We must become aware of our addiction. We are addicted to the approbation of others and their attention. We are addicted to others' control. We are addicted to addiction; we actively search for the next thing to get high on. And, many times, when we become aware of an addiction, we look for excuses for not breaking them. For example, millions and millions of us are addicted to the many things we have been induced by governments to try: free K-12 education, Social Security, Affordable (sic) Health Care, coast to coast freeways, mass transportation, and on and on. Without public schools, we would either have to stay home and actually take care of our kids. We might even, God forbid, have to teach them. If we lose our "safety net" we will have to responsibly plan for our own old age. Without our road system we would take so much time and aggravation to go anywhere. No one even remembers how long it took to go a mere hundred miles. And who would want to walk a few blocks to the grocery store? Or go to the well for a bucket of water? Or freeze you tail off going to the outhouse? There are so many things governments make safe and convenient for us, that would be hard for us to give up or do for ourselves. At this very minute, my muscles are cramping and I am seating at just the thought of depriving myself of those things. Aren't you, too?
I remember vividly what an impact Harry Browne's epic book had on my own life. I grew up in a family and community that heavily stressed conformity of thought and values, and felt a deep need to hide my own personal values and opinions as something wrong and deviant of which I should be ashamed. This required an ongoing exhausting effort to suppress my own feelings and opinions, my selfish individuality. Harry's words revealed to me the hypocrisy and guile behind so much of "societies" judgments and values and began a personal journey toward greater freedom and less mind to what others thought and required beyond first principles. One biggie was the idea that you could only live as you desired by working hard to change the society and working within the system to make it better. I learned the value of taking direct action and finding the cracks in the system that allowed you to live much more as you pleased without getting permission from anyone, and that this was alright, and it actually worked.
Basically raised myself in a very negative environment, spent youth observing people and watching ants, decided everyone was just crazy - nothing made sense to me. Became known as 'The Listener' as I rarely spoke - but thought A LOT. Considered 'weird' as a teenager but never saw anything wrong with that because again, everyone else was 'crazy.' An original 'Individual Individual' to this day and have no problem with it - none.
Thank you for the beautiful tribute, Christopher, and for seeing me in my process of becoming. It's an honour to know you. And the others here who each claim the power of their eternal spark and fucking SHINE!! ❤️
Never any reason not to have your own thoughts and ideas. Who cares what the crowd thinks? They are likely more lost than we are. Never become a cultist.
I absolutely love this focus on the individual. Everyone has immense value, and this perspective often gets lost in the -ism of individualism. Much like community, connections, and relationships get lost in the-ism of collectivism!
Two thoughts run across my mind when I read your post. One, choice is our exercise of our individual freedom, let’s use it wisely to continue creating freedom and celebrating the others in our lives.
Two, we need to build systems, companies, and habits that do not violate the individuals in our lives. This includes being kind to ourselves!
Great post! I find it so refreshing in a world that seems to be focused on conflict, politics, and division.
I sometimes wonder if the division is real or just manufactured to justify their own wars. Funny/sad: the only fighting I experience in my everyday life is between parents and their children.
As a parent of 7 I found it exhausting to fight them, so I quit. Instead, we negotiated. I gave them 4 non-negotiable rules and they were matter of fact. And natural consequences played out based on their choices. Life was so much easier for all of us.
Let’s value the individual and build relationships that don’t violate the other.
However, each one needs a volume of explanation as you know.
1 do what you say you will do
It’s like contracts and agreements
2 treat all humans as an equal human. No double standard or superior/inferior relationship
3 do no harm or trespass
What’s yours is yours. What’s mine is mine. Consent and permission are required
4 if we harm or trespass we make it right. You fix the damage whether to things or relationships. No third party involved. You figure out what is needed for repair between the two of you. I just moderate if needed. If a simple apology is enough it’s up to them.
Yes. I believe one of your posts asked if we had anything to offer and I added a few cents. So much of your work resonates with me!
Thanks 🙏
I just published my story called Conscious Homeschooling, Parenting, and Governing which elaborates a bit more on these rules and how they play out. It was fun to imagine how they play out in the greater whole.
I am catching up on your last few posts and it is a delight. I feel encouraged, agree about Jacqueline, and am thinking of my friend's summary of our last call together: "you do you and I'll care for me." One thing that gets depleted by others, like a commodity, is energy. It's invisible and yet, people look for it from others. I find staying as centered and neutral as I can and letting them be them helps me. And it is something to name and be aware of I think...
