Conditioning

Subject: Conditioning.

As a human being I am, along with you the most conditioned mammal on the planet.
The conditioning which started the moment I was born has continued every day since and is a major ingredient to how I respond each morning. As I wake up from the refuge of sleep there is not a moment when I am not bombarded with signals and rules which determine my movements and thoughts. The very basis for being who I am has been decided by others. From my parents and friends to my employers. From the neighbour to the woman on the till in Sainsbury, from the policeman to the pensioner crossing the street I am programmed to react in an appropriate way.
Much of the cultural programming as well as the etiquette we present to others has been drummed into us and we are similar to robots in much of our response.
Much of our lives we are driven by others, the need to follow instructions when we are very young, the timetable of school life, the responsibility of having a job and being responsive to the boss, and finally if we are married the explicit and implicit signals we receive from our partner who rightly, having joined in a union, expect something from their own commitment to that union.

 But what if one day you wake up with no boss, no timetable, no deadlines, no one to please other than yourself. Of course you have the baggage of having been trained all those years, of having a schedule to do things which in our subconscious we presume is still important. 

From the shower to brushing your teeth, from the clothes you wear to the food you eat, people from the past have had a hand in guiding you.
But what if you wake up and decide you are a free man and that opinion belongs to someone else. That their prejudice has no place in your daily agenda, that like a new born baby you too are naked (sorry for the imagery) and the day will not follow a prescribed path.
You may or may not wash or clean your teeth. You may or may not dress and instead stay all day in your dressing gown. Your food can be wholesome or crass, it's your choice. The exercise you take or don't take is a decision you make and whilst it will have consequences they are consequences under your control. The whole agenda which others sought to embroil you with is no more, you come and go as you please there is no longer a right and wrong way, only your way.
The selfish gene has found it feet at last, the assumptions other people hold about you are for them to hold and for you to ignore.
Is this freedom or is it anarchy. Can we throw off a lifetimes conformity and find another cloak to draw around us, something more lose fitting, more appropriate to our new found freedom. Or will we be hauled on board again like a shipwrecked sailor to be re-provisioned with salutary warnings about what's good for us, when in fact all they mean is what's good for them.