Control is an Illusion

My life is about control. I think yours is too. Most of us put it in different terms security, happiness, peace of mind, goals. But it really means control. Sometimes we don't even notice how we need control. We fear the unknown: places, people different from us. We dislike things that we feel we can't control: animals, weather. We harbor in cities and comfortable neighborhoods. We sacrifice freedoms to gain a semblance of security, control.

In my case, I fear people most of all. I can't control them at all. I don't understand them. Where some fear wild animals, weather, oceans, wilderness, I am actually more comfortable there because in those situations what I can't control is obvious and the elements I can't control make sense. They behave according to laws or principles. Granted many don't understand this, but it's true. A shark isn't being deceitful. It is what it is. It behaves a certain way. We can interact, or avoid interaction based on those rules. And behind it all, these things submit to my God. They are loyal to his order. But people are not. They cheat and deceive, change on a whim, hide, manipulate, and even randomly act without sense. They are not bound to follow God's order...ultimately they are of course, but they have a choice to act against God where elements and wildlife do not, or at least very very rarely ever choose to go against that order.

But in all honesty, whatever ways we strive for control, it is always an illusion. We had no say in when, where, or how we were born, the conditions of our life, the state of our health. We have very little control over these things in our ongoing lives. We can manage risk factors, but even this is no guarantee. Any doctor, philosopher, warrior, gambler, or statistician would say so. I do not pay my bills by my own strength. I simply push out that buffer of security as far as I am able; to the limit of reasonable risk. But this is hollow. It could all end at any moment. I have no guarantees and could do nothing about it anyway.

Perhaps this is what bothers me so much about a life that seems blind to this reality. Perhaps this is why I feel so much at ease in the wild where others find even less control. There, I am free to let myself be out of control. To focus on the next moment only. The next breath, the next stroke, the next hand-hold. At any slip I could die. There I am fully in the hands of my God.

The trick is, I am never less in His hands. Not at work, or among the crowd of riotous partiers, not lying on my futon. I do not need to fear even there. I have no more control in these situations. I only have more illusion of it. I have no less control in the others, only less illusion of it. That's why I hate this work-a-day life so much. It is a lie, a blinding fluffy down of comfort that smothers all objections and dulls all senses back to sleep. I will get out of it. I don't know how or when, but it is coming.

Perhaps I have more to learn before that can become a reality for me. Perhaps I need to learn to trust in each moment. To live in that freedom that comes knowing I have nothing to do for my life. I need to learn to trust Him that fully. In that trust, I'll be able to enjoy each moment the fullest. Savoring each good thing, caring not a lick for the maybe, and enduring the bad with patience and resilience.

We often hear that this is possible in our regular lives. God doesn't require us to move or change anything really. Only to change our attitude. And that is true in a way. But it is often taken too far out of context. So far that it becomes an excuse for perpetuating the life-sucking institutions that feed the illusions we are so addicted to.