I kind of want to be like a fountain and find the state where energy is unlimited...
And as I sat with your response a little longer, I will add that I realized that when I have done "healing" work...whether myofascial release or chi gong energy healing...I tune into a higher frequency of energy and it flows through me and I am gifted in the process. That reminds me more of a "free energy machine" or an infinite supply of divine love. I will keep contemplating your question...
I am a work in progress and I believe it has to do with prayer, allowing, non-judgement, and a certain inner alignment. Add in a big dose of Grace and there you go. ;-)
Is it? I know that Rousseau argues this but it doesn't hold much water to me. A natural state is not one that has to fought so hard for lest it be taken. I think our natural state is tyranny and we have to constantly work towards freedom.
I think this all comes down to terminology and definitions, and that we do not actually disagree.
First, Rousseau was an emotionally unstable freakazoid. I do not subscribe to his vision of the state of nature, or man in the state of nature, or much of anything else he said. Just wanted to clarify that :-)
The natural fact is that no one has ontological, automatic, or birthright authority over anyone else—no authority that just IS as a fact of the would-be ruler's very existence. All authority must either be granted or imposed by the sword.
It is also a natural fact that in the absence of any external coercion, you are free to act in whatever way you wish, restrained only by the laws of physics.
And it is a natural fact that to whatever extent that free will exists, you and you alone control yours. Others can manipulate you, coerce you, forcibly reduce your range of options, etc. But only you choose, only you can choose, for you. Your free will (and thus your self-ownership—is thus naturally and morally inalienable.
But then you are absolutely correct that the world is full of people who ignore all that and simply live by the Voldemort formulation that "There is no good and evil—only power, and those to weak to seek it."
And then hence our requirement to constantly have to defend our natural rights.
It is AI-created. I cannot recall now the exact prompt I used, but it was something like, "A brave queen screams in defiance of the wind." And that is what it gave me.
"As Eric Hoffer notes in The True Believer, some people really do “crave to dissolve their spoiled, meaningless selves in some soul-stirring spectacular communal undertaking.”"
What a brilliant quote! I'm going to have to order a copy. It really does capture the essence of the problem that we face as free-thinking individuals going up against Leviathan -- those at the top have discovered just how to stoke and feed that craving in the masses.
First, Leviathan took away their meaning by systematically dismantling every philosophy but that of abject materialism, undermining and even demonizing the family unit, and destroying the notion of self-reliance. Then, it offered them a replacement in the form of Woke Leftism, the ultimate communist cult. Now we get people flinging poo at Teslas because their handlers told them "Mars Man Bad." It's a pretty incredible state of affairs.
I really don't know what can be done for such people. In an ideal world, their longing for a "communal undertaking" would be redirected from the diabolical and slavish devotion to the Leviathan that they now worship towards something constructive -- but how to dismantle or undo such utterly complete mind control is something that I cannot fathom.
We must become aware of our addiction. We are addicted to the approbation of others and their attention. We are addicted to others' control. We are addicted to addiction; we actively search for the next thing to get high on. And, many times, when we become aware of an addiction, we look for excuses for not breaking them. For example, millions and millions of us are addicted to the many things we have been induced by governments to try: free K-12 education, Social Security, Affordable (sic) Health Care, coast to coast freeways, mass transportation, and on and on. Without public schools, we would either have to stay home and actually take care of our kids. We might even, God forbid, have to teach them. If we lose our "safety net" we will have to responsibly plan for our own old age. Without our road system we would take so much time and aggravation to go anywhere. No one even remembers how long it took to go a mere hundred miles. And who would want to walk a few blocks to the grocery store? Or go to the well for a bucket of water? Or freeze you tail off going to the outhouse? There are so many things governments make safe and convenient for us, that would be hard for us to give up or do for ourselves. At this very minute, my muscles are cramping and I am seating at just the thought of depriving myself of those things. Aren't you, too?
Free will is meant to be wielded.
Right on!
