What Even is Education?
And how does it affect our identity?
And how does it affect our identity?
A phrase I hear often is “we are all one. We are all connected.”
While I do wholeheartedly believe that, I think there is something missing.
If we believe that everything and everyone is connected, then why do we try so hard to separate our beingness. Why must we exhale science in order to breathe in art? Why is the idea of work and life so disjointed that we feel we must categorize and compartmentalize our very existence, if we truly believe that we are all connected. We limit the possibilities of connections within the structures of our schools and move into boxes that keep our minds narrow while fed the ideas that we must stick to our “chosen” identities.
But when you look at the research, it is shown time and time again that the ones that make the largest innovations are the ones that refuse to be taken out of that conduit of connectivity. We write it off as rare as we continue to build our education on a foundation designed to keep us as factory drones, something that was established to churn out loyal workers during the Industrial revolution.
If you truly believe we are all connected, then maybe it’s time to begin breaking down the very identities that you are conditioned to believe keep you separate.
The Education System
I don’t believe in education.
Let me rephrase that.
I don’t believe in the education systems that we have established to build a culture of socialized individuals that are not unlike a cog in a machine. I don’t believe in an education system that focuses on rule-following over mind expansion; a system that has become so obsessed with itself that it would rather send children into the prison system instead of helping children learn emotional awareness, compassion and critical thinking.
I worked as a special-needs assistant teacher for a few months and my sister was working as a correctional officer. And the entire time, all I was learning was how much like prison the education system really is. I would experience my day, hear hers; and the correlations were too stark that I didn’t want to believe it.
It’s not that a school itself is inherently evil or wrong. I think it has a lot to do with the education system’s root in religion. That was what classes were originally created for, to get scripture to the masses; to show children how to behave under God’s will.
As things progressed and the Industrial Revolution began and people moved away from farms and into cities; the education system had to follow suit.
And to critique the education system would be a critique on the very nature of our existence itself. Because the education system is just an extension of humans creating a method to control others. We develop these rulebooks to tell us how we are meant to live and exist on this plane, because we are so uncomfortable with not having structure. Education is the new religion.
We are using the same system that was developed in the 20th century, but with new gadgets, which is founded on this concept of anxiety-induced learning, rigid rule-following and putting people into such a state of sheep-like consciousness, and wonder why anxiety is sky-rocketing, why the gaps in wealth are increasing, why the more people that go to college, the fewer people seem to be making. And on top of that, we have a prison system that looks almost identical to the inner workings of a school.
Instead of meeting children where they are and showing support and compassion, we make “zero-policy” rules that seem to only get acted upon for certain children, as a way to send them into the prison pipeline at a young age. Some argue this is due to shortages of resources, others say it isn’t a problem at all and is saving the students, and I just see it as a societal attachment to control.
There are even some arguments that the elite tried to establish reform in order to generate “patronage” workers and construction contracts. Using education to create workers that are loyal to the companies that don’t possess the skills or mindset to break out of that routine; essentially workhorses that don’t realize they are being controlled.
Just like money, education is not the problem. The problem is how we utilize it. John Dewey was someone that actively fought against the typical education system, setting up laboratory schools to promote a “command of self” in learning.
Now my purpose in this is not to go through the entire history and atrocities of the education systems, there is more than enough material out there. My purpose is to bring attention to the ways in which the modern education system is promoting self-limiting beliefs and essentially teaching us to stay below our potential. In that attention, maybe you’ll feel called to research history and relearn what education means for your experience on this here ole Earth.
Because a lot of people ask me why I don’t continue higher education. Why I, someone who excelled in the structured school system, did not want to continue on to a PhD. And this is my thought.
If Da Vinci can excel without a proper education system. If all the scientific breakthroughs, the math, language, art, can have all been birthed into this world without our modern education system, why do I need to take out a loan that I will be paying for the rest of my life to be told what I books I need to read and what my identity needs to be?
Because for me, that’s the true atrocity of schooling. That it places identities on us and teaches us that those identities are rooted in achievement, and pushes us to believe that we are bound to these identities, that they are a weight sewn to our backs that we must carry to every phase of life. That we wear our identities across our forehead in permanent ink. If you have trouble getting good grades as a child, you are now a “bad learner.” You are now bad at math or science or english. You are labeled as such and are then not allotted certain opportunities based on that identity. If you are bad at math, you don’t get to go to college to be a scientist. If you are a bad test-taker, you are not capable of going to law school, and on and on. And that is only identity based on our work. That is just the tip of the iceberg.
Moving into Identity
We get told the identities we must hold through relationship identities, personality types, our jobs, our sex.
And it is so hard to detach and shed from all these identities. We are shown from a very young age that these stick to us like leeches. We are shown that even though we say people can change, the vilification of those that have “fallen” and placed in a perpetual system of atonement tells us otherwise.
To shed an identity is an act of rebellion against life itself. And I fucking love it.
