The Tyrannies We Quietly Swallow

or: A Brief Inquiry into Internalized Obedience

Photo by oskar holm on Unsplash

You probably won't die heroically. You probably won't expire with trumpets blaring or banners unfurling, your exit elegantly tragic or even marginally cinematic. The truth is far quieter and infinitely crueler: the tyrannies that claim us inch by inch don't storm our lives; they seep, subtly, gradually, like carbon monoxide into the small spaces of our consciousness. By the time your chest tightens, you're already halfway gone.

Ask yourself plainly: "What tyrannies have I swallowed today?" List them, if you dare, until nausea sets in, until your stomach churns with the truths, we dutifully digest. Ask yourself what cruelty you've accepted as routine, what injustice you've normalized into blandness, what silence you have championed into complicity.

These are not flashy tyrannies of dictators or oligarchs brandishing weapons, imposing visible misery upon a cowering populace. No, the insidiousness here is precisely in their innocuous disguise. We swallow tyrannies of expectation, for instance. These are the invisible rules someone wrote on walls long before we showed up. Rules demanding obedience in matters trivial and profound. Speak softly. Laugh politely. Marry correctly. Smile agreeably. Exist within lines drawn by people who had no business holding chalk.

We consume tyrannies of invisibility, too. We quietly accept becoming ghosts within our own stories, politely fading into background noise to preserve fragile peace. Women who soften their sentences, people who camouflage their truths in muted tones, humans of all kinds apologizing endlessly for merely existing. It’s tyranny by erasure, and it tastes bitter every time, though familiarity dulls our senses.

And don’t forget tyrannies of numbness, the art of mastering indifference when confronted with the suffering of others. A homeless man freezes on the street corner, a child starves overseas, a stranger struggles openly. We’ve been taught the obscene ballet of looking away, of swallowing down our shame, of turning compassion into something theoretical rather than visceral.

Tyrannies come packaged neatly, masquerading as virtues. Productivity, hustle, relentless forward motion, these we swallow eagerly, spoon-fed by a world worshipping exhaustion. Rest becomes betrayal, quiet moments criminal, leisure something decadent. These tyrannies sing softly into our ears: "Your worth is measured by your output." And we hum along obediently.

But here’s a secret I've learned, a truth stumbled upon after years dining dutifully at tyranny’s banquet: these quiet little poisons accumulate. They lodge deep within your bones, weighing heavier each passing day until you can barely remember what freedom tasted like.

Let’s call this stuff by its proper name: tyranny in teaspoons. An obligatory smile at an insult thinly veiled as a joke, the hollow laugh forced for social harmony, your careful muting of objections because confrontation feels too loud, too brash, somehow impolite. We become masters, not of our fate, but of quiet compliance, diplomats of repression, connoisseurs of internal surrender.

See, no one told you explicitly to diminish yourself, to fold your authenticity like a handkerchief neatly tucked in a jacket pocket, present but utterly sanitized. And yet you did—do—every day. You fold, you fold, and refold, until you can’t even remember the original shape you took. Your edges blur. You become palatable, digestible, a flavorless morsel easy on societal digestion.

The truly monstrous part of these minor tyrannies isn't their loudness or brutality. It is precisely their meekness, their quiet implication that resistance itself seems hysterical, overwrought, embarrassingly earnest. And so, you slip into a practiced sort of surrender that isn't obviously surrender at all but rather something more akin to etiquette, a learned social art performed meticulously to spare everyone else the burden of seeing your discomfort.

“We spend so much time trying not to offend the world that we forget the world has no qualms offending us, daily and enthusiastically.” Chaotic Goodisms | ~V

I’m reminded of a child who once sat obediently at dinner tables, carefully chewing and swallowing cruelty disguised as wisdom, nodding appreciatively at belittlement served as love, at criticism masquerading as care. She believed swallowing was strength. She believed silence equated grace. Here’s the paradox: she was me, and maybe she was you, and maybe she still is.

What happens, one might wonder, when a human heart finally recognizes tyranny, these microdose poisons we accept with morning coffee and evening wine, as cumulative? Do we suddenly revolt, heroically, overthrowing internal oppressors like joyous revolutionaries storming mental Bastilles? Or do we crumble, our identity dissolved into something vague, a passive construct inhabiting neither joy nor pain, merely the lukewarm medium of polite nothingness?

This kind of obedience isn’t benign; it’s malignant. It spreads imperceptibly, like mold beneath the wallpaper of our personal narratives. It’s living room furniture we've grown accustomed to maneuvering around, even though we stub our toes on its hard corners daily. And we quietly swallow back the curses, accepting pain as the rent we pay to occupy our spaces.

This, you might suspect, is the essence of living under invisible occupation. The invader isn't external armies but internal acceptance, the subtle compliance of the oppressed self, occupying itself. There are no parades, no visible enemy to name, just the quiet, relentless erosion of what once felt like identity.

Can we un-swallow, I wonder? Is there room left to cough these small tyrannies back up, expose them, name them loudly without apology? To declare, openly, that we are no longer dining on self-negation, no longer politely starving our spirits to preserve public appetite?

Perhaps resistance needn't involve heroics. Maybe rebellion looks more like simply refusing the next polite bite, declining the tasteless morsel offered so courteously that refusing it seems rude. Maybe freedom begins in realizing the tyranny wasn't inevitable but carefully cultivated, seasoned subtly with our complicity.

I propose we become gourmets of defiance. Taste-test rebellion. Savour authenticity. Relish our loud laughter, our awkward humanity, our glorious imperfections. Reject the slow poison of silent agreement. Be troublesome. Disagree openly, vividly, beautifully.

Because here's the thing: tyrannies are not inevitable. They require our consent, however quiet and reluctant. And consent can, gloriously, be withdrawn.

Tomorrow morning, when tyranny tries once again to slip into your breakfast, look it squarely in its invisible eye. Laugh uproariously, make a scene, and demand the menu of freedom instead.

It’s infinitely tastier, and better yet, it won’t sicken you to death in silence.

The question isn't whether you're brave enough for grand revolution. The question is smaller, quieter, sharper: can you cease consuming your own oppression? Can you recognize the subtlety of silent tyranny, the conspiracy of quiet you perpetuate against yourself? Can you bear the discomfort of authenticity, real, raw, unmitigated authenticity, without apology?

Because if you can, just once, and then again, you might find something astonishingly akin to liberation, hidden in plain sight. It might not feel heroic, but perhaps heroes rarely feel heroic anyway. Perhaps heroism looks a lot more mundane, more pedestrian: simply saying no, quietly, firmly, to the tyranny served neatly every day, spoon by well-mannered spoon.