On freedom

Freedom, is perhaps one of the most used words nowadays.  Wherever there's politics, there will be someone mentioning "how important freedom is"   and  "we have to protect our freedom".   But what exactly is freedom? is it something that in the XXI century, most of us really have?


It is usually conceived that freedom in modern times is almost something guaranteed,   the times of slavery and imperialism are supposedly gone.  No matter the colour, the ethnic,  the creed, people are born free and live free.    Of course this is nothing but a romantic idea,  that exists solely in the mind of the naive individual.   There are many forms of enslavement;  from the african kid picking diamonds in the depths of dangerous caves, up to the individual that believes himself to be free, but that has actually surrendered his freedom to someone else.    And not, this is not one of those articles in which I'm going to attack the capitalist or consumerism style of living, at least not from this point of view. Such articles abound on the internet, and so what's the point of writing yet one more of those?    Not going to attack wallstreet, work from 8 to 5,  bla bla, etc.    That's not what it is about.


This is merely a reflection on what exactly is freedom.  Who is really free?   I guess that not so many people.  It seems almost as part of human nature to hate freedom, to be influential,  and to surrender to someone else.   Being strong, keeping your own point of view even though it might contradict what is established can be quite tough.   It's not about breaking the rules,  of entering into some kind of immoral way of acting.  But simply of being yourself,  and trusting yourself.   Sounds easy but is very difficult to practice.   From school we're taught to surrender to the will of the master.  Which isn't particulary wrong at all, but that is certanly the first step towards finishing your freedom.
I'm not speaking about not studying, or nor listening to the professor.   Just that the whole archetype should be re-evaluated.  Teacher is who teaches us what a tool is, and the different ways to use it. But not that order us to use it in a specific way.     So on and so forth, the kid grows up and will eventually give his freedom away.   Some will to the boss, other to the spiritual leader,  family doctor,  president,  even to his own wife/her own husband.   That's simply how it is.

But why is this happening? why has it happened for uncountable centuries?     Being free while charged with a heavy dose of thinking will always lead you towards a moral debate.  What is right and what is wrong?  The human is afraid of breaking a line.    Let's not forget that the line between genius and madness is very thin.   human is good by nature, but is very easily corrupted.   If the individual sees his neighbour breaking the line, he'll think "what is stopping me from doing so?"   there will even come the point that through mental and material crisis this inner question will become more, and more relevant,  very strong,  even can become a torture.  From this is born a distorsion that doesn't let live in peace.   Human is the only species that because of being so rational, can go to the extreme of killing himself due to an inner conflict.   

Now,  let's speak about the modern world.   A global society in which most of the people have perpetual and consistent access to news.  Both through the internet, as also offline on the tv, news papers, radio, etc.     This is a planet in which the news are not what the followers do, but what the breakers do.   This category of "breaker" can be even divided into those that do so with good intentions, and those that do so with bad ones.    As for the former, we have all these goverment leakers across the world denouncing precisley the violation to human rights, to freedom,  what is wrong with the world.   They break for denouncing.   Then we have those that violate for their self good,  not caring if they harm others on the process.  Of these there are also countless individuals.

No matter if good or bad intentions, they are all breakers... they are all over the news because they are the ones that break the program.   When have you seen news of a guy that follows a rigid schedule and follows the law?  Well never.. that's not news,  and that is simply boring.    Just as is fun to see someone slip after stepping on a banana shell, it is far more entertaining to read about who stole a bank, who put a bomb,  than Jimmy from your neighborhoud.  This is the generation of entertainment,  where just as in the tv and cinema is nice to see criminals, it is equally nice seeing them on real life (sure, as long as it doesn't concern you, or your loved ones)
With such "tempations"  lying on the other corner, how can the individual remain rightful even under the worst circunstances?    What is rightful anyway?       Ok to resume,  this is where anxiety and stress are born.  The human has to lead with the inner conflict between his belief, compassion, and what in the material world is conceived as the survival of the fittest.      Between all these words,  somewhere an identity lies,  and under such mask called identity, a human soul lies.

