Is It Time to Liberate Yourself?

I recently noticed a common thread running through different areas of our lives: the domestic sphere, educational arena, healthcare, corporate/economic areas, the government, etc. And this common thread was….a subtle (and many times, overt) essence of domination.

In the domestic arena, this strand of domination can be seen in the dynamics of many marital/romantic relationships, parent-child relationships, and even with household help. In the external sphere, it can be seen in educational institutions, government institutions, corporate environments, law enforcement, healthcare systems, the judiciary, politics, etc.

There is no gender-class-race-caste-age divide when it comes to who becomes the dominator, but there’s definitely a dynamic of power, of the oppressor versus the oppressed/suppressed. I wonder if the patriarchy, colonization, and capitalism have a role to play in this. Aren’t they all interconnected?

Don’t all these ways of interacting with the world have a common factor, which is domination or the dominating mindset?

All three systems have the aim of ‘’dominion’’ over another - whether that be over the environment, over the economy, over a certain demographic, or over an individual. I wonder if these ‘’spirits’’ of domination trickled down from the boardroom to the family room or the other way around?

‘’Domination’’ is a word that entered my psyche only very recently in the context of these 3 systems.

I haven’t been able to reach any answers, but the questions keep rearing their heads.

You must have noticed this thread of domination running through relationships - between spouses, between parent and child, between employer and employee, between citizens and the judiciary/law enforcement/government.

Sometimes we don’t even notice it because it has become so insidious and all-pervasive that it has been normalized. We don’t see it anymore, even though we are swimming in this ocean that’s all around us.

Sometimes we ourselves are the ‘’dominator’’-either to the people who are the closest to us or to the people who are ‘’below’’ us in the hierarchy established by the economy or the workplace, or the hierarchy established by the society/culture we live in. This often intersects with other spheres such as religion, class, caste, sex, or race.

Imagine a world where domination was not the dynamic of relatedness anymore.

Imagine a world where everyone was free from this, in every sphere and every relationship of their life.

Imagine a world where we all woke up to this realization and took steps to liberate ourselves from this way of interacting with the world.

I think this is part of ‘’decolonizing’’ our minds.

It is part of de-conditioning ourselves from the patriarchy.

It is part of freeing ourselves from the capitalist model of life.

What would be the outcome if more and more people awoke from this deep slumber of the model of domination and interacted with others from a space of equality?

Zero crimes against women?

Zero child abuse?

Zero abuse of ‘’power’’ by those in law enforcement?

Zero domestic violence?

Zero exploitation of the environment?

Zero animal abuse?

Zero corruption by those in government?

I know its a utopian world that I am envisioning here, but unless we each try, how will we know whether it can be the reality or not?

We don’t have the power to change others, but we do have power over ourselves.

We can start with noticing and being aware of our own conditioned responses to those around us, to those we have ‘’power’’ over and choose to divest from that way of relating to them, whoever they maybe.

We could start by deconditioning ourselves from this model of domination and through that, liberating ourselves from patriarchal ways of being, from colonial ways of thinking, and from capitalist exploitative models of living.

We may think we’re just one person, but the power of one should not be underestimated when it comes to creating a ripple effect.