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FREEDOM

3/5/2000, 3:35am
You spend a lot of time discussing "freedom" as a crux of your worldview. What is freedom?

First, let me describe what most people think of as freedom. Freedom, in my opinion, is much more than the ability to purchase anything, or even to set your own hours. Freedom is a quality of the soul; a quality that you really can't fake.

If you spend your life glued to the media instead of making the media, you aren't free. If you spend your life (as I have) semi-productive, you are tortured by the demons of your ambitions. This isn't freedom either.

Freedom, to me, is doing what you love to do for a living, and surviving (even thriving) at it. Freedom is making people happy without having to try too hard. Freedom is being validated in the lives of those who you care about, without having to try very hard. Freedom is feeling like one has an impact on one's society, that one's voice will inevitably be heard by one's community. Freedom is not automatic, but must be EARNED by EACH OF US, INDIVIDUALLY.

We're born EQUAL, but not FREE?

I wouldn't necessarily say equal, but I would definitely say we are not born free. Our parents reserve the right to mold us, and that's perhaps as it should be. But our culture has turned into something that is evolving us in some cynical ways. What I want to do is create a counteractive movement to that, one which values the ability to create intentional communities in which one's representation is a non-issue since one represents oneself.

The key elements, of course, are VISION + PASSION + WILLPOWER.

In what way? I don't understand.

Without WILLPOWER, how does one implement one's vision or make progress on one's PASSION? Without VISION, where does one know how best to apply one's abilities? Without PASSION, one becomes heartless and forgets that people are at the heart of any successful social equation.

Here is a quick question - what do you want?

Um, you mean,like, politically?

Yeah.

Oh, uhm... world peace?

Okay. So how do you propose we go about achieving it?

Hm. That's not so easy to predict.

Oh come on, you can do better than that.

All right, professor, how about you give it a whirl.

Fine. Before world peace, must necessarily come a change in the way the global economy is structured - or else there will always be strife in the Third World. In addition, nationalities that are deprived a homeland or sovereignty must be accounted for. The United States must assume a leadership role in this transformation, but cannot do so under its present mode of government, which rarely elects candidates with the facilitative nature that would enable them to coordinate a movement towards leveraging the United States' vast economic muscle towards world peace. In order to educate and nominate this candidate, a viable third party must emerge that truly takes into account the right of each American to represent themselves.

Holy shit. That was some breakdown. You're saying that the future is predictable?

No, I am simply saying that only by defining one's goals for a movement can one formulate a plan of action that makes sense.

So what are some of your goals?

Well, actually, I have already given you some of my goals - to kickstart a third party, yada yada. I'm looking at supporting the Greens right now - I like a lot of what they have to say. I do know that Bush is an asshole, through and through. But basically, I want to show the Democratic and Republican parties up for being the shams that they are. This ain't no fucking democracy. Who selected these clowns? I mean, Gore? McCain? What the fuck?

Seriously! So, back to the topic of FREEDOM - well, what can I do to become more free?

Increase your willpower. Meditate. Decide on some long-term goals that would really help the movement (whatever movement you choose). And remember - YOUR WILL IS WHAT THEY WANT TO BREAK. They want you to buy into their stupid world of fatty consumption and fancy cars and fake leisure. BREAK THAT LUST. It's despicable. Your mission is to work towards a better world, not to pleasure yourself. So long as one person lives in misery, unconnected from our movement, we owe it to ourselves to find and evolve that person into worldconsciousness with us. Fun will be had (of course!!!) but that doesn't mean fun is the REASON.