And I saw the dead, both small and great, standing before God, and the books were opened, and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.
Rev. 20:12
If you think adventures are dangerous, try routine — it’s deadly.
Paulo Coelho
What is the value of a new place if it is exactly the same as the one you left? Is there any point in moving from one hotel room to another if the view from the window doesn’t change? Is it worth staying in a hotel for more than one day if today is just like yesterday and tomorrow will be the same? What is the value of the next day in life if it is no different from the previous one? What is the value of a person if they look and behave just like everyone else?
When someone wants to kill a person, it doesn’t necessarily have to be done physically. It’s enough to deprive them of the distinction between yesterday and today. Just immerse a person in a “Groundhog Day.” Moreover, people tend to immerse themselves in it. They don’t make an effort, go with the flow, and even love stability. Politicians sell it to voters. Sweet, sweet “stability.” Soothing, relaxing, enveloping. Yet, for some reason, there’s a constant need for a higher dose. Even more stability. And the price for it keeps increasing.
Many people were separated from “Groundhog Day” only by a certain uncertainty in their commutes to and from work, the occasional opportunity to travel, read, and meet other people. The epidemic took that away from them as well. Who was talking about Bill Gates’ conspiracy with reptilians to reduce the world’s population? Here you go. Billions are already technically dead. Of course, not because There is a conspiracy somewhere. It’s just more convenient for too many people. They lack the value of a new day for themselves, and their “added value” to society is zero. No one reads books. No one seeks something new. No one even knows what new things exist and how to find them. No one, except for those to whom I sent the link, will read this article, even though it is available to everyone. Many have been sitting at home for years. Many go to monotonous jobs, whether physical or “white-collar.” And while the former leave some trace on the earth in the form of tangible products and heaps of garbage, the latter are completely unnecessary. Look at the vast and numerous offices of banks that house thousands of clerks. What do these people do when everything you need from a bank is available in a mobile app? And this situation is not limited to banks. What will these people be able to tell their grandchildren when they sit them on their laps? Where is the bridge they built or the students they taught something to? Even a doctor today is just a protocol executor and, in essence, saves no one from anything anymore.
When did it start? It started when there was a need to prepare many people for murder, while also making it easier to make the decision to commit such acts. Just like a vaccine that requires two doses, humanity needed two world wars. The modern army: discipline, drill training, a life governed by a schedule from wake-up to lights out, uniform appearance, all activities regulated by rules, zero creativity. Any military unit is nothing more than a perfect machine for killing people. Moreover, it does so in a way that people themselves lose their sense of the value of life. Just like those who are ready to send them to their deaths: every soldier is 100% replaceable. The same scheme is used in concentration camps, prisons, and many companies.
Human resources departments are hypocritically being renamed Talent Acquisition departments, just as hospitals are called “Health Centers,” military agencies are referred to as “ministries of defense,” and nuclear ballistic missiles are called “ Peacekeepers “But cargo cults have never worked and will never work. And whenever you come across the term Talent Acquisition, be sure that the company is looking for not people, but cogs in the machine, and the change in terminology reflects an unfulfilled desire to fix an established process.”
A teenager sent to the army suffers a deeply damaging, if it can be repaired, psychological trauma. Ironically, he perceives this trauma, which alters his perception of reality, as a “school of life.” The result of this trauma is a disregard for both his own life and the lives of others, as well as an indifference to other people’s values and needs. He suppresses his own desires and aspirations, leading to pathological selfishness and a behavior pattern based solely on personal gain, dismissing morality as a kind of foolishness. It’s important to clarify that if we are talking about combat rather than just “the army,” the people killed by the army suddenly come back to life. There emerges mutual support, friendship, and self-sacrifice. The phenomenon of “dedovshchina” (hazing) and the desire to grab what one can from the communal pot disappear. War radically removes the “Groundhog Day” effect. But… the person has already been sent to death. And if he survives, he will most likely acquire yet another psychological trauma known as post-traumatic stress disorder.
You can simply look at and compare how societies differ in countries with universal conscription and those without it. If the majority of the population goes through the military, no one will even notice the psychological trauma. This trauma will become the norm, and those who haven’t served will be seen as the “black sheep.” Everyone will view the military as a “school of life.” However, you can demonstrate the difference between a person with trauma and one without it by showing a person with trauma alongside someone with even deeper trauma. Look at the children from Soviet orphanages. Look at prisoners. You’ll understand. You’ll also see why public spaces are neglected and corruption thrives. It’s when learned passivity and helplessness mix with learned selfishness and immorality.
Unification and stability, as mentioned at the beginning of the article, are like a drug. Once you try it, it’s hard to break free. It pulls you in and demands a higher dose. Uniforms have even become a sex fetish. Standardization and predictability serve as a surrogate for happiness. Drill training acts as a substitute for sports without champions, for expeditions without a purpose. Just think about why it’s needed in the 21st century. Soldiers marched in formation 200 years ago, before the invention of machine guns. Now, it’s neither necessary nor effective in battle or on a march. But it effectively kills the person inside that bag of flesh. Oh yes, it’s customary to march beautifully in front of monuments and at parades. Standardized, or rather, subdued guys march in perfect step. It closely resembles human sacrifices before idols or Aztec pyramids, led and commanded by priests.
Yes, standards are good. They save resources in the production of material goods. They facilitate communication, create agreements between industries and within them. They ensure the production of goods and services with expected characteristics and quality. But this is not and cannot be an excuse for the standardization of people. This is a substitution of concepts. Intentional, criminal. Offered like a drug, “the first dose is free.” And we gladly put on the uniform ourselves. We happily start to express not our own thoughts, but to repeat scripts at work and share viral memes at home. We eagerly rid ourselves of responsibility by choosing standard processes or protocols. We don’t seek solutions ourselves; instead, we find something online, if we can even manage to sift through the garbage and mental candy, starting from “ news “and ending with the endless feeds of social networks, those very books of life from the Revelation of John the Theologian, by which we judge and are judged. We do not write our own essays, but copy from others. And we are dying, first losing the value of the next day, and then, at the behest of someone who moves us like pawns, physically. No one will notice our death. Moreover, we ourselves will not notice it.”
Look at how exams in schools have been replaced by standardized tests, where knowledge is no longer important, but standardized answers to standardized questions are. Notice how children have stopped writing essays. They are no longer asked to prove theorems, only to memorize them. Observe how customer support services have degraded, where a customer with a problem or question that falls outside the standard framework is likely to be simply ignored. Especially since communication with customers has been handed over to chatbots, which are completely incapable of responding in a non-standard way. Look at how insidiously, and frighteningly, to our delight, came, arrived A new era. The moment has come that has so tantalized our nerves and brought money to Hollywood and various religions. A zombie apocalypse with the undead rising, or as they say now, NPCs. Only we ourselves are these NPCs. We just don’t realize it. Just like a zombie is unlikely to realize that it is a zombie.
Do you know why tattoos have always been popular in prisons and the military? Because it’s the only thing you can do within the rules that can set you apart from those around you. It can also give you a sense that today is different from yesterday. In an instinctive urge to survive, people make another notch on the wall of their virtual prison cell to keep track of the days and avoid going completely insane. Through tattoos, they fight for their lives. Though, just as effectively as fish thrown onto dry land.
By the way, have you noticed that tattoos have been gaining more and more popularity in recent years?