Freedom

It strikes me as strange sometimes to hear people bitching about the state of the world today and going on to blame politicians and world leaders, people like, need I say, the unholy trinity-Bush, Blair and Howerd. Does that not strike anyone else as just a little peculiar, or is it just me? How could one person, or even a handful, if you put them all together, screw everything up for everybody. How can they be responsible for the whole world going mad? The easy answer, they can't. They aren't. The world is the way it is because that's the way it's supposed to be, the way it's got to be. If all the people who say they'd love to change the world really did, and were really that committed, they could change it. There seems, however, to be something inherent in all of us which is aware of a balance that must exist in the world. You see ours is a world of polar opposites, and must be, for how can we know joy without sorrow, gain without loss, love without hate? One must exist in order for the other to, and if we were to eliminate suffering, our capacity for joy would become greatly diminished.(that is, of course, totally hypothetical, as I have just said, I think there is a balance in the world which must and always will be maintained.)
So why do we bitch the way we do, and why do we get so mad at those individuals? Admittedly they are annoying, my girlfriend Lisa would be the first to tell you what I think of them, after the monumental rant I went off on after seeing Blair's pathetic effort at a speech after the bombs in London. That's why I turn the TV off. That's why I so rarely watch the news. Because that is what I think our freedom is. It is something no politician, nor anybody else for that matter, can take away from us. Our freedom is the freedom to be above that all, to be alive and breathe in and out and say their world is not my world. I create my world. I know I'm not really expressing myself very well but with a bit of luck some of you can see what I'm trying to get at. The media seems largely to be indicating that the world has gone mad, that we are living in some seriously dark times and I don't choose to buy that. I see beauty everywhere, I think that this is a wonderful world we live in and this will probably not go down well with some of you but I wouldn't change a single bit of it. Not one bit. We need poverty, and disease, and war and suffering because we need to strive. We learn to define ourselves by our action and reactions and if we have nothing to react to, how can we?
As a very wise man once said, "Some people got problems, man they got awful complications. Other people got perfect situations with no provocation". (Jack Johnson)
And as a not so wise, and quite hairy man once said, "we are not tied by these ropes, not restricted by these boundaries. As we are free to be chained, so we are free to be free"(me)
Well, I've run out of steam I'm afraid. I had a point I wanted to make and started blogging and it seems I've kind of gone off half cocked, so to speak. And maybe I'm just talking shit too, because I'm feeling pretty much on top of the world at the moment. I'm sure I wouldn't have felt this way last Monday, when I was having a realy shit day and was in the wrongest mood I've been in for a long time. (n.b. I am well aware that "wrongest" is not a word. At least it wasn't until thirty seconds ago when I made it up. Now it is, so shut up, smartarse, when was the last time you made up a word?) I do think that there's something in it though. I'll get back to you when I've gotten my head together. Before I go though, I will leave you with the Prophet's opinion on the matter. I do recommend reading it over and over as it just gets better. Enjoy.

ON FREEDOM

And an orator said, Speak to us of Freedom.
And he answered:
At the city gate and by your fireside I have seen you prostrate yourselves and worship your own freedom,
Even as slaves humble themselves before a tyrant and praise him though he slays them.
Ay, in the grove of the temple and in the shadow of the citadel I have seen the freest among you wear their freedom as a yoke and a handcuff.
And my heart bled within me; for you can only be free when even the desire of seeking freedom becomes a harness to you, and when you cease to speak of freedom as a goal and a fulfilment.

You shall be free indeed when your days are not without a care nor your nights without a want and a grief,
But rather when these things girdle your life and yet you rise above them naked and unbound.

And how shall you rise beyond your days and nights unless you break the chains which you at the dawn of your understanding have fastened around your noon hour? In truth that which you call freedom is the strongest of these chains, though its links glitter in the sun and dazzle your eyes.

And what is it but fragments of your own self you would discard that you may become free?
If it is an unjust law you would abolish, that law was written with your own hand upon your own forehead.
You cannot erase it by burning your law books nor by washing the foreheads of your judges, though you pour the sea upon them.
Anf if it is a despot you would dethrone, see first that his throne erected within you is destroyed.
For how can a tyrant rule the free and the proud, but for a tyranny in their own freedom and a shame in their own pride?
And if it is a care that you would cast off, that care has been chosen by you rather than imposed upon you.
And if it is a fear you would dispel, the seat of that fear is in your heart and not in the hand of the feared.

Verily all things move within your being in constant half embrace, the desired and the dreaded, the repugnant and the cherished, the pursued and that which you would escape.
These things move within you as lights and shadows in pairs that cling.
And when the shadow fades and is no more, the light that lingers becomes a shadow to another light.
And thus your freedom when it loses its fetters becomes itself the fetter of a greater freedom.

-Kahlil Gibran


Get your heads around that! Awe inspiring stuff, but not easy to grasp. Not for me, anyway. Ok Guys, I'm off to bed. You take good care and I'll write again soon. Peace, Brothers and Sisters ;D