Beyond the Blueprint
Escaping the Conditioning Bootcamp 🧗♂️✨
The path to the “standardized person” is paved early. Think of a young child: they never stop to ask if they can do something. They try. It works, or it doesn’t. As Ivan Illich famously explored in Deschooling Society, this organic, fearless trial is how we truly learn. Yet, the school system often acts as an inhibitor—or worse, a cage. 📉
Throughout this entire structure we call society, there is a hidden penalty for the crime of being different. If you think differently, act differently, or move outside the narrow lanes of “the norm,” you are flagged. The authority at the front of the classroom is entrusted to enforce this standard, and subtly, the other students are recruited to assist in its enforcement. It is a decade-long conditioning bootcamp. If anyone survives this with their “spark” intact and manages to thrive, it is nothing short of a miracle. 🚧😴
The Educational Tail Wagging the Corporate Dog 🐕🚧
This reductionism doesn’t end with a diploma. Our corporate structures are built on the same flat foundation. One could argue whether the educational tail is wagging the corporate dog, but the result is the same: processes that make zero sense for employees or customers. Both groups are left frustrated, alienated, and processed into non-existence.
The dream of the Cluetrain Manifesto—that employees and customers would join forces to overturn this soulless system—never quite panned out. Instead, we have doubled down on a reductionist path in the name of “scalability” and “growth,” treating human potential like a spreadsheet cell. 💔
The Human Toll: Self-Esteem and the “Privileged” 🔇
Lately, I keep meeting people who do not fit this mold. These are talented, brilliant individuals who have remained unemployed for a very long time simply because they don’t look like the “standard” on a recruitment algorithm. You can see the blow their self-esteem has taken. I commend them for not completely giving up on themselves.
Meanwhile, the “privileged”—those of us who successfully swam in these waters—continue to make the false claim that “they were born that way” or they just “need to get their act together.” These claims are almost always made by people whose only apparent talent is their ability to fit into a pre-made system.
I REFUSE 🧭🔥
Let me make this public: I refuse to accept this any longer. I am fortunate enough to be able to turn my back on the system I once swam in, but I cannot stand on the sidelines while this tragedy plays out daily. We cannot afford to waste these talents. Our obsession with standardized quantity has led to a severe loss of quality—both in our lives and in our collective soul. 🌿✨
Conclusion: Is this your narrative?
Does this ring a bell? Have you felt the weight of the mold, or have you watched brilliance be cast aside? If yes, reach out to me. Let’s stop following the playbook and start setting the world in our own image. 🪟🕊️
This rings many bells Mike, a veritable gamelan of dissonance. Systems and institutions, as Foucault said, are designed to recreate themselves. As someone who's never seen myself mirrored in most educational hierarchies, alternative communities, or networks set up to offset the reductionism you so clearly describe, I've protected my sanity by seeking others who don't fit in, but have managed to carve a survival path for themselves through standing their ground and adapting through selective discipline and creative resistance. That's where leadership potential is to be found.