I don't hate you. I believe in freedom. That freedom is not just for myself it is for everyone. Part of that freedom is the right for you to have your own adventure and make your own choices. The thing about choices and freedom is that you should have the right to make good and bad choices. They are yours to make. That is if indeed you seek and practice freedom.
In this post I would like it if you can do some mental imagery of what your day to day life is like. What do you tend to do? Who do you hang out with? How do different encounters go?
Yet simply because I would LIKE it for you to imagine these things does not mean you have to. You are free to make your own choices.
When you look around yourself in your life where do the ideas that most drive you come from? Do they come from books? Do they come from youtube videos of people you like? Do they come from your friends? Do they perhaps come from one or more news outlets you have interest in? Do they perhaps come from a lot of those places?
I didn't ask an important question in that group of questions I just asked. If you are free it is the most important of the questions. Do they come from you?
Do you generate your own ideas that are different from those that you see, hear, or read from those other places?
Really, do you?
If you were to express these ideas of yours openly how do you think your peers/friends you hang around would accept them?
Is it okay for you to outwardly express ideas that might be different from theirs?
If you all value freedom then hopefully this is indeed something that is acceptable.
How much of your life is motivated by fear?
Stop and think for a minute. Try to think of the fears that enter your mind each day. Some people may instead prefer the word worries rather than the word fear. To me they are often synonyms (meaningfully the same thing).
Why do you have those fears? Do you see, hear, or read things that make these fears more and more real?
If so, where do you see, hear, or read these things?
Is there someone telling you that you should fear? Are they showing you why you should fear?
How often are they helping you reduce the fear? When you look around in your life do you notice that there are those increasing your fear, but there are fewer that help you reduce your fear?
Notice. I did not say "face your fear".
There certainly are times to face our fear. We often call this being brave when you go on despite your fear. It's as if we are afraid of the dark yet we trudge forward into that darkness. That is bravery.
We lift bravery on a pedestal. It generally is considered a virtue. Even virtues can be wielded against us.
There is facing fear and bravery in the world today that I see. Though one thing I often see that is lacking.
Removing or reducing the fear. Do you think that you truly should have this much fear?
Are all of these things truly worthy of fear? Yet they keep growing.
Why?
Again, what do you hear, see, and read each day?
Are those things doing anything to reduce fear? Are they perhaps increasing it?
Why, would they do that?
When you are truly afraid and terrified do you think you make your best decisions?
I am asking you. I cannot speak for you, as I only have my own mind that I truly understand.
I can tell you that through observation I don't think people make the smartest or most rational of decisions when they are afraid.
It is the famous spectator speaking to horror actors "Don't go that way you idiot!" that we yell at the screen as some terrified actor or actress runs some direction in fear. It's easy to comment and to pass judgement on a person when we are spectators. It is not the same as riding around inside their mind.
If you are one of those of late that organizes to try to do something about it these questions that I ask next are for you.
Why are you organizing? What are you protesting?
Did you come up with those reasons yourself? If not, where did they come from?
If you were to express disagreement with the people directing the gathering what would be the result?
If you were standing in formation and shouting, is it free form or do you have planned chants and statements that you all agree will be used?
Who comes up with those chants? Did you?
What if you did your own? How would that be received?
If you are all standing in formation somewhere and you break formation, how is that received?
What are the rules for if someone comes up and starts asking you challenging questions?
What if you decide you want to talk to that person?
Is there someone that will come stop you or intervene?
If so, why?
Like I said at the beginning. I care about freedom. I want you to think about freedom and what it means. I want you to think about your fears. I want you to think about whether the sources you deal with are helping those fears go away, or if they are only making you act based upon fears.
Perhaps you think they are giving you hope. Perhaps they are. Yet, what if that fear didn't need to be there?
What if that fear was being increased and fed like a plant being watered? What if the goal is to keep you afraid?
Have you ever seen one fear ended, and then days or weeks later a new one replaces it?
