I recently witnessed an experiment. A circle was drawn around an ant on a piece of paper. The ant suddenly became disoriented, unable to cross the line. It was as if the ant was trapped. However, this was merely how it appeared. But the ant didn’t know. It moved in circles, seemingly contained by what it considered to be a physical barrier.
As a result, it was stuck in a perceived “prison” of ink. The ink acted as a visual and sensory barrier. The ant may have perceived the line as a strange, wet obstacle and thus avoided crossing it, leading it to believe it was trapped. Similarly, the social or political circles we find ourselves in tend to leave us feeling trapped. We can’t seem to go beyond those circles because they outline our misperceived values, which determine how far we can go in terms of thought or action. Accordingly, we must behave in a social or political context and not outside of it.
That’s why the WhatsApp group you belong to, or friends you associate with and family which raised you, serve as your glass ceiling. Oppose them and you’ll be isolated by them. However, there’s something excruciatingly liberating in the act of opposing such constructs, along with the consequences of such opposition.
In the last few months, I have confronted my circles and found that some family and friends alike were threatened by my actions. That’s why our relationships broke down, almost immediately.
One friend even tried the old gaslighting trick of blaming the responses to my newfound sense of self on me. ‘If everyone is disagreeing with you, maybe you’re the problem,’ he said. True. But then again, I cannot be a problem by asserting myself beyond norms and values that reflect a herd and not a personal instinct to be free. Clearly, one of my mental jailors was afraid of my reaching my potential beyond psychological barriers. Barriers I no longer recognise.
In the experiment involving the ant, the circle was redrawn several times until it was so small that it was touching the ant. That’s when the ant decided to ‘escape’. In similar vein, I have never felt freer in my life. Sure, the resulting isolation broke me initially. But one must be broken to be strong in the broken places. The cracks in our beings (from being broken) allow the light in, illuminating our sense of self and how we perceive our environs.
When you realise that it’s your circles that limit you, questions arise within you to imbue you with a self-liberating consciousness. Thereupon, your counterfeit associations will slowly be replaced by those who value your personal authenticity. Your new-found beliefs will then help you entertain your own opinions, social and political, with a healthy measure of doubt.
It’s this doubt that makes us see the unwisdom of viewing one another as political adversaries, forswearing association with each other. Instead, we begin seeing ourselves as human beings with a God-given uniqueness to go our own way, when necessary. This leads us to voting our consciences, not our prejudices or factions. I agree. We have been conditioned by family, friends and society to march according to the sound of their drums and not our own. Thereby disenfranchising ourselves by denying ourselves a voice.
Given to groupthink, we hand over our rights, at a personal and official level. According to American professor Noam Chomsky, your rights correspond with your wealth. And poverty is essentially a mindset. It cannot be changed by seminars or systems; liberation comes from within you and is inextricably tied to Uganda’s liberation.