A state by any other

You learn the rules and in the end, they're only rules so you let them go.
All that stuff about syntax and punctuation, that whole plan about getting a job and starting a family, all your ideas about who men are and what women do- it dissolves when you die. And you will die. At some point along the way, you will be forgotten too. It may take thousands of years or maybe just a few days; rest assured.
But you have right now.
This is the time for you to play games with rules, to play those games- to take those rules, examine them, hold them up to the light for a better look- and think about the whole thing. Ask questions like, Why am I playing this game? And, why do these rules seem so important to me?
Maybe you're in school. Or maybe you just think you're in school.
Stop for a moment to consider the fact that all of this is made up. Humans created sidewalks and the word, 'sidewalk.' There weren't always words for things. And the things humans have created haven't always been around. There is no reason to believe what humans have made up will continue to exist in a few hundred years.
Bombs could fall today upon our most beloved institutions and it wouldn't matter who was president because we'd just perish beneath it all.
I think we are especially fragile when we believe in presidents and institutions to save us from other presidents and other institutions. I think it must just be a game we play to avoid dealing with our fear of the unknown.
We teach rules to children without suggesting to them that the rules ultimately don't matter, and the children grow up into adults expecting, even repeating, situations in which the governing platform of the situation can only exist once humans have managed to dutifully switch off their capacity to wonder and create things lacking in fundamentalism.
It's as if the dogma sniffing at the heels of our youthful days claws into us and grows like a disease, deforming our humanity as we lower our heads, then our bodies into dull brown boxes. The lid flaps taped over the top of us are our death as able, thoughtful, compassionate beings.
And when this happens, all that's left is a dusty silence accompanied by occasional conveyor belt scratching as our boxes take us through endless circles around a desolate factory.
Get up, people!
You are not living.
Wake up!
Wake up!
Wake up!