By the time a child reaches the age of 18, he or she will have been scrunched and jammed into a socially- manufactured box called, alternatively:
Normality
Conformity
Propriety
Politically correct
Socially acceptable
Protocol
Decency
It's not the way it's done
In the loop
Mainstream
Tradition
Don't rock the boat
Join the group
Rowing with the tide
Duty
Have to
Decorum
Decency
Convention
Proper
Customary
Divine will
And more. The idea of the box is to lay out the way a person ought do things in virtually every circumstance. A script not for determining what is moral or immoral, but the appropriate way to implement the moral and those aspects of life that do not involve moral issues. The effect of the box is to constrain, delimit, and conform human action...human minds...into a preset mold. Don't know why we need so many different ways of referring to chains, but I guess the theory is that if you have the strength and courage to break one set of chains, another one will get you.
Why the box in the first place? The prevalent desire by so many for safety and security of knowing that the majority of your neighbors have pre-approved of the way you live your life...and conformity buys you social acceptance, membership in the herd. Also, the obeying of preset patterns and contrived rules eliminates the need for personal thinking, and presumably lessens your responsibility for personal decisions.
To make living in the box easier to take, society will, occasionally, recommend your thinking outside the box. That is intended to make you feel unrestrained and free. But truth be known, what society is really doing is merely reshaping the mold a bit. Truly go outside the box and break the mold and, slam bam!, you will be labelled rebellious, even dangerous, and shunned.
Of course, the responsibility for choosing to remain in the box is all yours. The cost of living in the box? Nothing but your individual identity.
Your choice.
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