To solve all those conflicts by your own, demands you to start an inner journey which will take you with to the deepest shadows, to the valley of inner death.  "Ain't nobody got time for that"  The show must go on, you must keep moving..  there's a world out there that won't stop simply because the kid's getting emotional, even more,  if you have a family then there's yet more reasons for not stopping.     All this happens with the free man.   The free man unless he lives somewhere in the mountains apart from society, will sooner or later confront the XXI century Mara;   the consumption of good and evil in the pool of material wealth.      That's why individuals such as Edward Bernays conceived democracy as they did,  as a facade for consumerism.   Because the individual cannot be nothing more than a consumerist.  At least, that's what people in charge of most companies and goverments believe.      It has always been so.

Before there was the Church, the Divine right justifying the Monarchy.   They "safely" represented the will of the people.  It was God given's right that the Pope and the King rule over mankind    Most people were happy with this for a long while.   What better way and what beter place to keep your freedom that under the heavenly locks of the Sacred Church?    What better psychologist, doctor,  than God himself?   Such concept is valuable and acceptable under the right eye,  nonetheless, it got corrupted and became an excuse for tyranny against the people.
Such same people,  those same masses of peasants turned merchants became demanding. Arrived to the conclusion that such Divine right was nothing more than bollocks,  and they destroyed it.     For a while the Secularism became the bread of the day,   until such bread ended up being toxic and leading people to two world wars,  and many other conflicts in the last two centuries.    Where there's no God there's only the law imposed by man. And who better to break man's law than man himself?     Chaos invaded humanity...  the individual discovered that his tower of Babel had failed. That under the flag of democracy man had turned against each other.      The solution, a swift change of paradigm.  Mammon shall be the new god.   Man shall aspire, live and die for money.   However, it failed miserably too. 

Human has gone back to basics.  Freedom is for the tough, you need time and full dedication to be able to grasp, yet alone enjoy such gift.   The legal (I include alcohol)   and illegal drugs are at the order of the day.   We are going back to the point that people simply want to be told how to live their lives,  afterall that's the easiest path.   We still have a Pope, monarchs spreading their lineage,  but we also have the new leaders, the doctors, the gurus   the new entertainment stars.  The hall of leaders has been expanded.   A fan is nothing more than a fervant believer.    As a mere mortal that I am I can only state from the bottom of my heart that is very fortunate, and a privilige if you find someone that turns to influence you for good. Whether teacher,  friend, spouse,  doctor, priest etc.   Unfortunately freedom is very valuable, and there will always be a wolf disguised as sheep ready to enjoy what is yours, and lead to manipulation.     

A man can only grow up when he grabs the reins of his life.   Most of humans, prefer to remain in a long state of childhood without making this step,  not
taking the first swim without floaties. 

A FLOWER IS A...

A FLOWER.

A Stone is a stone.   Red is red, blue is blue.  A smile, is simply a smile.  Just an experience.

A cognitive discovery for me has been to recognize the nature of the experience.  We have been taught to predict an outcome,  to read deeper meanings in any symbol.  To just not look into the shallow.  To feel the depths.       What is the result of this?    what is the result in underestimating the direct experience in favor of the imaginative, of the thought?  of what doesn't exist?

By a New wave, it has been mainstream to look for the profound.  Sure, this is not bad at all,  and through it, seeds of art are sown into the ground.   However the trascendental can become a self imposed limit when we support the non-existent against what is here and now.   Like the old tales of magicians destroying themselves after becoming obsessed with the withcraft, this is what happens when the individual searches in his prejudices and cooperates to create visions.    Even though he might be wanting to create a celestial garden, as mere cause and effect he'll create a stormy sea.

