Bert: You know, begging you pardon, but the one who my heart goes out for is your father. There he is in that cold, heartless bank day after day, hemmed in by mounds of cold, heartless money. I don’t like to see any living thing caged up.
Jane: Father? In a cage?
Bert: They makes cages in all sizes and shapes, you know. Bank-shaped some of ’em. Carpets and all.
~ Mary Poppins (1964)

This is not a sane way for people to live. You’ve always known this on some level. We have all always known this on some level.

It just doesn’t feel right. They herd us into classrooms where our minds are pressed into uniform shapes learning lessons which organize clean-cut, authorized thoughts into neat little boxes, then they herd us into cubicles where we turn gears to turn millionaires into billionaires. We go home and our minds are herded into advertising that makes us want to consume, news media that makes us believe our government is virtuous, and sitcoms where fake actors play out scenes which convince us that capitalism is working out perfectly fine. Try to get away from the phoniness by talking to a real person, and it turns out they’ve been processed through the same system. It feels pinched, like trying to wear an outfit that’s too small your entire life.

But the rewards of moving inside their painted lanes are so great, and the penalties for stepping outside them are so severe. The closest most ever come to authenticity is learning how to fake their way through society while secretly knowing it’s all bullshit. The marginalization, alienation and shame which can come with climbing over the rails of the slaughterhouse queue and running free are so difficult to live with that the herd mostly stays in line and keeps pouring its lifeblood into the fuel tank of the machine.

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