I really don\u2019t like to admit this, not even to myself, but I am a cog. It\u2019s not something I chose to be \u2014 it just sort of happened. I guess I can take comfort in the fact that I\u2019m not the only cog. Really, what use would one cog be? A cog has to mesh with other cogs to do whatever a cog \u2014 or a group of cogs \u2014 does. As the gears of society turn, yielding some kind of quasi-useful result, they must be where they are, integrated into a large network within some great machine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now when I say I\u2019m a cog I don\u2019t mean I\u2019m a circular object with teeth. No, I\u2019m a human cog, incorporated into a human powered machine, otherwise known as \u201csociety\u201d. I wasn\u2019t always a cog. I had to be shaped and calibrated to make sure I would fit in and function according to the needs of society. I received my preliminary specifications from my family, reflecting the use and function of my parents and other relatives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the real process of making sure I fit in was when I was sent to school. It was a painful process, as I remember it. My individual predilections were filed down so that I would mesh properly \u2014 but in spite of this I never really did. It wasn\u2019t that I didn\u2019t try to adapt \u2014 I just really couldn\u2019t \u2014 some flaw in the way I developed, I suppose. And for a long time, I blamed myself for my dysfunctionality. I thought there was something wrong with me. It didn\u2019t occur to me that maybe the whole process itself \u2014 the attempt to turn human beings into cogs \u2014 might have been the real problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It took me a while to realize this. All the other cogs seemed to be humming along without any significant issues. Oh, there were a few misfits here and there, troublemakers and class clowns, but most of the cogs quietly went about performing as they were expected, even as internal pressures often led to breakage and malfunctions later on. If you weren\u2019t a good cog you were told that you would face a bleak future of rejection and isolation. So, I tried to be a good cog \u2014 I tried until I reached the breaking point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was only when I broke \u2014 when I failed \u2014 that I began questioning the wisdom of regarding human beings as machine parts. Fortunately, I wasn\u2019t the only one. There have been many others \u2014 rebels and deep thinkers \u2014 who didn\u2019t accept the role of being a cog. Reading and learning about them helped me feel a little better about myself, realizing that my failure as a cog didn\u2019t mean I was a failed human. It is, in fact, my humanity and my inner insistence on expressing these individual qualities that were at odds with my being pigeonholed and exploited by the machine. It\u2019s when we lose our sense of being unique, flesh and blood beings with a spark of the spirit within us in order to conform to the program that we lose what is most essential to our existence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But even with this realization, I came to see that not being a cog led to another set of problems. It\u2019s not easy surviving in this world if you reject your place in society as a cog. It\u2019s hard to make a living and you find that your circle of friends may not be so large \u2014 especially if the only other people with whom you come into contact are cogs. There are scattered enclaves of non-cogs, but they are usually difficult to find. And even when you do find them, those other non-cogs are facing their own personal issues and fiscal challenges. Still, misery loves company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m not sure when people began this transformation into being cogs. It probably goes back to the dawn of civilization, when laws began taking the place of actual human interactions. Instead of dealing with our differences on an interpersonal level, we were told that we have to behave in a specific way, to save time and trouble, reducing the complexity of communicating and trying to reach a consensus to a kind of shorthand approach. Up to that point disagreements and differences of opinion were negotiated in an ad hoc way. That was fine, I guess, when people were familiar with each other and trusted each other to be fair. But when villages became towns and cities, that level of intimacy was difficult to achieve.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think things really started changing, however, with the growth of industry, when efficiency and expediency became the benchmarks of success and supremacy. It made sense to those who developed these systems that adapting human behavior to the same kind of regime would lead to the ability to dominate and control the marketplace. And those who employed these principles did succeed and forced others out of the game. And so, over time, this mindset became more and more predominant, displacing a more human-centered approach. People became cogs \u2014 or were left out. Non-cogs survived, but with more difficulty. The trend was clear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s hard to say, though, which is worse: being a cog or a non-cog \u2014 at least from the point of view of basic everyday survival. When it comes to issues of the soul and personal integrity, however, the non-cogs have the edge, hands down. It\u2019s often hard, if not impossible, to be true to yourself and function normally within the machine, because the needs of the machine tend to squelch a sense of personal responsibility and morality in favor of impersonal, reactive, mechanistic procedures. Efficiency supersedes compassion and a consideration of our basic emotional and spiritual needs. While time is saved and productivity is increased through mechanization, the price is woefully high.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Facing this quandary, I have to confess that I\u2019ve fallen back into being a cog \u2014 a self-aware cog, perhaps, but a cog nonetheless. I\u2019m not proud of this, but I\u2019ve made my peace with it to some extent. I\u2019ve done what I can to find another way \u2014 a way to survive without being a cog \u2014 but it may be that I\u2019ve been a cog for so long that I\u2019ve lost the means to find that path. I work for a living, as the phrase goes. I spend my days servicing the machine in order to collect a paycheck, acting as if all the busy work generated by our mechanical culture is actually necessary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Part of what makes it so hard to survive as a non-cog is the degree to which so many others fall right into the role, making the unhappy plight of being a machine component the only game in town \u2014 or at least leading to the impression that this is so. If more people opted to be non-cogs, a larger network of such individuals would ultimately supplant the current paradigm, creating a more organic, humane way of living. But making that leap \u2014 taking that chance \u2014 is difficult. So, it is up to the lone voices of dissent to spread the word \u2014 and the word is spreading, only very slowly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the meantime, I remain a cog, following a flow chart like some hapless electron in a circuit board, carrying out the often-inane duties that are assigned to me in exchange for a few crusts of bread. What\u2019s worse than the pointless activity is the sense of being trapped \u2014 of feeling there is no other choice. That is the essence of being a cog: staying in place, performing your duty, asking few if any questions and feeling that your soul is irrelevant, pointless and extraneous. Ultimately it doesn\u2019t seem to matter whether you even exist, knowing that you are expendable and easily replaced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I haven\u2019t given up hope. I know there is a deeper meaning beyond being a mere tool \u2014 I\u2019ve seen it and I sense it. Where life persists, a deeper, stronger truth ultimately prevails. The severe limits of the mechanism are easy to see once it\u2019s pointed out to you. The conflict between what we truly are and what we\u2019re forced to be takes a tremendous toll on us, leading to anxiety, depression and a host of other problems. The limitations of just serving the narrow interests of a shortsighted agenda will at some point compel us to break free from this deception. It\u2019s only a matter of time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I really don\u2019t like to admit this, not even to myself, but I am a cog. It\u2019s not something I chose to be \u2014 it just sort of happened. I guess I can take comfort in the fact that I\u2019m not the only cog. Really, what use would one cog be? A cog has to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/considerthealternative.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/considerthealternative.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/considerthealternative.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/considerthealternative.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/considerthealternative.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/considerthealternative.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47,"href":"https:\/\/considerthealternative.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44\/revisions\/47"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/considerthealternative.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/considerthealternative.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/considerthealternative.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}