Posts Tagged: objectifying other people

IT’S A GOOD LIFE—MAYBE?

On October 22, 2018 by Dteb With 0 Comments - down to earth believer

My wife and I watched a Twilight Zone episode the other night.  It starred a little boy, only six years old, with amazing mental powers.  He could control people’s lives to the point of killing them or turning them into a jack-in-the-box.  He could even control nature, making it snow if he chose to do so.

Furthermore, he had very strong opinions about what he liked and what he didn’t.  Instrumental music was okay, but singing was not.

He could read minds, too.  If you didn’t like him or think “good thoughts,” you were in serious trouble.  Your bad thoughts about him were likely to be your last thoughts.

Far-fetched, isn’t it?  Or, then again, is it?  I used to have a very similar fantasy when I was little, fantasies of being in control, of making everybody like me.  And those who didn’t like me—well, let’s just say that I “disappeared” them.

Of course, this meant that I had to banish almost the entire human race.  Even my mom and dad sometimes didn’t seem to be thinking good thoughts about me.  They were gone!

Now, before you excuse my attitude, and say, “Oh, well, that was when you were a little guy,” I should confess that, even though I’m sixty-seven-and-a-half, I still want everybody to like me, to think good thoughts about me.  Fortunately, I don’t have the power to make that happen, or even the power to make it appear to be happening.  Neither do I have the power to turn people into some object or another with my not-so-powerful mind.

However, in twelve-step groups, we often share about our tendency to “objectify” people—to treat them as objects rather than as people in their own right.  I doubt that this is unique to addicts.  I suspect that this is a human reality.  I have heard nurses (not all, thank God!) refer to patients by their problem and room number (“the hip fracture in 201), rather than by name.  Online advertisers don’t talk about people, but about “eyeballs.”

I suspect that the reason many of the Twilight Zone episodes still resonate is not because they are far-fetched or scary.  Rather, the hair stands up on the backs of our necks, because Serling’s creations strike at our own individual and collective hearts and minds.  They reveal us to ourselves.

So, is there a solution?  What about God?

Well, I can even objectify God, if I try really hard.  In fact, it’s not even that hard.  What is idolatry, other than objectifying God—literally?  I can do this mentally in less than a second.

Of course, the real God—if there is one, as I believe that there is—stubbornly insists that He is not an object.  God also insists that we treat ourselves and others as subjects in their own right, and with their own rights.

One really practical thing that I practice, though not nearly enough, is simple to say, but hard to do.  I conjugate the verb “control.”

I am not in control.

I have never been in control.

I will never be in control.

Try it!  It is so much more fun than turning people into jacks-in-the-box!  The Twilight Zone is a wonderful T.V. show, but it’s a lousy way to live your life.

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