I haven't targeted ANY specific group or person in this document up to this point. From this point on I am going to make up a fictitious event and occurrence to maybe make people think. This event can resemble many historical events and groups, and is not intended to represent a single faction or movement.
I heard the glass shatter. The brick, the stone, the bat. It didn't matter. All I knew is something had broken my window. Why did my mind go to those things rather than say a childhood baseball through the window? Well, I had heard the crowd, and the anger, and the drone of chants outside. I knew that there was some anger over one thing or another. I knew as usual that the news was in a feeding frenzy over that anger. It was like a candy machine that if they kept poking would just keep spewing out more candy for the media machine to consume. Why would the media attempt to calm this? It is the gift that keeps giving as far as they are concerned. Calm it down? Are you crazy? They want more of this. They make sure to zoom in on any little incident that might cause the anger to grow. The really good bits they'll play over and over again to give the illusion it is happening more often than it is.
Sadly. I saw this awhile back. It is one of many reasons I don't pay a lot of attention to the news now. It is no longer about simply giving me information that can help me in my day to day life. It is no longer about simply being informed. In fact, it could be argued it is not informing us of much unless it is beneficial to expanding the fear, anger, and hype that is fueling the feeding frenzy of the media. The obvious "If it bleeds it leads" platitude flashes through my mind as I open my front door.
There are the usual formations I've become familiar with at protests. They all have their banners that are like big giant memes. They all chant something or another in unison.
I stopped thinking those chants had value regardless of what the message in a chant might be some time ago.
Why?
To me they are an expression of people ceasing to have freedom. They are being forced to utter the thoughts of the person who came up with the words for the chant. It is no longer that beautiful thing called an individual. It becomes something known as group think.
When a person allows themselves to be herded in formation and then they shout chants in unison to me I see a little bit of freedom dying on that day. The spark of hope that they may still be free is still there. I watch.
I watch as someone attempts to approach them and have a rational discussion. If they reach a chanter willing to talk and they begin to speak, how long does it take before someone appears and pulls that chanter back in line and makes them stop talking? They get pulled back into formation, and back into chanting. That does not look like freedom to me.
On this day with my broken window I decided I'd go try this myself. I am not part of these protests, but I'd like to try something just for my own curiosity. Hopefully I don't get a split skull or something from the attempt. We shall see. Is bravery this time a vice or is it a virtue?
I walk towards the wall of protestors not really paying attention to their chant, just looking for someone willing to talk. A mindless chant has no meaning for me as it is not representative of someone doing their own thinking. I don't want to speak to a hive. I want to speak to people. I want to see that light of freedom in their eyes, not the dull film of enslavement, indoctrination, or oblivion. I don't care about their message at this point. Just their freedom.
I walk towards the first one. I wave and say "Hi" and they can't hear me and they ignore me. I get jostled by some of the people from the other side. I'm honestly not paying much attention to them either.
Perseverance is the name of the game. I move onto another and say "Hello there" and did I see their eyes flit to me for a moment before they resumed their chant? Perhaps I did. Let's try again a little louder. "Hi"
"No time for your hate speech!" is shouted at me and a hand from behind rests on that persons shoulder. They stop looking at me and resume chanting.
I sigh, and feel a little sadness. I give that sadness in my mind a good swift kick and move onwards. I keep trying.
After a moment one of the protestors says "Hi" back.
I quickly kneel in the form known as taking a knee in front of them and hold out one hand.
"Will you talk to me?"
The person looks around "I don't have time for hate speech".
"I don't hate you. I am here kneeling with my hand held out to you."
"Yeah, you are one weird dude."
"It got your attention."
The person looks around a bit nervously. I suspect they are looking for that hand in the mass that will seek to pull them back in line. If my luck holds out I'll say what I want to say before that happens.
"What do you want," asks the protestor?
"It's not about hate. It's about freedom. Are you free? Can you do what you want? Can you say what you want? Can you talk to whomever you want? If not, are you free? That's all."
I see confusion. I see anger. I see fear.
