# The Great Trap

The life path of a typical citizen of [21st century](21st_century.md) western society may be called the *Great Trap* because a man born under such unfortunate circumstances is since birth manipulated and directed by the [capitalist](capitalism.md) system (through sophisticated means including an "[education](education.md)" system, fairy tales, [economic](economy.md) mechanisms, peer pressure, media brainwashing, omnipresent surveillance etc.) into becoming a powerless [slave](slavery.md) of the system -- see also [*leading the pig to the slaughterhouse*](leading_the_pig_to_the_slaughterhouse.md). The techniques developed and perfected over many decades now are so treacherous and ever present that probably just one in a million will manage to escape the trap through [unretardation](unretard.md), which however leads to complete social isolation and often even exile (denial of food, healthcare, ...).

Upon birth the victim's life is nice and wonderful for some years, a child is [free](freedom.md) and taken care of, it doesn't have to attend [slavery](work.md) and is told sweet lies (fairy tales) about how the world is beautiful, how [evil](evil.md) loses to good and so life briefly appears amazing and fantastic -- this is the first part of the trap, making the victim feel as though the system cares about him and that it is good, and as children don't yet posses the ability of [critical thinking](critical_thinking.md), the human accepts this as a fact. From now on he will forever hold that the system, despite ANY imperfections, will always be the "best" there can be or at least the "least evil". As a next part come small but quite bearable "responsibilities" and treats for bearing them, such as attending school, which is initially a pleasant experience, full of play and friends, and so there is no reason to protest. Despite him not being aware of it, the poor little human monkey is now a slave in training, learning he has to force himself get up early every morning, even against his will, and that he has to do what he's told by the authority, even if it makes little sense to him. The [frog is boiled slowly](slowly_boiling_the_frog.md), responsibilities and pain come gradually and additional psychological tricks such as peer pressure and treats and punishments guarantee that only very little revolt, despite many teenagers already suffering considerable pain of the "education system" which by its discipline and authorities is not dissimilar to a military training camp.

This continues and the poor being gets entangled more and more in the net, soon unable to ever return. Transition from school to the main slavery (usually called a "job") is often brutal and reduces the victim from a trained house pet to a full time farm animal expected to reach daily quotas of eggs or milk and be slaughtered once it's past its productive life. At least a partially "friendly" environment with spare time and little responsibility for anyone else but self turns to whole days of labor full of hard stress, sleepless nights, evil bosses, angry customers, big responsibilities, [toxic](toxic.md) [corporate](corporation.md) culture, overtimes, pressure on constant [productivity](productivity_cult.md) and a literal [fight](fight_culture.md) for daily bread. With student loan, drug-like addiction to [consumerist](consumerism.md) products, inability to live self-sufficiently without electricity, a rent to pay and child to feed he is finally chained for the rest of his life, even though most don't even realize this until much later. It is too late now, the door is closed and bridges burned silently. It's often around the age of 40 that a so called "midlife crisis" strikes -- a [propaganda](propaganda.md) term meant to put the blame on the victim -- when one glances back and notices his "upbringing" was a trap, that his life has no other meaning than to mechanically perform a task he hates in a constant crippling fear of actually becoming NOT able to do it, and that nothing more awaits him, that life is hell, [evil](evil.md) wins over good every single time and that he's been lied to for his whole life. In primitive societies living in harmony with nature no such thing as "midlife crisis" exists as people lead natural, meaningful lives. The westener's sudden realization he's trapped along with the inability of escape makes him either depressed (and sometimes [kill himself](suicide.md)), or cope by so called "[optimism](optimism.md)", a state of lethargic overpositivity characterized by complete ignorance of evil, putting on forced smile every day and screaming "I AM SO HAPPY" so loud as to not hear any thoughts that might suggest otherwise. Either case is an example of a completely broken man.

## See Also

- [unretard](unretard.md)
- [NPC](npc.md)
- [slowly boiling the frog](slowly_boiling_the_frog.md)
- [leading the pig to the slaughterhouse](leading_the_pig_to_the_slaughterhouse.md)
- [21st century](21st_century.md)