We can understand what is happening around us at every stage of life. Over time, we accumulate more and more explanations about how the world works. It starts when we are small children and try to understand how the world works and what are the rules that adults try to dictate to us.
It continues in adolescence, when we try to form a reasoned opinion about these rules: what is our perception of the world? And do we agree with the rules that have been dictated to us so far? Finally, we become adults and our happiness revolves around examining the explanations we have collected so far about how the world works.
The common value of all these stages of adolescence is control. If we are certain and we understand what is happening and what is the reason for what is happening, we can feel an illusion based on a lack of consciousness. This consciousness connects certainty with free choice. It assumes that once a person knows and understands the situation, he can freely choose what happens to him. This is usually a false assumption, because free choice does not depend on anything. If a person needs explanations and certainty for his security – it is no longer a free choice.
What is control?
Control is the use of certainty to boost self-confidence. Through control, people feel that they know how to explain to themselves what is happening and as a result, they tell themselves that the data can give them confidence to choose in a way that will not cause unwanted results. Through control, people try to create explanations for various phenomena in their lives through generalization. Logic works in generalizations based on clear laws.
For every phenomenon that a person feels has no explanation, he tries to find the common denominator between it and the logic that happened in the past. If there is such a common denominator, the feeling of control floods the heart and there is a calmness of certainty. If there is no such common denominator, there are two options: If the person feels that the issue does not threaten him, he will feel curious to investigate and learn a new explanation that will fit into his existing logic. If the person feels that the issue threatens him, he will activate one of his defense mechanisms.
Types of Control
There are two types of control, but unlike other elements of the lack consciousness, the two types of control are intertwined to ensure that people associate certainty with free choice as a necessary condition.
- Internal control – the ability of a person to maintain certainty and familiarity with everything that happens inside him while filtering out what he feels is foreign to him and comes from outside.
- External control – the ability of a person to adapt external reality to a defined internal logic, while accepting as a fact of life only what fits this logic.
As soon as the two types of control are intertwined, free choice becomes self-contradictory. That is, choice cannot be made free when it is conditioned by certainty and in accordance with past conclusions.
Control and free choice
Control contradicts free choice. It is not possible to make a choice free when it has such a deep internal dependence, to the point of resolution that it can be indistinguishable. Just like self-dependence, which can be perceived as the greatest independence, control can make the most dependent free choice feel almost completely independent. Control arises from a need for certainty as a condition for free choice, while free choice creates certainty by the very decision. Control frees free choice from creating certainty. As a result, people realize that they do not have the right to choose their own beliefs, feelings, and thoughts. They think they are responding to the environment when in fact they are responding to their past conclusions.
In other words, control has two main effects on free choice:
- Control makes free choice dependent on past conclusions, until complete certainty on the subject is obtained and a sense of satisfaction arises.
- Control makes free choice questionable, because it seeks a justification to uphold it.
The meeting point of control and development
The effects of control on free choice presented here in the previous paragraph actually create a gap between the desired and the existing. This gap is an opportunity to go through a life lesson in a balanced way. To discover the ability that life wants to equip you with, along with reducing the gap between the desired and the existing in your life and getting out of thoughts based on lack.
Development meets control precisely at these two points:
- If free choice depends on past conclusions – as the development process progresses, control moves to being based on future desires. When conclusions are based on future desires, the listening to emotions is greater and authenticity expands.
- Control seeks reference for the existence of free choice – Development creates reference for the existence of free choice and does not use anything existing, and thus the sense of innovation is increased.
The starting point of control
The need for control is created after the creation of the mind and ego system. It is the executive arm of the systems that teach people to believe in lack. In other words, the division of roles of the mind and the ego changes after the need for control is created:
- The mind – holds the missing feelings and releases them for independent activity.
- The ego – explains in terms of self-worth why there are not enough skills and abilities, or there were not enough skills and abilities in the past to solve problems.
- The need for control – is the hope of these two systems, through which the lack creates an emotional connection and identification. If you acquire enough tools, experiences and actions, then you reach a goal that is considered almost unattainable in the eyes of the mind and the ego.
Intentional and spontaneous changes in the state of control
Every person has the right to choose what he wants and does not want to control. If a person wants to control a certain issue, he must recognize the motive. If the motive for control is the satisfaction of a lack, it is a sign that he is in a closed circle because a lack that is not satisfied opens up another lack that will bother him until it is fully satisfied. On the other hand, if a person chooses not to control a certain situation, here too he should understand the motive, because the motive dictates the creation of reality more than the will.
The will is part of the person while the motive (the inner reason) is where the person is. As long as the filter of the motive reflects authenticity and not a motive of lack, the choice of what to control and what to release is balanced.
In conclusion, we can use any element that stems from lack and also control it in any way we see fit. As long as we do it from an authentic motive and not from a motive of lack, everything will work out exactly as we want without having to control factors that are not related to us, but with full cooperation.
