The Book: On The Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are / quote 30 of 101
Being in a double bind
No one who has been hoaxed into the belief that he is nothing but his ego, or nothing but his individual organism, can be chivalrous, let alone a civilized, sensitive, and intelligent member of the cosmos. But to be lived this way, the life-game has to be purged of self-contradictory rules. This, and not some kind of moral effort, is the way out of the hoax of separateness. Thus when a game sets the players an impossible and not simply difficult task, it comes quickly to the point where it is no longer worth playing. There is no way of observing a rule set in the form of a double-bind—that is, a two-part rule whose parts are mutually exclusive. No one can be compelled to behave freely or forced to act independently.