to paraphrase howard zinn, "an idealist is someone who considers what is possible based on all the options that exist. a pragmatist considers what is possible based on what that person is allowed to do by the powers that be."
i miss him.
me and my friends, we live life very very differently from the mainstream. this is good and bad. mostly difficult. we are very much idealist and seek truth. we seek knowledge. for me, everything i do is a learning and a path towards self discovery; it is through knowledge of the self that we attain knowledge of all. my mind is wide open to possibility and we get to talking about ideas and concepts that are so far removed from the norm that i often think "if a regular person heard us talking right now they would be losing their goddamn mind."
sometimes i try to communicate some of these concepts and possibilities to friends or family and sometimes get back negativity and even resentment. i think it is a great thing to doubt. for example if i say to you, "we didn't evolve from monkeys, we were genetically engineered by aliens" it is very reasonable for you to think, "i don't believe it." and well of course you shouldn't believe it just cus i say it. but neither should you believe we came from monkeys just because a teacher said it.
EVERYONE EVERYWHERE HAS THEIR MOTIVES FOR DOING AND SAYING THINGS. WE ARE ALL PRODUCTS OF OUR HISTORY.
the implications of what i just wrote there in caps are many and i would like for it to be contemplated.
you are born into this world empty, full of wonder and accepting. the world is already full when you get here. full of history, ideas, family expectations, societal rules, established styles and culture, etc, etc. when a baby is born, we fill them with the concepts and knowledge we were filled with that came from what our parents were filled with and back and back. it would be wise to follow the line of those things we learn and connect the motives. especially when it comes to history.
when you connect the motives to history you often find something closer to the truth just underneath.
this is something i learned in school: "history is written by the winners"
doesn't get more honest than that.
we should seek the history that is not connected to the winners. we should seek the history of the people and not the organizations and governments that seek to shape and form ideas to their needs.
if you're inclined, read this book that changed my life. it's called
"propaganda: the formation of men's attitude" i can't imagine someone reading this and not seeing the truth and effectiveness that propaganda has over the mass consciousness. and in case you don't know, the mass consciousness is you and me and everyone.
shit is no joke.
point is, we do ourselves a disservice by not questioning the thoughts and ideas implanted into our psyche since our youth.
look, some people get angry because of what i say, as if it is an attack on their person... but i guess it's because opennes, questioning, doubt and contemplation ARE an attack. just not an attack on a person, but on manipulative mass thought implant/control. sometimes someone will say something to me that makes me angry and luckily life has taught me that this anger occurs because there is truth to what was said. i try to make it a point to look within myself for the reason i get angered and often find that there is value and lesson in what that person said to me.
finally...what i say is because i think it will help people. i often read books, see movies, magazines, hear songs that have a bad motivation. it's like people find these systems of belief because they NEED something to believe in. they make up their minds and commit to ideals that they propagate in order to make it more true. the more believers/followers they get the more true their beliefs become and then they define themselves on this and it becomes a matter of power.
i don't care for power at all. i know that what is important is not to BE powerful but to FEEL powerful, and that comes from within. i don't want to change your mind to be like mines i just want us to be free. i understand there is no such thing as freedom, because life is borrowed so it was never ours to begin with. but i believe it is a choice whether we be slaves to creation or men. to be a slave to creation is to be as free as man can be. i am an idealist. i see what is possible. i also know that life is not about a lifetime. we are each of us an expression of life itself and what i want most is for life to FEEL right for all human beings for as long as human beings are alive. the thoughts we keep are seeds that grow into the future. and one day our seed will be a tree.