I say "Thank you for talking to me" as I rise back up and turn and walk away.
I have no delusions that I just changed their mind. I may have accomplished nothing. I may have planted a seed. They may think.
Now, I need to go see about fixing that window...
That is the end of my story there.
I believe in freedom. Yours and mine.
Words don't take my freedom away. I can walk away from words.
Words of true hate. I can walk away from those as well. If someone is throwing actual physical spears those can hit you in the back if your turn and walk away and kill you. Words cannot.
Thus, any attempt to limit what people are allowed to say is an attack on freedom. You are free to ignore and walk away from words. They are not attacking or harming you in any way that you cannot walk away from.
If you choose to let them harm your own mind, or emotions that is on you. In life we learn how to deal with the physical dangers we encounter such as hot, cold, hunger, pain, etc. Yet we move on. We do not suddenly decide we can remove those things from existence as that is not realistic. We instead learn to deal with them.
We must do the same with our minds, and our emotions. Were you hurt by words? If you think you were then deal with it. That doesn't mean attack and remove freedoms from the person that spoke those words. It means deal with it inside yourself. LEARN. Learn how not not have those words have any effect upon you. It is not as easy as trying to make it so others cannot speak. Yet, in truth the easy path is often the wrong path. Look towards the more difficult paths. They are often very rewarding.
If you value freedom. Then you should value the freedom of others. One cannot truly exist without the other.
Do your own thinking...
Have you ever considered the statement "Thinking outside the box?"
Think about that statement. That implies there is a box. I think we instinctively understand that and nod as we think about that box.
Why are we in a box?
Are we free?
So is thinking outside the box also perhaps free thinking?
It's not about hate...
It's about freedom...
Are you free? Are you attempting to take away freedom of others? Is not forcing them into the box so they think like you, and say the things you say doing that?
I was lying in my bed this morning and most of what I wrote above flitted through my mind like a fire. I had to get up and write it while I was still inspired. It actually began with a simple two word spark. "Global Exorcism"
EDIT: And yes I forgot to use the discussion tag again. I was not really thinking discussion when I created this. I was just trying to give it form while I still had a grasp of it in my mind.
a very good story
my daily life as you tell me in this post
I every day nonggkrong with my friends in the stall while drinking coffee
Freedom takes a lot of responsibility.
Responsibility = Courage, Endurance, Perserverance, Willpower, Strength, Self-Improvement, Selfishness
People don't realize what it takes to be free. You have to watch out for yourself first. You need a lot of money, knowledge and you need to be able to be alone for a long time.
Sounds like a box to me. I believe freedom is actually a lot more than that. ;) It is also expressed in an individual and potentially different for each of us.
It also exists with or without money.
I'm agreeing with most of what @valorforfreedom is saying, but I recognize that being free is also kind of a mindset for folks with little option to resist as well.
I'll take a stab this this:
The actions required to keep a society free depend on the personal attributes that @valorforfreedom notes; the actions required to keep an individual free depend on that person's abilities and goals
Money is a tool; it's not necessary in the struggle, but it sure is useful!
There are different levels of freedom.
I know from experience that you can not be free without money dwinblood.
You will not be able to go where you want, you will not able to resist the government, you will not be able to get what you want.
Total freedom is like a box without money.
People will not want to be around you as no money is a sign of laziness, no motivation and a lack of dreams.
I suggest you check out Operationwerewolf.com to see what freedom with money looks like.
They have built their own world with money, sweat and blood and they prepare themself everyday to prevent other people from taking it away from them. I really love it.
Cannot is a form of absolute. It only takes one example to disprove an absolute.
There are societies and people without money. There are also people living off the grid (I've encountered a few in the mountains) that have no need of money.
So by your logic they can't be free.
Money is a tool. We are tool creators. Freedom existed before tools.
I agree with that argument. I just don't like freedom without money which is like a "limited" freedom.
Hahaha.... Well I can get not liking it. :)
I will tell you I served a very rich guy his last meal before he went and blew his brains out with a shotgun. And no, it was not my food that put him to it.