I remember vividly what an impact Harry Browne's epic book had on my own life. I grew up in a family and community that heavily stressed conformity of thought and values, and felt a deep need to hide my own personal values and opinions as something wrong and deviant of which I should be ashamed. This required an ongoing exhausting effort to suppress my own feelings and opinions, my selfish individuality. Harry's words revealed to me the hypocrisy and guile behind so much of "societies" judgments and values and began a personal journey toward greater freedom and less mind to what others thought and required beyond first principles. One biggie was the idea that you could only live as you desired by working hard to change the society and working within the system to make it better. I learned the value of taking direct action and finding the cracks in the system that allowed you to live much more as you pleased without getting permission from anyone, and that this was alright, and it actually worked.
Love it!
And it shows the power of someone taking the trouble to write ideas down in books (and other formats). One book can be life-changing!
Basically raised myself in a very negative environment, spent youth observing people and watching ants, decided everyone was just crazy - nothing made sense to me. Became known as 'The Listener' as I rarely spoke - but thought A LOT. Considered 'weird' as a teenager but never saw anything wrong with that because again, everyone else was 'crazy.' An original 'Individual Individual' to this day and have no problem with it - none.
You gotta be you! No one else ever has been, can be, or will ever be again.
Incredible. I'm crying, I'm speechless....I'm FIRED UP!!! 🔥
Thank you for the beautiful tribute, Christopher, and for seeing me in my process of becoming. It's an honour to know you. And the others here who each claim the power of their eternal spark and fucking SHINE!! ❤️
🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄
Not. enough. mushrooms. 😂
🍄
Never any reason not to have your own thoughts and ideas. Who cares what the crowd thinks? They are likely more lost than we are. Never become a cultist.
Spot on.
I absolutely love this focus on the individual. Everyone has immense value, and this perspective often gets lost in the -ism of individualism. Much like community, connections, and relationships get lost in the-ism of collectivism!
Two thoughts run across my mind when I read your post. One, choice is our exercise of our individual freedom, let’s use it wisely to continue creating freedom and celebrating the others in our lives.
Two, we need to build systems, companies, and habits that do not violate the individuals in our lives. This includes being kind to ourselves!
Great post! I find it so refreshing in a world that seems to be focused on conflict, politics, and division.
I sometimes wonder if the division is real or just manufactured to justify their own wars. Funny/sad: the only fighting I experience in my everyday life is between parents and their children.
As a parent of 7 I found it exhausting to fight them, so I quit. Instead, we negotiated. I gave them 4 non-negotiable rules and they were matter of fact. And natural consequences played out based on their choices. Life was so much easier for all of us.
Let’s value the individual and build relationships that don’t violate the other.
Well and rightly said in every regard!
Are you able to share the verbiage of those four rules with the rest of us?
Surely.
However, each one needs a volume of explanation as you know.
1 do what you say you will do
It’s like contracts and agreements
2 treat all humans as an equal human. No double standard or superior/inferior relationship
3 do no harm or trespass
What’s yours is yours. What’s mine is mine. Consent and permission are required
4 if we harm or trespass we make it right. You fix the damage whether to things or relationships. No third party involved. You figure out what is needed for repair between the two of you. I just moderate if needed. If a simple apology is enough it’s up to them.
Truly excellent. You are wise.
Did you see the work I did here? Very similar.
https://christophercook.substack.com/p/protocols-natural-law
Yes. I believe one of your posts asked if we had anything to offer and I added a few cents. So much of your work resonates with me!
Thanks 🙏
I just published my story called Conscious Homeschooling, Parenting, and Governing which elaborates a bit more on these rules and how they play out. It was fun to imagine how they play out in the greater whole.
Where did you publish that? I did not see it on https://krisbayer.substack.com/
Amazon. Eventually I want to use my Substack similar to you and highlight my book and lessons learned. I have some other projects to complete.
I am catching up on your last few posts and it is a delight. I feel encouraged, agree about Jacqueline, and am thinking of my friend's summary of our last call together: "you do you and I'll care for me." One thing that gets depleted by others, like a commodity, is energy. It's invisible and yet, people look for it from others. I find staying as centered and neutral as I can and letting them be them helps me. And it is something to name and be aware of I think...
Might we say that the best scenario is one in which people give each other energy?
I kind of want to be like a fountain and find the state where energy is unlimited...
And as I sat with your response a little longer, I will add that I realized that when I have done "healing" work...whether myofascial release or chi gong energy healing...I tune into a higher frequency of energy and it flows through me and I am gifted in the process. That reminds me more of a "free energy machine" or an infinite supply of divine love. I will keep contemplating your question...
