When I was a child, my friend's older sister had a Ouija board. I remember the first time we tried it and how bizarre the whole thing seemed. To scare us, she said spirits were moving the planchette, guiding it across the board to spell out messages.
But I didn't buy it. It was hard to imagine that this piece of cardboard and plastic was being controlled by greater forces. I figured there had to be something else going on.
Years later, I looked it up. The answer was surprisingly simple, yet fascinating. It's called the Ideomotor Effect. Unconscious muscle movements from everyone touching the planchette. It wasn't ghosts or spirits. Just all of us, moving it together without realizing it. Our tiny movements, ones we weren't even aware of, were guiding this vessel we were all aboard.
That idea has stayed with me over the years.
Because the older I get, the more I see how this applies to nearly everything we do as human beings. Collectively, in groups, as a society.
Every day we wake up and make choices. We buy things. We consume. We produce. We spend our money and our time and our energy and our attention. We vote with our dollars for a system that seems to operate with a mind of its own. Much like the planchette.
Billions of hands on the same board.
Everyone insisting they're not the one steering it.
Everyone following the faint pressure of everyone else.
There are many who try to control it, to seize the wheel and steer civilization in their preferred direction. But even they never fully succeed. The collective tiny movements guide our civilization wherever those movements mysteriously lead it.
So what triggers these movements? What drives our choices?
I think much of it is fear.
Most of us feel at the mercy of this system, pulled in whatever direction it will take us. We strive for achievements. We work hard to make money, to get promotions, to accumulate and advance. Why?
Because so many of us are operating at the bottom of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. We're living in survival mode, trying to earn enough money so we don't starve. It's only a small percentage who transcend that base level, who are afforded the opportunity to pursue more in life than just their basic needs. To pursue creativity, happiness, purpose.
The rest are just trying to stay afloat.
I went to my nephew's football game last week. It was nostalgic being back on a high school campus, and seeing the football players (having been one myself), the cheerleaders, the student body, the parents in the stands.
But it was also a little unsettling.
When I was younger, winning in sports was everything to me. I had to prove I was stronger, faster, smarter, more talented, more capable than my peers. This was motivated by insecurity. This feeling that if I didn't win, I wasn't worthy.
Watching those kids on the field, I wondered, "What are we teaching them about life? About what matters?"
So many people fighting, competing, trying to rise above their neighbors. So many who can't see beyond what's right in front of their face. Who can't recognize they're all part of something greater, something deeper, something sacred and spiritual.
We're training them to keep their hands on the planchette. To make those unconscious movements driven by fear and insecurity. To compete for survival rather than live for meaning.
Some of us rage against the machine. We feel trapped. We blame corporations, politicians, "the system."
And we're not wrong, there are structures that concentrate power and profit.
But what we rarely acknowledge is that we are the system.
Every dollar we spend, every choice we make, every hour we trade, we're moving it. Not dramatically or individually. But collectively, unconsciously, we are the force that keeps it gliding forward.
We keep our hands on the planchette, swearing it's moving on its own.
I don't know what the alternative looks like, yet. But I'm working on it.
Part of me thinks we should just... let go. Drop our hands. Stop participating. Let the spell break.
But I know what that would mean. Deliveries stop. The garbage piles up. The machine grinds to a halt. Things would get ugly fast.
Maybe that's what it takes. Maybe we need to jam a metal bar in the gears and let it all screech to a stop.
Or maybe that's reckless. Dangerous. Maybe the cost of waking up is too high.
I don't know.
What I do know is this, we can't keep pretending the board is moving on its own. We can't keep teaching our kids to fight and dominate and prove their worth through competition. We can't keep living in survival mode and calling it civilization.
So maybe the question isn't, "What's the answer?"
Maybe it's, "What are you willing to let go of?"
