No regrets, just experiences.

Are you free?

How important is freedom?

Can we have too much freedom?

What would you risk for more freedom? 

We all have our value systems.  As a species we have developed countless value system.  Some of these have been specifically encoded and religiously enforced, and some are never consciously recognised nor alternatives considered.  For most people freedom means the freedom to dictate.  The financial freedom to dictate the labor of others, the political freedom to dictate behaviours of others, the social freedom to dictate norms of others, the religious freedom to dictate the religions of others.  Most people have no idea what freedom is.



I hold freedom in a very high regard.  If there is a judgement on my final day may it merely be that my life helped preserve, and improve, the free will of man.  We are all born with a gift from the Divine, the opportunity to become conscious creators.  It is a terrible gift once realised, the Original Sin.  We may choose to disobey the Order imposed on us, and tempt judgement and consequence.  Sin is the Science and Art of causing Change to occur in conformity with Will.  The use of our gifts of Free Will is always risky, the sacrifice that must be made to use our terrible power.  Neither Order nor Chaos improve our freedom alone.  They must be correctly balanced to maximise our freedom.  Modern society is dominated by Order.  We live regimented lives, existing to serve the whims of our employer and government.  Our Owners.  There may be a few exceptions to this reality, but currently authoritarian order dominates Free Will of Man.  This is an affront to our divine gifts, so we develop coping mechanisms to suppress our nature.

Beatniks, Hippies, Punks, Hipsters, etc… just different manifestations of the same thing. Each differentiated more by the secondary symptoms such as method of dress, common ideals, and rhetoric then by the actual environmental factors of their time and place that produce the given sub-culture.  Not because we seek approval from a specific sub-culture, but because we all grew out of a similar culture. We were raised by culture very different from that experienced by the generations before us, and thus produces trends that have superficial differences from the counter-culture of the past. The love of thrift stores is not faddish materialism, it’s anti-materialism. It is a trend that developed across the nation from a generation disenfranchised by materialism, commercialism, sweat shops, and landfills. Sure a handful of hipster elitists materialise and fetishize the trend, but that does not invalidate the genuine grassroots counter-culture that has defined a generation.  It's a coping mechanism. 

A common threat of all counter-culture is hate and distrust of Police.  This hatred of police comes from their new identification with a repressed minority. Though not likely to be completely conscious, their actions demonstrate a failure of the myth of authority. After disillusionment with authority comes disdain. Rebellion becomes self-reinforcing when people begin to identify more and more with the oppressed and lose their identification with any authority figures. Many waves have crashed on the shore, but eventually critical mass is reached and Order is dissolved in an Orgy of Chaos that consumes the freedom Order allows.  This occurs frequently on a personal basis, sometimes on a national basis, and is now poised to consume the very Eye of Authority. 

There exists a Western Banking Empire, the foundation of Western Economic Influence around the world, and subsequently (#2) government influence. Unless you deny the global influence of major financial institutions, and obvious corruption of political leaders at all levels by the existing monetary monarchy.  Our current civilisation is a creation of this Empire.  The Western Banking Empire is responsible for modern civilisation in the way a parent is responsible for their child.  Creation is not ownership.  Free Will is beyond ownership.  Authority was never granted to deny the return of The King.

Many of us knowingly serve the Empire, some consciously, some unknowingly, some for personal benefit, some who believe it is the lesser evil.  Particularly as Americans we are servants to the serpents of this Financial Empire.  We can not see the corrupt fruit we bare because conflict of interest is much more insidious than that. The sweat shops, factory farms, oil spills, war, poverty, and other injustices are cloaked with ignorance.  Most people are typically not conscious of their prejudice and warped perspective, after all we are members of a culture that perpetuates itself by actually believing the BS we're being sold. But it is just BS. Exponential growth can not continue in a finite world. 

Our current crisis is a debt crisis. It's consumer debt, it's sovereign debt, it's corporate debt, you name it. The whole usury scheme assumes exponential increase in wealth. Once things turn around, and start flat-lining, or declining, servicing the debts become a major drain on the economy at all levels. A drain that mostly supports major financial institutions. Sure there are plenty of 99% people with a stake, such as 401k, treasuries, bonds, and the like, but these are crumbs of a cake we can no longer afford to dump so much productivity into. When the debts finally evaporate, and they will, we can go back to producing labor for wealth instead of producing labor for debt.

Of course no Imperial wants their debt derivatives to fail. There are many stakeholders in our debt-based monetary/financial structures that don't want to see it all evaporate, but there's no more room on the etch a sketch. It's time to shake it and start over again. A great many people will loose a lot of wealth they thought they had... on paper, but once the dominoes of debt rebellion start to fall who's going to care about their credit rating over immediate needs? The debts must be written off because they can't get blood from a stone. These debts will disappear once we stop believing in them. 

We may step back from the real/not real, valid/not valid, fact/fiction dualities and realise that we are each weaver of our own myth just like all the other Wizards. I weave imagination into the fabric of observation in order to create a map of reality. Is it 100% correct? No. The map is not the territory. No map can be the territory. That’s not even the point.  This is story telling, just like any historian or anti-historian. Any validity in this rhetoric hinges on personal interpolation of the metaphors. Every truth is based on a thousand lies, and every lie is based on a thousand truths.

“Myth is much more important and true than history. History is just journalism and you know how reliable that is.” ― Joseph Campbell

There is a revolution going on right now, but this revolution must happen without direction. I'm not here to tell people what to do, or what to think. Anyone may know that they have THE light of Truth, but if you start shining it in people's faces you will only encourage defensiveness. Telling people what the truth is, is infringing on their right to Free Will. But as the world changes, more and more people will be kicked out of their simple world-view and be looking for a world-view that better explains their observed reality.  My task is to be there when they decide to look. To trail-blaze a path for others to find. Encourage the conditions for the revolution, but not impose expectations on the world. To act without acting. To do what is right for me, not to lecture others on what's right for them.  The music is already playing. I'm not trying to beat the drums to my own tune, I'm learning to sync myself to the rhythm that is already playing. To resonate with the theme that feels best for me and to be a part of the music.

I made sacrifices for my freedom.  I joined the military and learned what freedom was.  I've walked away from 3 very good jobs since then as an expression of freedom.  My financial well being has been significantly harmed by this process, but I move forward.  I do what I think is right at the time and follow the path it takes me.  No regrets, just experiences.