another hot day in the city. was outside for most of the day, laying on the grass sun bathing… sitting in the park writing in my journal. and reading a book called “nomad” by an interesting woman who escaped from her somalian tribe into the western world.
i realized that compared to the muslim tribal way of life where the individual submits themselves to god, our system is perhaps a little saner (although i challenge this notion at the end of this blog post). but really, we should look at this idea of ‘collective madness’ as a continuum (absolute insanity —> ultimate sanity – or simply, our natural state). obviously in many ways life in the western world is better than anywhere else as we are quite ‘free’ to pursue our interests. or in other words we are free to be free or not free. but this freedom itself is also a continuum and is quite illusionary if we see it as a black & white concept.
how free are we really?
and further, how free are we if others (whether human or non-human animals) are not free?
it seems to me that although we do have a choice, most people don’t actually want to be free.
or they are too scared to because true freedom is devoid of the security of life and it’s means (although i think this is a false security which destroys our innate spirit for adventure, exploration and creativity).
and even if we were free from society, money, laws, government, etc (eg. if we go live in the wild), we are still enslaved to the laws of nature. nature is our master and that is really the only authority we should look to. it has been said wisely “don’t take authority as the truth but truth as the authority”.
nature IS truth. the laws are inescapable. when we jump off a cliff, we fall.
when we meddle with the biodiversity of life (which we have done quite extensively in our modern world), species die out and this causes problems in the ecology of the earth in the long run. when the ecology that is needed to sustain human life goes too far from what we were evolved to live in, humans too will become extinct.
right now we have and continue to poison our oceans. we continuously cut down huge amounts of rainforest every day to harvest agriculture and livestock. we also have a growing population of our own species which is already larger than our current resources can handle. and yet people continue to have children, continue to support the agriculture/livestock industries and continue to eat their “sushi” and pretend they are doing something cultural while fooling themselves that we need to eat marine life (or other animal products for that matter) in order to thrive! this is all unnecessary. we are also causing a lot of waste with our materials and lifestyles which pollutes the air we breathe and the earth we walk upon. and all this continues on and on and on, with ever increasing problems like starvation, war, crime, poverty, oppression, abuse & disease. yet all of these problems have simple solutions and they are very well known by those who choose to acknowledge them. the question is are we willing to do what it takes to make the changes necessary?
at the beginning of the year i personally made some drastic lifestyle changes so i would not be contributing to these problems or to at least minimize my contribution. here are a few (although there are many more):
1) i completely stopped consuming ALL animal products.
2) i try to avoid cars and all motorized vehicles and instead use a bicycle + my feet!
3) i also stopped spending time with people who i consider to be toxic to my well being; people who don’t support the inherent values that i believe unites us all. i actually question whether people even know what they value. every time i try to ask them, it seems they value the same things as everyone else but for some reason their lifestyles are incongruent with their values. this means that there is great hope! people just have to understand more deeply the consequences of their actions.
just by doing the three things mentioned above, i have not only lessened my impact on the global ecological crisis unfolding before our eyes but as a nice little trade-off has contributed positively to my own well being and sanity. actually that is a huge understatement. the truth is, my new habits have transformed me as a human being! some say we are what we eat. some say we are our thoughts. i say we are how we live.
i do want to say that these ‘toxic’ people are not bad people. they are just stuck in this paradigm of greed, consumption, escape, materialism, superficiality, junkie, parasite, prostitute, vulture culture which their minds have been paralyzed and conditioned with. the only difference with islam tribal life is that the muslims serve allah while the western world serves money and ego. so which one is more free?
either way, both are a crime against humanity and a detriment to the well being of our planet.
a friend and mentor of mine (and his fascinating family!) has a great website called towards freedom which you can find the link to in the ‘resources’ page which i just added. i am certain it will benefit you as much as it has and continues to benefit & inspire me!