You might say:   "it is a well known fact nowadays that secret cabals have used languages of symbols for ages,  and in those symbols that are given as clues through the popular media nowadays, they show their might to the masses....  which in turn, they use to control them "      What is ignored through stating this, is that the symbol is nothing, is just a drawing.    Form is singular,  is subjective, and therefore is experienced as something different by every single being.     It is only when we accept the meaning of a symbol,  that such meaning comes into existence.       The ritual holds no power,    the submission and faith to it,  is what matters exclusively and uniquely.


It is the experience the only thing that counts, what we do, not what we think.      You might even go further and say that even the act doesn't exist, but well.. I won't go that far,  is not a field that is known to me, nor something I have felt.      My point is rather simple  Don't hold any belief,  just feel.     There's the domain of logic and reasoning,  and also the domain of being.    That's also why we are human BEINGS.       The latter having been forgotten since the Illuminism arise in the West, but slowly coming back to where it rightfuly belongs.

Logic, let's leave it to where it belongs, giving feeling its space once again.     When you feel something, you're feeling just that.  There's no deeper, nor nasty meaning behind it. Anger is anger, that's what it is...  Anxiety is Anxiety. Prediction and presumption are superstition.  

There's a cause and end when is read through the experience and the feeling, through what the body wants to communicate.   As for the rest, is simply a distorsion caused by the moon.

Friend

Through the peaks of sorrow and sacrifice, to the light of joy, my friend has always been there.   A furry face, a masculine sight, a feminine beauty,  it just doesn't matter... because it's simply my friend.

I have seen you leave, once and yet again and again. Should not surprise me, as we're all in an individual journey.   A trip in which, through fortune and blessing we meet for a brief moment, just to communicate and yet, part again.  

What could be of those hard obstacles without friend?   through the darkness we would fall, all but desperation would remain.

And what about those magic and enlightening moments?   what would they be,  if they could not be shared?    For what is shared and enjoyed mutually stays forever,  but the rest vanishes in the thin air.

So many stages in life have passed, and most likely so many are yet to come.    Friend on either side of the continent,  friend on either side of judgment,   friend on any cardinal point.  It is just left for me to wonder, are you friend the one and the same?   Is it you, through many faces, the word that trascends time and space?     Is it you the same I have seen singing in the trees while drinking nectar of life, to the one I have shared human conversations with?   Is through this vital bond that I am to understand one of the keys of life?

Friend, one grows accustomed too. On which through communication a bond of trust and share is established.  Yet, all is relative and impermanent.   One moment we are both enjoying the ride,  on the next the road splits.   God only knows if I'll see you again with the same face, friend.  No doubt though, that I'll still get to see you with another, even more than once.

Friend simply as a concept encompassing all beings (not limited to humans)   with which we have the joy of sharing the trip for a while.   Taken for granted as everything else,  yet that will always eventually continue with their own road, their own journey...  to which we'll say "see you soon"      Just to see someone else come and take that place.    Sure,  that new is not a replacement, for the old bond, the old song of the souls will forever,  yet it is the one and the same concept of Friend.


In life we take everything for granted. Let's just contemplate our heart for a minute, and remember in joy all those good and great friends. Some have gone incredibly far by the distance yet are very close emotionally.  Others can be a block away but being poles apart from us now.      Of others, we have the blessing to still have close both emotionally, and physically...    No matter what the scenario is,  should Joy and Share remain in our visions of him/her,  those great moments will be still.

A Hummingbird's Omen: Enjoy the nectar of life

Hummingbird, Hummingbird,
Singing for me today,
Forsee the joys the flowers give,
And the nature that forgives.


With your sweet chirp,
And a swift leer,
Life and Nature are one and same.
In your eyes, the happy tunes are back to my sight.







Synchronicities in life are always present.    I have been very fortunate to have some very beautiful and sunny days of lately.   Emotions had been probably redefinined,  in tune more with the spontaneous joy of life finally.    Is truly a blessing to have hot days, where the sky seems like a sea above us, and there's not a single cloud.   Days in which from the green Eastern mountains,  some winds arrive.  But they are not razor kind of winds, contrary,  they are like a sweet drink for the soul.   Not even the best water could give such a pleasant sensation.

