4352. Prep Trap Example 2: 'on-the-roll'
An advice echoed by well-meaning gurus is Gotamo's recommendation to 'not to be idle'. Nowadays, more often than not, this advice misses its mark. If one looks around, except for some pensionnaires and some who live off public benefits, people are constantly busy, busy, busy...
The times where people could goof off a year or two without putting themselves completely outside the social context are long gone. Instead, the 'on-the-roll' trap finds victims in all walks of life.
The most visible victims are 'professionals', doctors, lawyers, business people and the like. The most invisible ones are members of sects or cults and our brothers and sisters in the asylums.
The name 'on-the-roll' trap describes the condition already fairly well: people do not have time anymore to sit down and think for themselves even once a day for a minute or two.
Every minute of their days is completely planned, scheduled, and reserved. There is no time left anymore for following spontaneous, creative impulses. Only machines are better slaves because they don't need sleep nor pension funds.
With the loss of the ability to determine one's own calendar comes a significant loss of freedom.
Nothing demonstrates this more than when the 'on-the-roll' trap is being combined with the 'p.t.' trap. Humans, forced into tight schedules with their attention fixed to only the 'problem at hand', have lost self-determinism to such a degree that it makes a rabbit look like a freedom fighter.
It is not a mere coincidence that this combination of traps is the hallmark of the military. The pattern, however, is the same for Marines or surgeons, lawyers or UPS drivers.
No time anymore to see the flowers at the wayside, the play of waves in the puddles on the driveway when it's raining, watching the course of the clouds in the sky...
If Gotamo would be walking down Westwood Boulevard these days, I'm very, very sure he would say "Hey, you guys! Wait a minute! Sit down for a sec and THINK!".
Of course, nobody would take him serious and it may very well be that he would be trampled over by the hordes of people trying to get lunch and be back in the mill within an hour.
The reason that the all-present and pervasive 'on-the-roll' trap can be classified as a 'prep trap' is that 'action' is a necessary starting point for most quests. But the preparatory 'action', such as earning money to start something new, has to mound into whatever the original quest was asking for. If not, someone 'earning money' will look like a dog chasing its tail.
Just like my favorite button says:
Now, I could write
a lot more about this subject, but I have still a meeting at 4:05 pm and
then I'll have to pickup someone who arrives at LAX at 5:34pm but leaves
at 5:58 on another flight, and then I'll have dinner with an old friend
at 7:15pm sharp, after which I'll have to rush home to see a TV spot on
our institute at 9:09pm on Channel 2, and I promised to call a friend in
Europe at 9:30pm PST. I think I forgot something, tho,...where the heck
is my calendar???