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%JACK ESCAPING CONVENTIONALITY 801220
Jack and Jill have been living conventional lives.
Their assumptions, perceptions, questions, answers,
desires, feelings, etc. have been conventional---in
conformity with cultural norms. They have taken for
granted that conventionality is normal; that human
behavior always conforms to conventional behavior
patterns. Any instance of unconventional behavior would
be perceived as inhumane and threatening to them. Even
more threatening would be someone who asserted that it was
perverse to permit conventions to dominate personal
assumptions, perceptions, questions, answers, desires,
feelings, etc.; and that real persons are and should be
free to transcend conventions---to behave wisely in terms
of profound personal perceptions, insights, intuitions,
desires, and feelings. To conventional Jack and Jill such
a claim appears as a leak in the dike which protects their
community against the ocean of undisciplined passions.
One day Jill begins to perceive the perverse effects
of rigid conventionality. She is frightened by her
perceptions---but cannot with integrity suppress them and
forget them. She loves Jack conventionally, but yearns to
learn what it would be like to love Jack in ways which
transcend conventionality. Yet, she fears that were she
to admit her yearnings to Jack, he would be so frightened
that he would conventionally reject her, excommunicate
her, leaving her without even conventional love. She is
married in a tradition where marriage is supposed to be
exclusive and forever---so to be rejected by Jack is
tantamount to death.
Jill becomes aware that John has had perceptions and
yearnings tending toward the transcendence of
conventionality. She, bit by bit, comes to trust John
more than she feels free to trust Jack. While learning
what it is like to love John in ways which transcend
conventionality, she maintains her conventional marriage
to Jack with whom she does not feel free to be honest.
Society rewards her dishonest conventional behavior, and
would punish her if she were honest about her honest
relationship with John. She finds it difficult to live
with integrity within her conventional society, and plants
the seeds of revolution with hope and faith that future
generations will not be so imprisoned by conventionality.
(c) 2005 by Paul A. Smith in
www.essayz.com Search for Integrity and Honesty
(On Being Yourself, Whole and Healthy)
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