If you find that secret, let me know!
I am a work in progress and I believe it has to do with prayer, allowing, non-judgement, and a certain inner alignment. Add in a big dose of Grace and there you go. ;-)
❤️🔥🙏
“Harry Browne wrote a whole book on the subject.“
Download a copy free of charge: https://annas-archive.org/search?q=Harry+Browne+freedom+
"Our Natural State is freedom."
Is it? I know that Rousseau argues this but it doesn't hold much water to me. A natural state is not one that has to fought so hard for lest it be taken. I think our natural state is tyranny and we have to constantly work towards freedom.
I think this all comes down to terminology and definitions, and that we do not actually disagree.
First, Rousseau was an emotionally unstable freakazoid. I do not subscribe to his vision of the state of nature, or man in the state of nature, or much of anything else he said. Just wanted to clarify that :-)
The natural fact is that no one has ontological, automatic, or birthright authority over anyone else—no authority that just IS as a fact of the would-be ruler's very existence. All authority must either be granted or imposed by the sword.
It is also a natural fact that in the absence of any external coercion, you are free to act in whatever way you wish, restrained only by the laws of physics.
And it is a natural fact that to whatever extent that free will exists, you and you alone control yours. Others can manipulate you, coerce you, forcibly reduce your range of options, etc. But only you choose, only you can choose, for you. Your free will (and thus your self-ownership—is thus naturally and morally inalienable.
But then you are absolutely correct that the world is full of people who ignore all that and simply live by the Voldemort formulation that "There is no good and evil—only power, and those to weak to seek it."
And then hence our requirement to constantly have to defend our natural rights.
Every single aspect of our lives are based on our choices.
The choices we have are infinite.
We may not *like* the choices we have, but we always have them.
Usually when we don't like our choices, it's because OTHER choices we have made seem to limit the choices that are available to us in this moment.
And remember, Anger is always based on a perceived lack of choices.
Blaming others is an immature response.
A wise, matur-ing, self-aware individual recognizes that they themselves are responsible for everything they create through their choices.
Who do we want to be?
What do we want to insert into our reality?
Those are the two questions we should be asking ourselves all day, every day.
All very true.
Though I hope I am never put in the position of Viktor Frankl, where my only choice is how I react to brutal and unrelenting oppression.
"People who aren’t afraid to let their freak flag fly a bit."
Is that a Halestorm reference?! https://youtu.be/4sXoA7B5yJo?feature=shared
It is now!
Lzzy Hale, on fire as usual.
I have that song in my playlist, but I wasn’t really thinking of it. Maybe we need to do a #fmf of this :-)
Now that I think about it, this one too! https://youtu.be/DaN_nEVKWCI?feature=shared
"Today I'm gonna fly (I'm gonna fly)
There's nothing that can keep me on the ground
Touch the sky. I'm free inside"
💕💕
A few years ago, I showed my wife (who played in bands for 15 years) this video, and she laughed.
You and I have at least some music tastes in common 😁
what is that image?
It is AI-created. I cannot recall now the exact prompt I used, but it was something like, "A brave queen screams in defiance of the wind." And that is what it gave me.
I will NOT comply. I choose to be FREE. I am sovereign and informed.
Me too!!!
Thank you, I needed that
🙏🏻
"As Eric Hoffer notes in The True Believer, some people really do “crave to dissolve their spoiled, meaningless selves in some soul-stirring spectacular communal undertaking.”"
What a brilliant quote! I'm going to have to order a copy. It really does capture the essence of the problem that we face as free-thinking individuals going up against Leviathan -- those at the top have discovered just how to stoke and feed that craving in the masses.
First, Leviathan took away their meaning by systematically dismantling every philosophy but that of abject materialism, undermining and even demonizing the family unit, and destroying the notion of self-reliance. Then, it offered them a replacement in the form of Woke Leftism, the ultimate communist cult. Now we get people flinging poo at Teslas because their handlers told them "Mars Man Bad." It's a pretty incredible state of affairs.
I really don't know what can be done for such people. In an ideal world, their longing for a "communal undertaking" would be redirected from the diabolical and slavish devotion to the Leviathan that they now worship towards something constructive -- but how to dismantle or undo such utterly complete mind control is something that I cannot fathom.