Are we living in the jail of our mind?
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I love watching good documentaries. Recently, I binge-watched a lot of jail documentaries, check out this link if you want to watch them too.
The documentaries went into great detail describing the conditions of the institutions and the inmates. They talked about their sentences, how long they were serving. They also talked about the dynamics of the jail and how they have independent currencies and economies within the walls. It was fascinating for me to see that we as human beings can create our world, no matter how big or small, anywhere we want.
If you hear some of the inmates serving long sentences talk about their lives in the jail, you will see that all of them have gotten quite settled in that environment. They know the rules, what to do, what not to do, and how to pay for stuff. When they were asked about leaving the jail and what they will do afterward, all of them said that they would give anything to get that free breath of air but they didn’t know what they would do once they are out. According to them, technology has changed so much, and the world has moved on so much that they won’t know what to do or how to do it.
All of this sparked a thought in my mind that the jail is as much mental as it is physical. If someone locked you up in a small confine and didn’t give you any notice on when you’d leave, you’ll do everything to make yourself comfortable and that place your world. And if you lived long enough in that world, it will become extremely hard for you to imagine what the outside world looks like, how it feels like, and what is happening in there.
Sadly, it seems like we do live in a jail of our minds. We don’t even realize it but we are living in a self-induced mental jail. Just look at our lives for example and the daily routine that we follow. We are born, get an education, go to work, marry, have children, buy a house, and die. Isn’t this what most of our lives look like?
We human beings are curious by nature and curiousness demands exploration. This exploration is how we progress towards the future and it is what motivates us, and feeds our imagination. There are people in the world who have broken this mental jail and are capable of looking farther into the future. Those are the type of people who eventually lead humanity to a brighter future and fuel the dream of living amongst the stars.
Now my question to you after the realization that we are indeed living in a mental jail and the only difference between us and those inmates is that our jail is mental and theirs is physical. Will you be able to look into yourself and figure out your jail? will you be able to break the wheel? who knows, maybe you are destined for something great that you haven’t just figured out yet.