TOTAL CONTROL

Circe's Obsessive Manipulation

Circe is an ancient force. The deep rancor that animates it feeds on a pattern of ruthless manipulations. According to Homer, Circe manifests as a goddess who lures explorers. Wearing the mask of bliss, she opens up her lair to strangers.

Then, she turns the ones who trust her offer into pigs (symbol of stupidity in ancient Greece). The ones perceived as a threat are turned into harmless beasts. Forced into mutation, the explorers' destiny is to be used and treated with scorn. They become unwilling spectators of the goddess' obsession: erasing the human condition through dominance of mind and body. The serfdom of mind and body is all she sees and pursues until she falls in love with Odysseus, the human she can't have.

Circe is the first prisoner of her pattern. She is a lonely creature because she betrays each relationship right at the start. Her marketing seduces promising union only to seize domination. She has no passion and no loyalty but to her obsession for absolute control. Her force doesn't simply betray and scorn trust; her practice of mutation is an attempt to displace history with her own fabrications. Such extreme greed for control is an addiction nurtured by her cosmic narcissism, the destructive force that consumes Circe in her own prison.

The Circe I met, and still fight, is neither a goddess nor a human. It is a sick spin of the human mind. It is dogmatic ideology. Today, I see Circe as the trend luring humanity into alienation. This condition could be described as a dense network of lives that are only apparently connected, but where the actual relationships are manipulated into cages of drugged perceptions. Circe's pattern starts by reducing life itself to a spreadsheet of sterile desires.

It continues by selling humans as instrument panels ready for optimization. It is a cult. It is fed and worshiped. From ancient materialism to recent transhumanism, fanatics have always aimed to control our core: our special union among individual conscience, ethical values, doubt, decision-making and responsibility. The latest vogue is to market us as 'imperfect machines,' prisoners of obsolete algorithms. Conveniently forgetful that our nature might not be 'algorithmic,' shameless voices urge us to buy bigger brains and implants. Many call it progress and proudly march into 'The Future Of Everything.' Even Homer's Circe can't believe humans could turn that foolish. No doubt, she is apologizing to pigs.

By embracing unlimited convenience as ethics, we nurture the cult of delusions. This happened during the course of history, for example, each time we chose to be passive in front of injustice, cowardly blaming 'the system,' only to justify our participation in crimes against humanity. Circe's cosmic narcissism is now fueling the virtual arena of social media, the practice that is manipulating the perception of entire generations. Exhausted by the overwhelming feed of delusions, humans ask machines what to do; conscience is rated obsolete and displaced by dummies.

Long time ago, someone had the courage to avoid decoys and told us a story:

'I'm afraid!' said Zusha. 'Because when I get to heaven, I know God's not going to ask me, 'Why weren't you more like Moses?' or 'Why weren't you more like King David?' But I'm afraid that God will ask, 'Zusha, why weren't you more like Zusha?' And then what will I say?!' [From the Chassidic tradition]

If we deny the existence of 'Zusha,' what is it that we are after? The power of arbitrary control? Is it the control over the reconfiguration of body and mind?

What do we want? To core ourselves? To turn into Circe? I would rather use my human nature, and defeat Circe by discovering the motive behind her rancor and her obsession for control.