The Foundation is a Paperweight

At what point do we start to learn the truth? Do we know it when we are born, like an instinct pre-programmed into our minds? Is it when we start learning language?

The first truths we experience are not spoken. We feel hunger and know it’s real. We feel comfort and recognize safety. These primitive truths are not what shape us—they simply keep us alive.

We inherit more from our parents than their genes. We learn their habits, their rituals and their beliefs. Children are not born with theological loyalties or social prejudices. These are learned through exposure, not encoded in instinct.

Our pursuit of knowledge is paved by what curiosities are deemed worthy or inappropriate. Ask the right questions, and you will be praised for your intelligence. Ask the wrong ones, and you will be labeled a deviant. The boundary between wisdom and rebellion is often defined by who benefits from the answer.

Over time, we don’t stop asking because we find the truth. We stop because we’re taught to fear the cost of seeing it. And often, that cost is not violence or exile, but the disappointment of those we were conditioned to admire. That weight can be enough.

The collective social conformance, a malleable force built on ideology, determines who will move through life with ease and who is marked for ridicule.

As we grow, we are allowed more space—more connections, more choices. But with them, the influence over our decisions only deepens. The world doesn’t hand us freedom; it hands us a longer script, written by the expectations we have already internalized.

Maturity, in this context, refers to an individual who follows the script effectively. “Follow your dreams” becomes “Be realistic.”

Choose your partner.
Choose a practical job.
Perform.
Stay quiet.

Deviation is permitted only within predefined limits. Secret thoughts, a hidden tattoo, and an anonymous vote are not agency if the choices that matter lie in comfort. And we lie best when we’re relaxed.

We are taught to personalize everything: choices, failures, and successes. But the boundaries of these were not made by us. They have been written long before we could change the foundation of these beliefs. Resisting these beliefs is rebellion, but changing them, a reckoning.

We inherit truths shaped by power, preserved through fear, and softened by ritual. Questioning them is uncomfortable. To unlearn them is painful. But to leave them unchallenged is to keep performing a role written by the architects of order. If we ever want to know truth—not comfort, not approval, but truth—we must be willing to risk the script entirely.

– Simon Rook