To sit under a tree, just contemplating the sounds and sights that are close by.  My favorite:  Harmonically, you raise your head and look up to the tree. So many branches!  The cups of those same trees resemble the most amazing neurons, as almost the most distant galaxies out there.    This brings me back to the old Songs of Innocence by William Blake.   I really believe, there aren't as many blessings on Earth, as the one when you feel one with nature, one the same.  Not a separated object, just in tune with the melody.      Standing up and resuming your walk among those same trees, you can hear how they sing thanks to the wind.    The eldest ones are majestic,  of a green that looks like blue. Aethereal trees of multiple dimensions that have been given to you by life as present right now.    And then you hug them.. and you feel simply like a part of them.

That's right. I feel I have not only recovered, but also increased my old and strong relation with nature.   All of these feelings and actions were spontaneous, driven by a mere love to what was surrounding me in this hot day. 
As a signal from life, upon my return to home from the market I heard a very low chirp.    Turned out to be an Emerald Hummingbird standing on a tree looking at me and my mum.   The tiny guy  kept singing, and even when I approached closer, he remained there.  Mysterious yet gorgeous.    I had not seen before a hummingbird in person so close while remaining still.     Real magic in motion.

I was greatly surprised hours later while reading about the Hummingbird and its symbolism.  Is one of the best totems, and truly apropiate for this occassion.   A sign from life telling me "continue this path as you're going in the right direction"      I couldn't have received a better response from nature.

Hummingbird, the bird of the New World.   Very fast, yet concentrated, and always focused on getting the maximum nectar out of every single flower.  Living in the here and now.    Fragile, yet able to travel more than 1000 km!

I'm just very, very thankful towards you hummingbird. Hope to see you once again while walking nearby!

On polarities: Masculinity and Femininity. Freedom-Cattle

This is a subject I have had in mind for some days already.    I had not written here in some weeks because I'm concentrating on the novel attempt I'm doing at the moment.    As such, I have been focusing my free time and dedication to that.     Nonetheless, it is nice to return once in a while to the blog, specially knowing there's people enjoying what I write here.

About sexuality and its relation with the polarities of nature, with Masculine and Feminine, I have had many, many questions for a long time. Is it so straightforward as to classify everything in black and white?    On the contrary, we should not forget that in the Ying there's Yang, and in the Yang there's Ying.  Black has white, and White has black.  Man has Anima, Woman has Animus.  So on and so forth.   

This concept first arisen in my mind some weeks ago, thinking about OCD, those what if's.. and such kind of things.   It is a fact that as we grow older, as we have new experiences in life, some beliefs we had before disappear, and are instantly replaced by sole experience.  No longer a belief based in nothing more than air, but instead something you had felt by yourself, that as an epiphany has come to your mind.     I wasn't born nor raise in a conservative family, yet somehow I absorbed some beliefs that over the time got very strong until they became some strong foundations.   To put it briefly, somehow I had for many years some sort of "Monk" mentality... I would go as far as to say that it hasn't disappeared completely.    This is not positive nor negative entirely, it has both aspects.    I still welcome in my life the positive ones, while contributing for the bad ones to disappear.   What were those bad ones? Well,  mainly to judge others.     Now I feel that I had a very big duality concerning the behavior of others,  and of course who am I to judge?  Moreover,  who am I to try to control or influence morally others?      In conclusion everyone take their own road.
This of course doesn't mean that I would take others roads if I feel I do not feel comfortable about it.   Simply, that there's more tolerance now.

