful truth. However we were not able to discern until much older and then undertake a journey to remove these walls which was made more difficult because the indoctrination had been so pervasive and scars already formed from the experience of rejection.

To varying degrees, people succeed in becoming truly authentic beings but it requires tenacity and the willingness to sometimes stand out. The alternative is to remain obedient and live an entire life with those walls intact and possibilities unfulfilled.

By the end we know all too well that the people who taught us didn't know much about anything at all but were just obeying orders. They were simply doing to us what was done to them.