Question Everything

We are not free. We only have the illusion of freedom. We are handed a brochure of options to choose from and within those options, there is freedom. But if there was real freedom, the options would be limitless. All of society would be on the table for discussion. Yet we have only two real political parties, one system of government and one way of life. You would imagine in a free society that everything, our government, our morals, our rules, and every way in which we live and operate in our society would be on the table for discussion, but in my experience I have found this not to be so. People can fight and argue all they want about the death penalty or abortion, but if you ask people to question democracy or education, the conversation will more likely reach a very abrupt ending. And these are just two examples, but the sad reality is that there are many more. 

Now I am not saying that democracy is bad, or that children should not be sent to school, but I am saying that they should be questioned. The only way that we can build anything great is by constantly testing it and scrutinizing it. No topic should be off limits. Every aspect of our lives should be under questioning. Just because everyone does live this way doesn't mean it is the way we should live. I would argue that there is no ONE way that anyone should live. We are all different and should all be allowed to live however and believe whatever we want. I believe that for all the good that education does it can easily breed conformity. 

Education for me is the big one. But if you even broach the subject about not sending your child to school with some people and you will find extreme resistance. You can't even bring up the conversation. Something is very backwards about that to me. It may seem like I am against education, but in fact it I am completely for education, but a more progressive form. Young children need to understand the rules of our society so when they get a little older they can adjust the model so that it may be better. Children need to understand our way of life so they can make it BETTER. If our way of life has any chance at getting better it is the newer generations that can do this. I look to my parents and I think of all the things that I could teach them to be happier in their lives, and in my heart believe that my son can teach me just as much if not more. I think that parents teach children, and then it is the job of children to teach the parents. Children has just as much to teach as to learn. The younger generations are there to teach us how to find happiness and follow our dreams, which our parents forgot. If nothing else, there can teach us how to stay open. It is unfortunate because more often then not whatever generation you belong to, everyone always thinks the next doesn't know how to live, or they are ruining the world. Just as you have no right to be told what to do, you have no right to tell anyone else what to do. This concept is not new, and has existed as far back as recorded history, and will exist likely for many to come. I say this not because I am still part of a younger generation, but because that is how life works.

Every spring new flowers grow and blossom in the garden. The old flowers don't school and scold the new ones on how to be a genuine flower, because the young ones already know how to do it. They are flowers. That is what they do. There is no chance they could be anything else. The old flowers say "How wonderful! New flowers!" They gaze upon them and are reminded how glorious and beautiful it is being a flower. Some grow short, others grow long, some come in different colors, have fewer or more leaves and so forth. The old flowers are reminded how wonderful it is to exist. 

We in this culture have such a negative view of children. People don't think so, but look at our culture. Everything in our way of life is guided towards degrees, masters degrees, and careers. Everything is about adulthood. That is the purpose of school, and it seems to be the purpose of life in america. Children are guided to be hardworking adults. Children are taught to follow their dreams, so long as that dream includes a job with a salary. Children are taught to be happy, so long as that happiness includes an opposite sex partner and a few children who they can raise in the same way that you raised them. Those who do not fit these models are outcasts in our society. We need to stop and ask ourselves is this what children want, or is that what we want? Do we really have any clue what is best for our children? We don't even know what is best for ourselves, how on earth can we know what is best for someone else. 

The beauty of life is in its diversity, but yet we are all conditioned to go to school, graduate with a degree, get a career, a spouse and a few kids, a big house with a white picket fence, slave away for 40 hours a week, get old, die and never, NEVER question it. Is this really what is best? Is this really what you want or what you want for your children? This may be how some people want to live and they are more than welcome to do so, but if someone does not want to, they should be encouraged to do so. People should not be culturally conditioned to a standard of living. There is no standard of living. Life is to be lived, and not lived only within the parameters of specific guidelines. Question everything. Find out what works for you. 

Come Into Culture

It is not the world that we come into, but culture. We grow into the world in a natural way, eat natural foods, behave in natural ways, and it is only when we become conditioned by our parents through their culture that we as children start to lose our natural state of being. Children are not viewed as human beings but instead as candidates for the human race, and only if the child will cooperate with us and assume our culture will they be human. It is this constant conflict of our true nature and our culture which to me is one of the largest forces influencing who we are and how we identify ourselves as individuals.

