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Rules? Rules… Rules!

Last time we met in nowhere dot com, I spoke about signs. And I promised a follow-up. Here it is!

What are signs but rules, in a sense. Rules in a symbolic form. Do this, don’t do that. We have come to a point of having rules for just about everything.

Rules for parenting, rules for being a kid, rules for being a boy, rules for being a girl, rules for banking, lawyering, doctoring, farming, building, even destroying.

It’s like you can’t even do anything without signing on the dotted lines that you will abide by the rules. Even when you go to some places to have fun.

Strictness of Being

I understand the desire for rules. To many it would seem as if the entirety of society would fall into chaos and disorder without them. And in some ways, especially through human history, that’s probably true. There were reasons to create rules.

But even through history we see rules changing. Laws of the past were often far stricter than they are now. Yet in other ways, today’s complexities of society have caused a need for more complicated rules about everything, not just about criminal activity.

Some rules may still be needed, yes, in order to maintain the safety and well-being of people.

In the end, however, rules create a certain strictness of being, limiting the free expression of souls in this life. The child finds free play in joy until the adult says: “Stop running around and having fun.” (I exaggerate only slightly, as I’ve seen this in situations that absolutely did not call for such rules.)

A child, just like all our souls, lives to play and explore his or her life. And rules can restrict that.

What if by extending beyond the so-called rules of a society, by being outside the norm, a person might experience just what it needs and expand its own consciousness to new levels?

Writings as Stricture

As I write this I realize the irony of the above subheading. But I never offer my writings as mandates or rules, dogma or otherwise. They are ideas, just that, and take them or leave them they are meant to stretch your thinking, those who read.

Taking any written text, spiritual or legal or the like, and basing all of your decisions in life on those prescriptions, is limiting. Even the rule book of grammar could technically limit my writing process if I followed it perfectly. I’m not, if you are paying attention.

Eat salad with this fork, dinner with that, put your comma here and not there, do this because the good book says and never do that or you will be damned to hell. Well, I’ll be, what an idea.

Writings can be like stricture. Yes, stricture, not scripture, which is the ideal. But the ideals have been obscured by misinterpretations, translations, and omissions. The written word, the televised word, the internet word, should always be taken with a grain of salt.

What does your heart say to you? Tune in to how you feel. Do these words make sense to you? Do the ones you read elsewhere?

Just ideas. Take ‘em or leave ‘em.

What rules have you encountered in life that do not make sense to you? Do you ever bend the rules? Break them? Comment and share.

Blessings to all,

Matthew