He was very unhappy.
Money can become a trap too.
My response to you initially was basically to say FREEDOM is a lot bigger than what you were describing. It was like if there was a big open space called FREEDOM full of stars and you pointed at one solar system and said "That's freedom" when in reality all the stars out there were freedom.
Freedom can be a very subjective thing. For me it is basically about voluntaryism. Being able to make choices, rather than having choices forced upon me.
As far as money and today. The problem is we are not truly free today. There are MANY things forced upon us which we cannot choose to not do.
They are not also things required for survival. They are things created artificially by other people.
When such situations exist we cannot truly be free.
So money as you and I deal with now is from a perspective from WITHIN that environment.
Part of why money seems like freedom is because they take more and more of that money and you can't say NO DON'T TAKE THAT. Which leaves us with less and we struggle due to that being the tool of trade in our environment.
When we have more money their taking of our money is less of a burden.
Yet, as my example above (it was true by the way... that really did happen) states even a wealthy person can feel trapped and not free.
Also I thought I'd add. Some of the most free moments in my life did not involve money in any form.
I can agree with that too. So the conclusion is that freedom does not need money but it is limited. With money you have all the options.
No. Yet you can see the other response I just wrote you that was long. That explains why I said no. :)
Amen!
Sure everything he said is a factor. Yet, ultimately they do not define freedom.
Freedom if I were to get as simple as I could is. Individualism. Freedom is being you, and not trying to mimic someone else (unless you choose to).
All money does is open more paths that you can walk in your adventure. That gives you more choices.
Yet if you have fewer choices you can still be free.
Money IS a tool, as you indicate. It also is a necessary tool. As with all tools it can be used for benevolent or malevolent purposes.
I don't disagree with @valorforfreedom. I simply see trying to stuff freedom into a box as the step towards no freedom.
Freedom is not being in a box.
freedom is deciding if you want to be in the box, or if you want to run off in the woods and eat flowers and moss, or deciding that you want to be a corporate slave ;>
I've seen some people say they want to sleep on the ground. What are they afraid of? Why give up what you have, just to run and hide? I say stay and fight for what you still have left.
I do see the option of going underground, or Galt.
Different people have different aggression levels, and different thoughts on the best way to protect their families
And deciding WHEN you want to stop doing any of those things.
agree with you m8 <3 upvoted
nicely said.
I have a perspective on this that I don't think you will agree with...
once that attack has been made on my property, then I no longer have any reason to attempt a rational compromise with that group.
If I can successfully use force to destroy them, that is the logical choice.
If I can not do so, I must use game theory to decide how to survive the situation.
But it will have been made clear to me that these people are an enemy, and to be dealt with on that basis.
Also, you were not the target I was aiming for with this post. ;) I think when you think about who my target was you might grin, and perhaps even chuckle.
EDIT: I consider you part of the choir with me. This wasn't a post aimed at the choir.
don't' worry- never thought it was directed at me ;>...I just now read your NAP post, and may have commented a wee differently had I read that before commenting here ;>
So I'm kind of at the point of defining enemy as someone who has
I view most of these people as puppets, slaves, zombies. Thus why I referred to exorcism in the post.
If that monkey/demon on their back could be removed and they learned to appreciate individualism and WHO THEY ARE rather than trying to be like someone else then some truly magical seeming things could happen.
Those people may have some truly amazing ideas that are repressed simply due to them being so busy trying to FIT IN.
keep in mind that it may be part of their goals to fit in, to be part of the crowd
Yes. And truly if they are FREE they should be FREE to choose to do that as well.
I guess what I am really getting at is I don't want them to be trapped by FITTING IN such that they stop thinking for themselves.
I am not the guy in the story. ;) That was a fiction created to illustrate some points. If that was a distraction for you then reread it pretending the broken window never happened.
