"I must create a system", said William Blake... But systems are never Good - and yet...

"I must create a system, or be enslaved by another man's." 

So said William Blake - and he did; he created an idiosyncratic and incomprehensible system of assumptions, archetypes, and analogies; as expounded in the very long and obscure "prophetic" books.  

William Blake - 1757-1827 - lived at the very beginning of the first Romantic era; so he was among the first to experience and express the inner need to escape from the toils of the already-existing systems of knowledge. 

And surely he was right? Surely there is no tyranny more complete than that of a system of thinking, a religion, an ideology? 

But it is apparent that creating one's own system is not an answer - not even to oneself. 

The creating of a new system is, indeed, a creative activity; but once the system has-been made... Well, then it really is just another system.

What happened with Blake has happened innumerable times since. Nowadays, almost everybody experiences the oppression of the system; yet among those who desire and are determined to escape it, and make their won system - the process ends in... just-another system. 

It happens even to creative geniuses such as Joseph Smith, HP Blavatsky, Rudolf Steiner... They start out with exciting and apparently liberating spiritual experiences and insights; but end-up with ludicrously-complicated and vast systems. Systems that their followers are supposed to learn and obey; in a way that never applied to the originators of those systems, while they were originating them. 

In sum; those who themselves successfully follow Blake's advice and create a system to avoid enslavement by another-man's system; have merely created another system. And the new system them process to enslave first of all its originator; so we see the creative genius struggling to impose his system on himself! And then... anyone else who chooses to follow the founder. 

So that the creative genius becomes merely a leader -  a bureaucrat of the new system; and his followers merely functionaries of the new system; and/or corrupt and/ or careerist manipulators, who try to use the system for their own this-worldly benefit.   

The same trajectory applies to movements of renewal and awakening within the stale and empty forms of established religions. 

At first the founder of the movement is creative, and the process of making a system is exciting, enlivening... 

But to the extent that this is successful, the system crystallizes; and presses upon any individual; crushing, and incrementally killing, the soul. 

It seems that we follow the same loop over and again. We recurrently hope, and may believe, that Goodness can be captured in a system: Goodness can be made-into a system.

And either that the latest system has finally succeeded in capturing Goodness; or else that some old system has never yet been properly tried, but would capture Goodness is properly implemented. 

People are temporarily energized and motivated; by trying to develop and impose their system - believing that This Time they have got-it-right...

That this time, this system really will made this world a better place, if only people would do it. 

But it never happens; and it never can happen - because systems are the problem. 

And yet (as Blake saw, so long ago), we must have a system; we can't avoid them. There is no alternative in this life and world as it actually is - which is why creative pioneers always end-up with just another system. 

The situation is that what we most-want and most-need - is not possible in this mortal life and on earth. 

Is life, therefore, forever and inevitably a tragic paradox? 

Or; is what we want and need possible to all of us who understand the problem - but someplace else: maybe after death, and in Heaven?

This seems to be a problem well-worth solving; seeking the answer to which is an activity well-worth our best and most serious effort.