I have written down every identity that I feel has been placed on me over the years, because for most, identities are projected onto us rather than decided by us. I wrote through these projections and wrote why I was that identity and why I am not. And this has made me think a lot about what I guess I’ll call The ritual of contradiction. And I believe in this ritual, we can take a piece of existence and you can put it in this crystal. The crystal of contradiction; you can see how it refracts and all these angles and then pull it out and THEN decide, who do I want to be, what essence do I want to hold. And I think it’s very easy to get into this idea that the contradiction has to make the decision.
And this goes into this art piece I’ve made, where I said, duality is a mistake. And that’s how I’ve always felt, but it’s been difficult to put into words what this feeling is. I think this ritual is a gift to given to constantly negate the very structures of society. It keeps us grounded in our pursuit of learning through experience.
Duality is a Mistake
We become attached to contradiction as an act of duality, that things must be either or. How many times have you heard light vs dark, good vs evil? Everything has an opposite, supposedly, but I don’t feel that way.
This thought came about when I was asked what is the opposite of love? And some people say hate is the opposite of love, some people say indifference. For me, it’s not a word, but a feeling. I see love as an expansion and the opposite as introspection and contraction; taking away, minimizing. I started realizing, that is everything. Everything is either expansion or contraction. Exhale or Inhale. I think the inhale and exhale that we live moment to moment, is where this contradiction starts, this ritual begins. We don’t have to think about it, we just breathe and exist. But now, we create these opposing forces and believe they are determining factors in life; that we have to make decisions based on what we think are good or bad. But, the whole process is needed. You need to exhale and inhale to live. So the ritual of contradiction is just a way to gain knowledge and gain new perspectives on your experience. It does not mean you make decisions from it.
But I’ve become obsessed with the idea that there is nothing other than the ritual of contradiction itself. As a mode we get to use in our little virtual game; goggles we get to put on our character. A mode by which we get to explore the very fabric of our existence, instead of making decisions.
When we move away from this idea that everything has to be balanced, that there is always an opposite, and see that the ritual of contradiction stands alone as itself, we can start to shed these identities and explore something else; something I like to consider as an essence.
Each day I get to wake up and decide, what essence do I want to breathe in and live as. And every moment you get to ask yourself that. Because every moment is a breath. Every moment is an inhale of life and every exhale is breathing out death. And that is how I’m choosing to live from now.
Because that attachment to identity, something that is so external to us is something that we cannot control, because they’re just projections of other peoples’ shit onto us.
You fix this part of me.
You make me happy.
You make me do this.
You make me sad.
You’re this person. And you can’t change that because that is your identity.
But, we’re all just mirrors, walking around bumping into each other, showing each other reflections of self, of an essence that we might not have seen if we didn’t bump into that person.
We’re just atoms bumping around, hoping something doesn’t explode.
And I think the first identity we can shed is this idea we have to go into a structured education system to learn and better ourselves, because that is just false. I know people with Phds that are so narrow-minded and others that haven’t made it out of high school and know so much more than I do. It really is about this connectivity of everything. Everything is connected. We don’t have to separate based on these identities, based on these classes of subjects that we believe are separate. If you believe art is separate from science, I don’t know how to relate to you.
I think math is involved with art, which is involved with science, which is involved with english. Because everything is just systems to better understand our existence as humans. Every subject is just rapid-fire connectivity of everything and on top of that, every human is connected, on top of that everything in nature is connected and it just compounds over and over. And for me, I don’t want to hold onto this idea of identity anymore.
Especially in the school system, it doesn’t make sense. There is no rulebook to being human. If you tell yourself that and you make these systems of education that there is a structured plan of educating everyone, then you’re going to get a lot of people that are left behind. Yes, there are certain ways that our brains process information that is common, but I wouldn’t say that it is absolute. We create things in absolute terms and there are all these groups of people that get left behind, yet we think it’s the only way to live.
But this was created how many years ago and it’s barely changed?
And that’s the problem with identity; we don’t know how to shed it. We don’t know how to leave behind and remove this skin of identity, on a personal level, individually, and on a collective, systematically. We have all these systems that are clearly not working, but we tell ourselves that this is the identity of this system and it has to be this way.
Now, the only way I know how to change the collective is to change yourself first.
For me, I’ve gone through all these identities and asked myself, “do I want to hold this?” Do I want someone to come to me, good or bad, and tell me who I am? Some people tell me I’m an artist and I’ve really had to sit with that and ask if I want to hold that identity anymore. I get so much anxiety about identifying as an artist that I don’t know if it’s worth holding onto anymore. I’m still going to create art, but I do it to create an essence.
Art is a tool for me to create that essence. It doesn’t mean its my identity. It doesn’t mean I’m only worthy as the art I put out. Same thing if I say I’m a writer. I’m not, yet I am. And that’s the beauty of being able to put on these essence jackets and asking “Do I want this right now?” and if not, leave it to the side. It doesn’t mean you can’t go back and pick it; it’s just put aside. You are not limited to the things you get to feel and experience.