I wonder if age comes into your thought patterns? You have seen it all, many times over, where the -leader- makes a decision and right or wrong, everybody follows them, do deviation allowed. The will to be able to pull back, think your own thoughts, then act on those thoughts, is probably one of the most rare items these days.
Do you have those 3 am board meetings and sort out problems too?
one comment.
I don't hate you...maybe. I don't know you that well. If you are outside of my cognosphere you're not a real person.
I might not be real. :)
most of the votes I get are from 'bots..and lately many of the comments are also.
Hi Everitt, I'm a real person, and I have been upvoting you but you have been ignoring me and not upvoting my info. heh
if you find my stuff to be interesting
I appreciate you voting for it.
I absolutely do find your information interesting and relevant:)) I will take the time to upvote you, and comment, if you reciprocate:)) Some of us have decided to use the hashtag #liberty so we can find eachother's posts. Many Thanks!
I've quoted a phrase from your article and built my own blog about respecting others in steemit .Hope you liked it! @dwinblood
https://steemit.com/story/@phaarmakone/what-is-the-reasons-for-the-great-respect-in-steemit-lmatha-alnas-hna-fy-mwqa-stymyt-yhtrmwn-badhhm-bshkl-kbyr
Oh by the way. Feel free to translate any of my articles that yo want to other languages. Reference the original, but feel free. It'd be better than me trying to do it with google translate. Especially articles like this one that I write to hopefully help people think about things differently.
Thanks for your reply @dwinblood. Your choice of topics is always beautiful. Keep up the great work here...
A very nice story..loveable..followed you for next posting
This has been the most beautiful post that I have seen you write to date. The questions that you are asking are very important ones. In spite of what many people say, there is no box. To believe that there is one is foolishness. If I would craft a definition of global exorcism, it would be the removal of the spark of the individual mind leaving an empty husk for the hive mind to infiltrate. Resteemed.
Also thanks for the compliment. This post meant something to me. It was one of those moments that felt magical to me as I was writing it. I wanted to breathe it life while I still had a hold of its proverbial tail as it sought to run away into the corners of my mind.
Heh. I thought of Global Exorcism as removing the hive mind out of people so we have a world full of individuals. I was viewing the group think and hive mind as like an invading demonic force when I thought of Global Exorcism. So global exorcism to me was a thought about expelling the hive and group think from people world wide and freeing them to be individuals and glorying in the things individuals can come up with.
I can see that through your definition as well. It would indeed be wonderful to get rid of the hive mind entirely.
Nice Post, UpVoted, following you.
Please Help me UpVote my post as well.
https://steemit.com/history/@crypto-genius/best-pictures-of-2009-around-the-world-and-some-historical-events
Hmmm freedom is just another word for____(fill in the blank). The programming is what makes them the slaves....
I like it. :)
LOL I suspect we were cloned some time back in history, there are a select few here at steemit who can bridge the mental level we think on... Stay sane my friend...
There's a song about that! Me and Bobby McGee:)))) I always wondered why Kris Kristofferson always has a communist flag in the background of his pictures... I think it's just crap, he's living in a beautiful house and I doubt he's redistributing any of his wealth to the inner city folks.
;-)
Your free to use your own tags!
just a word.... :-)
like freedom, people seam to have different ideas what it is, one thing it is not is free. for some reason you can not get something for nothing,except life... Then then you have to pay the price...
Seams the price for intelligence is debt.
Trying to solve the hate, and make it not equate.
I like the idea of the #discussion tag, I just keep forgetting about it. ;)
You are a smart man. I know you will pick it up real fast.
If you need to be repeatedly reminded,or harassed.....
I might be available.
;-)
Have a great day!
Namaste
Some of us are using the tag "liberty" so we can find each other and comment and discuss the issue that way:))
Beautifuly potyred
I like the way you write the story,Freedom is everything
Hate must be considered (ethicaly)
Anyhow Nicely projected the masg on steemit wall
If your rank is under 52 you will be easily quailified for curie...
I've been at 72 for some time. I've been around for awhile. ;)
Thanks. :)
Heh. You and I agree here. :)