It is much what I have read on the subject, having studied Political Science.  Feminism, Gay rights, etc.  I had mixed views and even confusion about how I should conceive these facts about life on Earth.   Also believe that there's many paradoxes and debates difficult to resolve on this.   I won't put my own opinion on the subject, simply and sincerely what I have seen that happens currently.  On one hand, there's millions advocating for Gay Marriage, right for them to adopt kids, etc.   On the other,  there's millions stating that if all these things get approved,  people with sexual aberrations will start advocating for same rights.     What do I think about this?  Well I don't know exactly..  I only know that it reminds me of the newly born debate and campaign for "mental diversity"   leaded by many geniuses that have Asperbergs and Autism, they want to be recognized as entirely functional  in their own way,   which I think is a legitimate opinion... however... just as with the other debate, many people are already stating about the possibility of schizophrenics campaigning for the same.  
What do I think about it? Well, its complex and I prefer to see rather than to judge. Contemplating what will come to pass.

What I do know however is the following:
The Human craves for being classified!   The Human is a being in panic of his own freedom.  He has been manipulated and brainwashed for a long time.   He is deeply afraid of doing his own journey,  of being simply "him".   No,  he wants to be classified somewhere, feel just like part of the cattle.    Structures become shackles that are greatly welcomed,  for he only wants to resign to his freedom.  Human's greatest suffering is his own freedom!  citing The Grand Inquisitor, Brothers Karamazov.  It is even, a process that been greatly amplified during the last century thanks to all the effort made by the fields of Psychoanalysis and Sociology.    A human listening to Pink Floyd, having his own farm, smoking pot, etc.  Will be classified as a hippie.    One working in the stock market, drinking Don Perignon, driving a Mercedes, will be classified as Yuppie.   These nowadays happens with hundreds of groups.    Geeks, Nerds, Skinheads, Emos (do they still exist?),  Punks, Metalheads, Goths, Hippies, Yuppies, Rastafaris.. it can go even beyond this, to the mere structure of society.  Thus,  engineers, lawyers,  managers, etc. EVERYONE is something, anything, but not themselves. 
Funniest of all, people love being classified.  Joyfully they will gather with those of their own group, as brothers in cattle, and eat the pastures left for them.     That's the basis of the modern market.  There's a product made and dedicated to every single group of society.   Think about the lines a Zebra has,  those lines serve themselves to be identified in their group.    Well, in the modern world  those lines are the recently released products.   Is Anna an Android user? or an Apple geek?    is Thomas in the PS4 crowd?  or an XBOX believer?   Those are the lines made in this society.

My point goes to the following.   There are lines in society that just exist in the realm of the imposed imaginarium.  Someone that is conceived as a geek is not a geek, even if he believes he is a geek he is not.   Most probably, he is ignoring other aspects of himself. Trying to be admitted he has adopted this role in society.  He might use a Green Lantern shirt from Sheldon of The Big Bang Theory,  play Magic: The Gathering, and love Star Wars.  The "geekiest of all Geeks" he might think of himself.   Yet if we check his childhood, we'll discover many other aspects of himself that had great potential, yet were either suppressed or left behind during his time of adaptation, his time of being shaped by society.  That same kid might have been a football super star, a famous painter, etc.  This happens in all groups.    And here we arrive to the point. As of Human sexuality is the same. 

The Western world in all of its pride and decadence, has been greatly dualistic since its beginnings.  There's just Black and White, never grey.    There is Brave and Coward never a middle.   There's just Rambo/Rocky  and a sissy ladybug man....  which are you?
Enforced through the centuries,  men has been taught to suppress a part of himself.   Simply this doesn't work, sooner or later the Anima will want to unite, sooner or later the Shadow will be knocking at your door.

Right/Left ideology (yet another radicalism) doesn't matter. All this ends up in simple extremism in decadence.   All the dictatorships, some of the so called democracies,  as also the putrid regimes of the last century had something in common:  Every single human has been given a role and he cannot take another,   nevertheless combine different roles.. because that's a heresy that must be punished!  

-You believe in the principles of America yet you think some Socialist things are noble?  You're a dirty and evil communist!   Good luck with the McCarthy policies

- You love your motherland and love some initiatives that are working, yet believe there should be more freedom of expression?   You're a traitor to the cause, working for the western capitalists!   Good luck with Stalin!