The culture we live in is not one that is natural. The way in which we live is not a natural state of living, with my largest point being that if it was, there would not be so many individuals who have such a difficulty finding peace and contentment. I think that it is culture that makes us feel alienated and out of place. It should be completely obvious that we are an integral part of the world and could not exist without it. Our culture, however, tends to separate us from nature and in doing so creates a massive disharmony between us and reality which brings us to situation we find ourselves in, in which we are destroying the planet, and there is endless fighting, poverty and starvation. Needless to say I believe that we need a large shift in culture if we are to not only survive, but thrive on this planet and in our own skin.

Seeking

In our society I have found that we do not encourage contentment. We are instead told that we should always be seeking. Seeking for the perfect job, the perfection of ourselves, the perfect spouse, the perfect life, the list can go on and on. This is further complicated by our capitalistic way of life, but I shall save that for another time.

Advertisements on the radio and television give us the image that we would be happier if only we had a certain product or lifestyle, and what is unfortunate is that our schooling and our society are more often than not part of this conditioning. We find that if everything in our minds expectations are not met, we should not worry because something better is out there, and all we need to do is keep searching. Keep searching for something that we will never find. The idea that there is gold hidden away in those hills, and that is what we need to find. We must be searching for that goodie. It is somewhere for sure, but certainly not here with us now. 

Unless one has a job that is suited to their personality or preference one must search endlessly to find this unreachable place of employment. For if we one day reached such a place, we may find ourselves either dissatisfied with it, as it may not be all that we imagined, or we may find ourselves wrapped in the fear of losing what we have found.

It is no surprise that most of us have lives full of unmet expectations because we are told that although we may have not found such things, it is out there, all we must be is keep searching. I myself have spent much more time than I would like to admit doing this very thing.

I would like to propose a different idea: that yes that perfect job, spouse, mind state, situation or whatever it is you are looking for is not somewhere else, but right where we are. It can be found at this very minute. It is standing directly in front of us, and all we need to do is stop seeking. All we need to do is open our hearts and open our eyes. We have been conditioned that only through the mind and through thinking can we find happiness, but from my experience the quickest way to finding contentment, which I believe is true happiness, is through the cessation of thought. Simply be present, view the world with an appreciative mind, and have fun.

Consider the possibilities of how our lives as individuals or even furthermore how a society would be effected by just a slight change in perspective.

All Mixed Up

Why do we not trust ourselves? Why do we look down at ourselves and put ourselves down? And why is it that we get the idea that other people have their shit together somehow better than us?                                                                                                           To me it is common sense that every single one of us is just as confused and mixed up as everybody else. Nobody is better or smarter or more evolved or closer to the ultimate reality or anything else that you can imagine as a competition. I don't care if you are a priest or a guru or a scientist with an endless number of degrees or the president of the United States. To me, you are not any better than anyone else. But don't run too far with this thought either, because I do not think I am better than any of them. Now the truth is that from time to time I cannot help judging people. Sometimes I will get the sense of superiority or inferiority, because that is part of the culture I grew up with, but I understand that just because I may from time to time think it so does not mean it is. And anyone that truly believes they are superior or inferior has a false sense of identity.

We must stop competing with everyone else, especially with ourselves. We get the idea that we could be better and that we should be a better version of ourselves. Why is this? Is it something that we truly feel or is it an idea that has been put into us by something outside us? You cannot be anything other than what you are.

Stop competing with yourself, you are wonderful the way you are. Don't look up to anyone because they are no better than you are, and don't look down on anyone because they are just as good as you. Everyone is just as fucked up and mixed up as you are. We all have the same thoughts and fears and hopes. This is a bridge that can bring us all together as a people.

Quiet The Mind

One of the greatest things that we can do for ourselves is from time to time respectfully tell our mind to be quiet.

It is the nature of mind to wander, but that does not mean we must follow it. Watch the wandering of your mind, the sensations of your body, and the world as it enfolds right in front of you.

I find from my personal experience that as I do not follow my mind, I begin to distance myself further and further from the idea of "me". Even the idea of a separate self seems like an absolutely impossibility. The thoughts that run through my brain and even the actions of my body do not appear to be things that are under my control. That is not to say that they happen TO me either, because there is no individual me at all. Things just seem to happen. Life happens both through and around me. I have found that experiences like this may not only be the real nature of the cosmos, but is an absolute necessity to promote any sort of harmony within oneself.