Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Rules are made to be Broken

"Any fool can make a rule and any fool can follow it. " Henry David Thoreau

This is one quote that rings true today as it did in Henry’s time. It is almost as bad as when some idiot tells you "that is the way we always do it." regardless of the results. But I am a believer that only 10 rules were written in stone and the rest well most are not worth the paper they are written on.

Most rules are about control and about keeping it and since rules are written by man they are about controlling their fellow man. Hence my distaste for rules.

When I think about the rules I have in my house it was about keeping control of my young children. As they grew older they challenge these rules, as they should, for their comes a time when you must find out for yourself whether or not works for you.

But, that challenge is what most people don’t like. It represent disorder for them a change in the status quo. That is why change that is needed is so slow to happen. It is feared and it is outside the rules of play. But then my so called superiors were always quick to point out to me I do not play well with others.

I love to play dominoes and a game called 42. An acquaintance of mine who I used to play with during a lull and feeling pretty smug winning most of them told the guys at the table how easy they were to beat and proceeded to tell us. He said most of the guys played by a very fixed set of rules in how they bid and how they played their dominoes and were subsequently easy to figure out what they had. But, he told me I was a different case for I never played a set way therefore followed a set of personal rules. Therefore, he hated to play against me because I was hard to beat.

All I guess I am trying to say is be hard to beat. Follow the rules that work for you and don’t follow the ones don’t work for you. Remember rules are made to control the player and rules are made by those who want that control. That is why we have buildings filled with books of rules (law) in that attempt to control and manipulate you and the situation to the benefit of their masters. That is why we have a health care law that is 1500 pages long when Canada’s when initiated was only 12 pages long. Our law was meant to manipulate and control and theirs to help. It makes you remember just who controls our government. That perhaps the Constitution  instead of “We the People” should read “We the few”.

When you start thinking about what and why you follow rules or laws remember old Henry D. Thoreau choose what rules and laws he followed. When arrested and jailed for failure to pay one dollar poll tax (used to support the war with Mexico) for one night Emerson came to see him while in jail. Emerson reportedly spoke to him saying and I paraphrase “look where you have ended up” and Thoreau’s response was “the question is not why I am in hear but why are you out there”.

2 comments:

  1. David
    As the world gets crazier your thinking is clear. I wind up confused constantly and it is good to hear a sane voice.
    warren

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks warren but I fear I am no clearer in mind than most.

    ReplyDelete