Let Freedom ring*
Current mood:
inspired
inspired
What is it that makes us want? Furthermore, what is it that makes us want the things that we want? The people, the pets, the life, the body, the stuff... what is it that determines within us that those are the things we want... the things we need... to be happy. And if we don't have those things, what are we worth? What determines that worth?
What determines our feelings? Are feelings simply side effects? The ego... the mind... manipulating the spirit into *feeling* a certain way to keep control of us... keep feeding itself so it can stay alive... keep us forever in yesterday, tomorrow, and inside... always looking for something that tomorrow will bring or that yesterday dished out... never realizing that now is all there is?
What determines what is wrong... what is right? And more importantly, what determines if something is wrong or something is right for us? And if now is all we have, how can anything truly be determined at all?
Here it goes...
When you can no longer feel the life that you are, the more likely you are to try and fill up your life with things. ~Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth, Ch. 2
It makes perfect sense. I have seen this in my life and the lives of many whom I love. We feel the grind of daily life... the stress, the bordom, the monotomy... and we start to lose that spark.. that stillness. Think of how we were when we were kids. Our minds were alive, imaginative, and vibrant. It was so easy to have fun and not have a care in the world. If we fought, we'd be friends again tomorrow. And all we needed was our imagination to create a world and a life we loved and appreciated. Fast forward. In the adult world, if you are happy and excited and creative you are eccentric, wacky, and strange. Unhappiness and stress is what we are told to expect out of adult life... with all the bills and the pressure. We lose that spark... that connection with our spirit that ties us to all that is. We are constantly in our heads, thinking about what we have to do tomorrow, what we were supposed to get done yesterday, what was missed, what was skipped, and oh how that something we desire will happen "one day". But what about now? Now is truly all we have in more ways than can be explained. As an adult, we have been conditioned in so many ways to want certain things... we want what we think we are supposed to want. If we aren't doing something that is generally recognized as something that successful people do... we are a failure. We are supposed to be doctors or lawyers with big beautiful houses that are sparkling clean at all times with 2.5 kids that have 4.0 GPA's and a dog that knows his commands in 4 languages and fetches the paper every morning right on time for coffee. We are supposed to be the perfect wife, with the perfect body, the perfect hair, that has dinner on the table nice and hot when her husband gets home... kids already home from dance and soccer with homework done so everyone can sit down to dinner together and talk about the test they aced, the promotion they got, and go to bed in their perfect little world.
Perceiving like this, its easy to feel like you're failing when you don't know what to do with your life and don't have any of the things you are 'supposed' to have.
So we buy. We want. We hang our dreams upon black holes instead of stars. We become an entity of endless suffering, depression, envy, jealousy, self loathing, fear, and anger. We limit ourselves... thinking we're better than or not as good as... and always need to boost ourselves with things that are external because we have lost that connection... that silver string that attaches us to everything that is vibrantly alive. We become obsessed with one vice or another and when it no longer fills us up, we move on to something else to fill us up again... never being satisfied, always searching, always looking for that thing that is going to make us feel alive. Now this is not to say its impossible to enjoy things... but its not truly enjoying them if you aren't connected... if you are using them to fill you up instead of accenting the life that is around you.
Some people use sex... always wanting new and different and exciting.. all the while feeling empty inside as everything falls away... their partner whom they've ailenated, their money, their time, and in some cases, their health and their life. Some use drugs... always needing a stronger and stronger high, a bigger and bigger trip to help them disolve the pain they feel... the empty pit within them. Shopping... if they just had that purse, or car, or house, or pet, or pair of shoes. The quest to be bigger, stronger, faster, more successful, more intelligent, more beautiful, with more money, more stuff, more friends... the quest that is like shoveling your life and resources into a black hole that will keep you shoveling until your life is over.
Its not the shoes, the house, the cars, the excitement, that will make your life better...
Its getting in touch with that which is inside you... the stillness, the quiet, the peace, that is your life force. Your connection with creation... your connection with yourself... your connection with other people and nature and god (which ever yours may be) is the way to fill yourself back up. If you don't seek to fill up the hole in your soul, life will always be an empty stressful quest for excess... like bandaging your arm when you have a broken leg... you're seeking where there is nothing to find.
Consider this: you are a prisoner sentanced to fill up an endless field of holes but will be set free when you finish. There are an infinite amount of holes in this field that will take you till the day you die to try and fill. The judge tells you that there is one hole that when filled, will fill all the holes and you will be set free and points out the hole. Would you go to that hole first and fill it so that you could gain your freedom, or would you continue to try to fill all the holes on your own... dirty and miserable, all the while wasting your time, your life, and sacrificing your relationships with the outside world?
Now ask yourself... are you filling the hole that will fill all of the others, or are you trying to fill the holes that will never give you your freedom?
...I'm going to try to fill just the one...
... let freedom ring...
Originally published on my myspace blog on the given date*
