Incorruptible

Incorruptible – A short essay on rules and what they mean to us

There is this great misconception about rules. It belongs to the common wisdom that those who follow rules are the honest and incorruptible, which is certainly not an absolute truth.

We first must understand that there are many layers, several aspects and levels to ruling.

There is a normative level that comprises rules which allow a system to function properly and with a minimum sense of proportion, equality and sustainability.

Our analyses and considerations are generally limited to this lower level and within it skipping the rules gives you advantage over the others. The ones who break these normative rules for personal gains are considered corrupt.

However, we must also have a wider perspective about rules. There are invisible, omnipresent rules that determine our choices without our conscious perception or awareness.

I will give you two examples:

There is this invisible, omnipresent rule in our modern society that we must always be BETTER than our next or THE BEST.

There is also an associated one which preaches that WHAT IS WORTH DOING IS WHAT IS REWARDED BY THE SYSTEM WE LIVE IN.

We can roughly assume that 99% of the population follows these two almighty rules, no matter their backgrounds, no matter their professional fields, no matter their religions.

Consequently, we are trapped in this constant, relentless COMPARISON and COMPETITION with one another. Consequently, we are constantly searching for opportunities to have advantages in this pathetic mind game, and most of us doesn’t break minor rules only because of legal, ethical, moral restrictions and their penalties.

If there is any chance of obtaining advantages without being discovered, shamed or penalised, we don’t think twice and it is far from our thoughts any idea that this could also be considered corruption.

I am actually talking about obtaining advantages through unfair means.

Thus, there comes one of the most fundamental questions to define if someone is corruptible or not:

Does he/she live by the means or for the results?

If you live for the results, you are corruptible. You are just waiting for a totally or minimally safe opportunity.

But then remember that second invisible, omnipresent rule: it is only worth doing if it is rewarded.

Since our systems reward based on oblique, dubious, unfair modes, it is easy to assume that WE ARE MODULATED in doing only what benefits our personal interests and causes.

Observe people around you: what does not make them look better than their next or the best is most likely to be swept under the carpet of oblivion and what is not rewarded in bargaining chips by the system is simply not done. Even if it means abdicating of elements that are essentially important to the soul, like time to oneself, healthy lifestyle, contact with nature, genuine love, true relationships.

What is this disease, 99% of people you know have endured throughout life as an incurable malady?

I will pose another question, which lies on the opposing pole of the wrongdoing spectrum: if it was extremely beneficial to some or many but no one knew or could see it, if it was not rewarded with money, status, fame, projection, would you still do or be doing it?

Basically, human beings have been raised and taught to be corruptible, selfish and alienated, generation after generation, since few of us have the understanding that this modus operandi is not sustainable and leads to suffering, calamities and self-destruction.

Those individuals that are able to notice these nefarious, egotistic, narcissistic invisible rules I’ve just cited and have the courage, the love, the high self-esteem, the altruism, the detachment to BREAK THEM…

These nonconformists are essentially and inherently the INCORRUPTIBLE.

They cannot be bent into the boxes of our many interests and conveniences.

They are essentially free and the true hope for our species’ survival.