Family is presented as a safe harbor, but in practice it often functions as a brake. It’s common to see parents, uncles, or grandparents imposing paths that don’t correspond to the young person’s natural inclination. They say “do this, do that” as if they were oracles of life, believing there’s a universal formula for success: just give orders and, by obeying, the young person will supposedly succeed. But when the plan fails, they wash their hands. The result is always the same: wasted years, accumulated frustration, and an emptiness the family never recognizes because they never take responsibility for their bad advice. They don’t know how to read the essence of the boy, don’t see the innate talent, don’t perceive the inner inclination that Robert Greene calls the “life’s task” in his book Mastery. On top of that, they believe they can even decide friendships and romantic relationships for the young man, as if these were interchangeable pieces of that universal formula.
The young person feels trapped in a script he never wrote. With every imposed decision, his identity evaporates. He didn’t choose anything, he only executed orders. When frustration reaches the limit, many look for a quick escape: drugs, alcohol, digital addictions, destructive behaviors. It’s a pattern that repeats generation after generation. Family, believing they’re helping, in reality push him into the abyss.
This mechanism is not exclusive to the family circle. Intelligence organizations operate the same way, but with scientific method and military discipline. They design life plans for specific individuals, strip variables from the personal equation until the target has no margin of choice. It’s applied behavioral engineering. The target starts to live in a narrow corridor, with no forks, driven like cattle toward a pre-established destiny. Autonomy is ripped away piece by piece until only a puppet remains, clinging to the illusion of choice. In this process, they also manipulate the social and affective sphere, deciding who the victim should have by their side and who must be cut off, controlling even friendships and intimate relationships as part of the programming.
At the core, family and intelligence organizations share the same logic: replacing natural inclination with an artificial narrative. A young man who could have been an artist is forced to become an accountant. Someone born to be an entrepreneur is cornered into an office job. A curious mind is anesthetized by routine, fear, and manipulation. The consequence is predictable: torn lives, buried potential, talents never revealed.
The key is to recognize the pattern early. Inclination is an inner force that doesn’t lie. If ignored, it rots from within. The young man who doesn’t protect that spark will always be a victim: of family, of society, of the State, or of the invisible machines of psychological engineering. Resisting requires brutal honesty with oneself and the courage to cut the cord, even if it hurts. Life cannot be dictated by external scriptwriters. Whoever abandons their own inclination is already dead in life, only breathing by inertia.
September 2025
This article is in English. Read the Portuguese version ⇒ Ler em português