Rules, rules and more Rules

Blog Article/Post Caveat (Read First Please: Click the Link)

In a recent article by Marc MacYoung he simply put it, “Relying on the rules to stop you from taking action - especially punitive.” The complete article is about straddling the circle where the inner circle is societies rules and proverbial protective blanket we, “Think,” protects us against the punitive actions when we tend to go ballistic against others. It is best to read his article to get a better picture.

Read it HERE: “Circle Straddling (Ealing with subtle unacceptable behavior)” by Marc MacYoung

The article just reminds me of how karate and martial arts seem to be based on, “Rules.” Society seems to be based on, “Rules too.” What happens that matters is when humans come to rely on the rules over responsibility for ourselves. In this instance we then become dependent on those rules and their enforcement to take over our responsibilities and by that we lose our natural and socially built coping skills that would normally tell us when to shut the fuck up and when to talk, when to walk away and most important, when to run like hell. 

I am not advocating there shouldn’t be rules, rules are about survival and even in our modern times rules are necessary. There is a difference here, there should be some rules governed and enforced by society but there are far more rules that govern human behavior. It takes work, a whole hell of a lot of work and humans are pretty much, “Lazy.” 

We as humans need to self-govern and it is far more critically important in modern times then when we were in smaller clan like tribes. Due to the easy mixture of different socially driven belief systems we come in contact frequently enough to cause friction, let alone the normal clan like friction of years past. It has become much harder to self-govern especially since the collective is occurring much faster than our evolutionary natural survival allows. 

We have lost site of our very nature and that is just a sorrowful state of society today. Due to the proximities we have taken with larger populations the need to expand means we move closer to one another and those distinctive belief systems will clash causing conflict and its often resulting violence.

Conflict and violence are as natural to humans as breathing but that means self-governing/self-regulating and with this closer proximity means we have to learn far more social conventional differences to remain in a state of detente or peaceful coexistence. 

In karate and martial arts communities the whole of the systems are governed by rules, rules and more rules. We try to implement tribal clan like collectives where the hierarchy itself governs under the auspice of natures survival instincts even tho that survival is seldom about life and death - yet, the mind itself does not perceive that distinction even tho modern social times indicate to the conscious mind otherwise. 

Because of our nature it is easy to fall into these tribal, call them dojo and associations although pretty much the same, groupings for reasons we tell ourselves but in reality it is still about tribal survival instincts with its status seeking efforts within each dojo, association or tribe-like collective. It is actually a type of religious belief set under more acceptable labels but the end product is still pretty much the same. 

I mean the dan-i system is hierarchal in nature where the belt colors indicate levels and status within a dojo or community or tribe-clan system. Adding in the physical manifestation of the belief of warrior like expertise, although not necessary in most cases and seldom tested or used, that stimulates and feeds the natural inclination toward natures survival instincts. Ain’t life grand?

Much like our karate and martial arts, we as social humans have lost our way as warriors and hunters and gatherers but still have to deal with the emotionally driven needs to survive even if today presents less dangers of grave bodily harm and death from nature, and except for humans who still have rules that they either follow or don’t according to where they stand as to the circle. 

Anyway, rules, rules and more rules dependent on others to enforce tends to leave us assuming that they will enforce them for us instead of us taking responsibility for ourselves, our actions and how all that effects us as to self, family and others. 

Bibliography (Click the link)

Goodman, Marc. “Future Crimes: Everything is Connected, Everyone is Vulnerable and What We Can Do About It.” Doubleday. New York. 24 February 2015.