You want to make art one day? Be feminine another? Masculine? Anything you can think of, any piece of essence, it is the same with emotions. They are temporary, and you can put them on like a jacket and take them off whenever you are ready to. And that’s the beauty of being human and learning on this world; the one thing we all experience is the emotional scale.
Maybe write down each emotion and then where you feel it in your body. How does it show up for you? What is that definition, for you? Do you think it’s a bad thing, to experience that emotion? Can you get to decide which emotions to hold today, like an essence?
I wake up and decide, I want to embody joy today, or rage, or love and romance or anything really. Even embodying the emotions that we don’t think are that great.
I think rage is a much more powerful tool than I did three years ago when I was suppressing it constantly. I was so afraid of having anger that I shut everything down and learned, I was dissociating from everything. I was avoiding life.
And I think that’s what we do when we hold onto these identities; we try to avoid life. We try to avoid being vulnerable. Because if you don’t have an identity and can slip into anything, that means you actually have to show up.
If you have the identity that you’re lazy, you don’t have to commit to yourself. You don’t have to devote time to yourself. You don’t have to show up as your authentic self because people have labeled you a certain way. It kind of is a cop out, but also an opportunity to say “hey, I don’t want that identity anymore. I’m going to leave it and let it go.”
And this happens all the time. If you want to get into the science of everything, I really recommend Joe Dispenza books. There is a psychological aspect in them. You see who you used to be or identify as and then you create the person that you want to embody moving forward and you can see yourself leaving behind that old person and creating new systems to fully embody the new. You’re really letting go of these limiting beliefs, finding where you learned this. Where did you learn you were lazy? You didn’t tell yourself that.
You grew up and there were certain things that happened or you were shown certain things that you took on and absorbed and now you’re living with the idea that you’re lazy. You’re thinking you can’t do certain things and certain experiences aren’t available to you because of this identity.
But, our brains are malleable. Our brain is a muscle we get to train every day. You get to show up and decide if you want to change it or keep it the same; it’s up to you. And I’m not saying identities are wrong or that we have to drop everything and you can’t have one. I’m saying, if you’re so sick of holding onto an identity, if you’re so sick of being associated with certain aspects, you don’t have to hold onto that. You can choose differently. You can be differently.
And there is this connectivity of everything that we are so focused on action here, so focused on the masculine energy in life right now that we forget that we can embody things and it’s more about the beingness and the receiving. You can say “I want to be abundant. I want to receive. I don’t want to go out and prove myself.”
There is no ritual on Earth, that you have to do in order to prove your worth; you just are. And when you get to decide that, then your life changes.
And I know this is a really roundabout way of talking about education versus now, but I thought the education system was a great place to start because it really is that deep. It really is echoing through your existence. And you get to look at everything, in that crystal of contradiction. You get to put everything you’ve experienced in there, and refract all the experiences and meanings and decide to choose a little piece of energy, pull it out and embody it, leaving the rest of the shit behind.
While I know the education system had good intentions and we created it, just like money, was there to elevate society, it’s just not working anymore. Unfortunately right now, it’s our decision how we want to move forward. Those systems are starting to crumble so now, we get to decide we don’t need to be a part of that anymore. Everything that was taught, every limiting belief the education system gave me, I’m going to leave it behind. Because that is a part of the system’s projection onto me, that is not my projection of self.
And it’s not just the education system, it is everything. The things marketed to you, companies that offer products, they all show up as if you are not complete without their product, system or rule. Because you are not worthy unless you have this thing, or achieve that milestone. And that is the whole function of consumerism. Consumerism cannot function if you believe you are whole and worthy as yourself authentically.
Let that sink in.
There is a lot to dig up and uncover. I just want to use this space a as a way to provide the activation for you to look at it for yourself and decide the things you really care about.
As an example, for a long time, I kept getting told I needed to get married, needed a husband. My first job was at a race track and these old men would come up to me and ask why are you working? Why are you going to college? You’re too pretty to work, just get married.
And I kept hearing that over and over. I mean this was an extreme example so it was easy to say screw that, but it was still a projection placed on me. And then I got into a serious relationship and started questioning everything, I kept thinking “Am I actually supposed to get married?”
I saw all these girls around me had these plans for their future weddings and then I started questioning myself. I’ve never had that, never had that thought of “if I get married I want this, this and this.”
And I’m not shading anyone who does that. I respect that if that’s what you want. But, I had this projection that really made me question if I really wanted that identity. And on top of that, if I said no, it turned into this other identity of being a harlet, or would become a cat mom or all these other identities that go along with not wanting to get married. So I had to look at all of those through this ritual of contradiction, at these identities that everyone kept listing off about me and asking if I had to hold onto any of them?
And the answer is no.
And everytime you do that, you move a little bit closer into your worth and authenticity. You find the essence you want to hold. You get to be different every single day. You don’t have to be the same person. You can be different with every breath you take.
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