This is the Prelude of my forthcoming book, Question the F*cking Assumption
Not long ago, a person with credentials and sincere concern explained to me that my experience was wrong.
Not unfortunate. Not confusing. Wrong.
What I was living did not match what her framework promised, and between my experience and her framework, her framework won.
My body, my days, my actual life. All of me overruled by the theoretical certainty of someone positioned by her framework to know better. About me.
Maybe you have had this experience. Head spinning, head shaking, heading you into the realm that there must be something wrong ... with you. And no matter what you say, what proof you tender, what reinforcement you attempt to muster, that look of sincere concern maintains my authority says you are wrong.
I have spent much of my life being countered by the belief that authority knows me better than I know myself. As I've matured and learned to trust myself, my tolerance for this type of treatment has waned to the point that I no longer bother with proof or explanation. I go immediately to the position of following the inner whisper of my own self. I do not retreat. Instead:
I question the fucking assumption.
I know. Good girls do not use the f-word, especially in polite company. And even worse is questioning authority's certainty.
However, this good girl who is also a rebel does not tolerate the condescension of false assumptions. Enough.
I used to be a good girl. Polite. Nice. Pleasant.
I was also, quietly inside, a rebel who as she grew up, became less pleasant, and perceived by others as not properly polite. Not properly obeisant.
Now I am a recovering good girl who is still polite but is no longer playing small and putting up with those who would overlord my knowing with their certainty. Even so, there are moments where I regress into my white gloves and party manners.
I am happy to be a rebel who rebels. Still on the quiet side, because I am now inclined to not explain myself, especially to those who are not inclined to try to understand the rebel me.
The shift from good girl to rebel happened quietly at first and then gathered steam. The steam went from creasing my slacks to melting the assumptions I had about myself and my life. I went from assuming I understood my truth to learning that much of what I thought was my truth came from other people's assumptions. Assumptions foisted on me when being a good girl was all I knew. To be accepted, I accepted their authority without question.
Assumptions come about in two ways. First, you create them. You observe, you believe, you judge. Then you let belief determine the truth of whatever you observed. You can assume about yourself. You most certainly will assume about others. And, in the beginning, the assumption comes into being without exploring the perspective of whoever or whatever was observed.
The second path of assumption is the bits you accepted as truth when you didn't know better. The stuff in your life where you think this is just the way things are. The bits pressed upon you by the various authority and high-status people in your life, from day one to today.
Received from someone and dressed up as your truth, these assumptions are sticky bits of language designed to deflect your good sense and deep intrinsic awareness about yourself. The purpose of these sticky assumptions is to distract you from the claim or belief made by authority being passed off as undeniable certainty.
To question an assumption is to go where authority does not ever want you to go: your inner awareness of truth.
Authority is based on the perception of certainty. And to question this certainty is equated with denying authority. This is not the behavior of good girls, or of anyone who wants to be included, safe, valued.
So certainty becomes the only possible destination to a life well-lived. All must resolve to certainty. Anything questioning certainty is threatening the order and goodness maintained, for our own good, by authority. And the whole invisible structure of authority stands on one primary assumption, the one everyone everywhere is trained on from birth:
Authority knows you better than you know yourself.
When I describe this invisible structure out loud, I hear how I sound. Somebody built this. Somebody benefits. You cannot see the whole thing, and the not-seeing is the point. I sound like a conspiracy theorist. And to control me, authority will fire an arsenal of disgusting monikers to discredit and disarm and invalidate.
Yet, the invisible structure counts on this crazy, because the person who begins to see gets offered exactly two exits. Stop seeing. Or stop being believed. Questioning authority, wanting to release the hold of certainty, is at best a fool's errand — and declared truly insane the moment your questioning begins.
And this is how the either/or of this invisible structure is designed to trap you. Either you realize you are crazy. Or they will judge you as crazy.
Here's where I draw a line for me.
Given the crazy of authority's certainty, I'm sticking with questioning the fucking assumption. I decline both exits and make a different choice for myself. There is infinitely more to life than either/or, right/wrong, good/bad.
Yes, I literally have taken the less-traveled road. Know this book isn't about how to question authority. Rather, this is about why bullshit behavior prevails over your personal knowing of your own truth. Once you get how and why, your inherent ability to question and trust yourself will kick into high gear.
What I've found is that when you begin to see the invisible structure and its ocean of assumption, you naturally begin to question the whole false apparatus. Because to rebel, you are rejecting the primary assumption that the whole mess revolves around your crazy. When you question you begin to affirm that you are the authority of you.
When you question the fucking assumption, you will be confronted with why so many chose either/or. Questioning does not automatically make your life easier, better, more certain. Yet, certainty is back there with either/or.
Instead, questioning is what retrieves your life. Self-authority restored also reveals the illusion of certainty which the overlording authority depends upon to keep you in line and unquestioning.
Your good person turned rebel begins to understand that reality is filled with the unexpected, the ambiguous, and the unknown. Your perspective shifts and what is important to you changes. Insanity is reframed because you've smashed the rose-colored glasses. Forget the magic pill, you got magic in you.
Know, right now, I'm not asking you to trade their certainty for mine. There's a lot that I am not certain about and I'm less inclined to focus my life toward the destination of certainty.
Instead, I'm sharing my experience with you about how I deal with the overlording of authority and certainty. It is up to you to determine personal relevancy. Question, contemplate, question some more. Take what works, and leave the rest.
Now is the time.
Question the fucking assumption.
This is the Prelude of my forthcoming book, Question the F*cking Assumption