The control paradox

Though humans might not have a say in coming into the world, they have an innate propensity for developing a stake in directing the course of their lives. Everybody in the pursuit of life desires and exerts efforts to master the means, manifestations and ends of life. By doing so, they tend to guard themselves from the threats that the unpredictability of events could unleash. However, desires only work to the extent of one’s thoughts and choices — in abstract reality or to a limited material extent. This is because the circumstances are inclusive of everyone and are woven into the societal fabric; hence, it is quite unlikely to always respond to everyone’s wishes to the detriment of others. They are, in reality, no one’s solitary kin. However, despite this reality, we rarely escape the penchant for controlling things, people and events.

One might ask in what ways our desires for individual freedom, through leveraging the environment, restrain it. This is where the irony lies. As the lessons woven into the fabric of human existence and evolution show, a profound paradox is always at play vis-à-vis the human penchant for dictating the environment: the more we struggle to control, the more we find ourselves commanded by the forces we tend to lord. That is to say, controlling the circumstances of life as a means of individual freedom has a paradoxical impact — the things we tend to control exert a reciprocal influence on our lives. In other words, our lives get more controlled by the emotions, things, people and events we tend to control.

Psychologically, our unnecessary emphasis on lording over emotions leads to their suppression and lays the seeds of internal conflicts within us. Instead of regulating emotions through selective acceptance, we often resort to putting stress on them so much that they grow into obsessions, commanding our thoughts and lives. Similarly, possessions or their desires exert a controlling effect on us that we excessively dwell on and develop a habit of. These obsessions with controlling and owning things in our lives control our evolution and choice, curtailing our growth in dynamic times.

The same holds true in our relationships. Most of the time, we tend to control or fear losing a person we befriend or love. We expect their behaviour to be in line with our aspirations. These aspirations, over time, grow into emotional attachments and begin to dictate our thoughts and actions. Their behaviour, however, rarely confirms our wishes all the time. Being the centre of cognition, the behaviour or attitude of such persons dictates our lives for a while, to say the least. In relationships, what we often fail to recognise is that what we need to control doesn’t deserve us, and the other way round. Or we lead a lifeless life of dictations. Instead, we need to move on. We aren’t sessile, like trees. Are we?

Meanwhile, our preoccupation with the expectations of events unfolding in conformity to our wishes exerts strong control over our lives. For instance, the expectations of particular outcomes that we attach to our efforts exert detrimental impacts if they fail to turn around. Failures to control often rob us of our self-control. These impacts leave lasting scars that considerably influence our freedom to choose the course of our future lives.

However, one wonders why this paradox fails to work when it comes to the selfish and authoritarian desires of controlling societies by the powerful, like ours. The answer to this, in part, lies in the fact that they forcefully evolve the very foundational, normative and structural norms of society. Through carefully evolved laws and practices, they succeed in controlling mass public behaviour and thoughts. However, they are unsustainable, and society at large pays a huge price for these social dictations in the long run.

The key to mastering the freedom of life involves shedding the Sisyphean task of controlling things, people and events and recognising that true control resides within ourselves. However, that doesn’t mean we should avoid undertaking efforts or holding desires. Instead, we need to sincerely and optimistically pursue whatever matters to us without getting ourselves preoccupied with the desire to control the outcomes.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 22^nd, 2023.

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