Of Sheep and Sheep Herders

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who like to tell others what to do and those who like (consciously or sub-consciously) to be told what to do and what not to do. Most of us, despite our illusions to the contrary, belong to the second category. I like to think of these categories as the sheep herders and their sheep. There is nothing wrong with being part of either category, but the truth is that as society advances, the number of sheep herders keeps going down. We become set in our ways, tied down by the norms of society, by relationships, and by laws. We learn to limit our capabilities, and as we move forward, we close all avenues that one might use to move away from the mainstream.

There are many examples of this self-limiting behavior strewn throughout human history. The ban on human cloning, the inability to choose one's own name or even religion. These are all testimonies to humanities sheep-like behavior. Once in a while though, a sheep will stray from the flock and discover a new path to the next level. But as societal controls tighten, we see less and less of that too. We play so many roles in our daily lives (software engineer at work, son/brother/husband at home) and have so many prerequisites for any task that we rarely find time to ponder the larger questions anymore.

A few thousand years ago, our ancestors could concieve moves as radical as new languages, new nations, or even new religions for themselves if they needed them. We on the other hand are hell-bent on fitting everything into pre-made moulds. Breaking the mould is out of fashion. We tell each other to think out of the box, where as very few of us are actually capable of doing it anymore. Instead, we satisfy our egos by thinking inside slightly larger boxes. And so continues the process of silently turning the human race into a anonymous mass of automatons.

Human society is a prison. Think about it.