Imagine to Remember

“The way you get people to testify against themselves is not to have police tactics and oppressive techniques. What you do is build it in so people learn to distrust everything in themselves that has not been sanctioned, to reject what is most creative in themselves to begin with, so you don’t even need to stamp it out.”

Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider

This begins first in the family but the community and the larger culture all act as agents of this process; conditioning and domesticating. They mold, shape, contour and contort the child to quite literally fit in a preordained role. They do this with the best of intentions. Their own parents did the same. The world is cruel to children, or really anyone who seems stand apart. We are quick to reign these people back in. If they persist we punish them. Myths and fairytales are replete with the story of the outcast and misfits. It is one of our most ancient and profound fears, to not fit in.

When conditioning is successful the parents and teachers can step back, the child will surveil themselves, the external force is rendered unnecessary. But the creative force in us all is never truly stamped out. Energy does not die but it is only transmuted. Often, it becomes an aggression that is turned back on the self. Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes writes “Pressure to be “adequate” in whatever manner authority defines it, can chase the child away, or underground, or set her to wander for a long time looking for a place of nourishment and peace”.

Socialization can take place without wounding. For many of of us our task is to tend to the child within, to nurture her creative talents and passion for life. To find the faint ember of that spark and to ignite it again.