-You think your country is no longer a Casino and are happy about it, yet think that the government is becoming a bit too excessive?   You're a capitalist pig working for the imperialist USA!   Good luck with Castro!

So on.. and so forth.  The world leaders didn't and still not tolerate an integrated and w-holy human being.

It's exactly the same with sexuality.


Modern western culture (during the last 60 years)   is very black/white.   Take the hero of the moment:  John Wayne, Marlon Brando, Chuck Norris, Sylver Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willies, the real "Expendables".   Those are the real deal, the real men.  You got to behave like this.   You listen to Tchaikovsky?  Oh dude... sorry but you're fucking gay.     Same happens the other way around with women.    Everyone is supposed to take a role and that's it.   Just check all the zombies in modern tv,  "doesn't matter if you're poisoning your body with steroids in order to look like Bane,  simply because you're a man"    and for woman "Doesn't matter if you let any man take possession of you..  simply because that's how in the music videos all these divas behave.. that's how a real woman is"

A moment of checking a webpage supposedly about jokes such as 9GAG, will reveal the distorted visions people have. 

William Blake, Frederic Chopin, Debussy, Shakespeare, Chaucer, Tolstoy, Van Gogh, Mozart,,  Mucha, Wagner, thousands of others would be considered very gay by this distorted vision.   Yet they all loved women passionately.

What was happening with this people then?  They simply and truly integrated their feminine aspect, their anima.   A man for being man doesn't mean he must lose all sensibility.  A woman for being woman doesn't mean she has to lose the courage.     Life on Earth is a paradise when you're integrated, when you're able to see things united, instead of suppressing and polarizing yourself.
In all men there's women, in all women there's men.   This doesn't make a man gay, or a woman a lesbian.

Man = Hunts, brings the food. 

Woman = Nurtures, protective mother.   

Those two are perhaps the lines that can define both aspects the best.    Again, both genres have both.  Man more of one, Woman more of the other.

"Gay"  is a trend impulsed by the media.  Sure,  there's people that simply enjoy and feel deeply attracted sexuality to the other genre,  there's nothing bad with them.  But as of countless others,  they are simply confused do not know what to think of their feelings.  Assimilate sensibility as something gay, when is not. 

It is even in the root of the English language.    "Love" compromises so many different feelings, is confused and distorted always.  Wouldn't it be better to return to the Greek on this? Agápe, Éros, Philia, Storge....     Not because a man feels Agápe for his friend means he feels Éros.  Yet somehow, in the distorted globalized world of nowadays, both have become one and the same.   Time to finish with this distorsion.

A bacchanal of Semantics and Symbology is what we have here.  Even the word gay that used to mean happy,  has become something entirely different.   See any resonance in this?   Is a process that goes deeper and gets worse quickly.     The Rainbow which was a sacred symbol of the Indians suddenly became a symbol with homosexual copyright.   The Unicorn?   Used to represent Christ in Mysticism, now they also want to make it of Gay copyright.   Flowers..  everything!

I'm not going against homosexuality. Simply going against the trend of wanting to classify everything.    Everything is subjective and people should stop pretending to be equally to the others of their "so called group"   No matter if such group is a cult around music, some sexual orientation, economical belief, whatever, etc.

To everything, a mass symbol and meaning has been given.      To conclude lets look at these two perceptions:

He likes to go to the ballet, likes to paint spring fields,  likes also electronic music.

Sounds pretty gay doesn't it?  

Now..

He likes to watch sweaty men in shorts kicking a football, likes to see semi-nude wrestlers fighting, likes going to concerts where there's only men shouting.   

wait...

That sounds gay too, doesn´t it?


It's all a matter of perception.  The individual should be mindful, and look inside for his feelings,  for the answers through contemplation. Instead of deluding himself thinking he'll find the answers through being classified by others.