Carrots & Sticks

Do you ever feel like you have been carroted and sticked to death? Every rule, every regulation, every thou shalt, every piece of advice is either a carrot or a stick to manipulate you, to short circuit your learning curve, to disrupt the natural learning process -- not out of spite, but out of fear of collective failure. My parents didn't want me or our family to fail, according to their definition of failure. And they short-cut the necessary circuits to ensure their desired result. And they backed it with love. And that felt good. Or at least safe.

But we all know the few things we truly believe are the things we learned first hand, first person. And the other stuff, we learned it but we don't know it - not in the flesh. Not biblically. So we take someone else's word as our own truth. And extrapolate.

These carrots are also sticks. The guarantees from cheap school are followed by the sticks of indenturement, loans, and apprentice service of masters. There is no dimension for first hand discovery - we are busy striving to recast our self in the master's image. The carrot is the stick we beat ourselves with, hoping for salvation or freedom. We have been taught to be so afraid of society and the norms (or we have learned by watching what happens to those who fail) that we carrot and stick ourselves away from the abyss of first hand learning and do everything as it has been done before.

The Akamba have a saying that if you walk in the same footsteps twice you are dead -- (yet that is the basis for our education system and economy and socioreligious identity). From this, I say if you use a carrot or a stick to shape your own behavior over and over again, you are walking in your same footsteps. The Lakota would focus by saying today is a good day to die.

I was intrigued reading my daughter's American Girl book about the character Kaya. Kaya was feeling down, or jealous, or off balance. And she was asked not to go pick camus bulbs until she let whatever pass. And it wasn't a time out. It wasn't for an afternoon. Kaya almost missed the entire harvest. She would have been fed regardless, and no one blamed her for not pulling her weight. They just didn't use carrots and sticks. Kaya had the duty to self to self answer the Camusian imperative. And no she wasn't asked to contemplate suicide. She was asked to wait until she was ready - which in a sustenance living circumstance can be Camusian.

Don Miguel Ruiz in the four agreements talks about how we as children were raised like dogs. Good dog, bad dog. Carrots, sticks. Then he asks why would raise our children like that. Fair question. I know I have spent most of my life trying to undo all the carrots and sticks my family, my church, my community, my education, my self has rewarded and punished me into an acceptable form. My stick, my god. My carrot, my god.

Jon Young says that as you go on life's adventure, one rule of thumb in seeking guidance is always do what is best for the children.