Be the Change no. 15

“It may not be your fault but it is still your problem.”

Be the Change.

Well I am not going to ignore the elephant in the room over the past twelve hours when I posted it to my regular Facebook account. Some folks do not like me. And some folks will even take that to the point of hatred. And some folks will even take that to the point of threatening me with violence. Those things happen. I cannot control how people receive me and react to me.

I am definitely not going to pretend that I am blameless in all this. I am no innocent that just got attacked out of nowhere like an RKO. Over the past decade, we were involved in heated discussion over political theory and life philosophy. Anyone that remembers me over the past decade of my growth can remember a person that was quick to light fires under every person that I knew in my heart was wrong. Over this past decade though and mostly over the past fourteen days we have all been struggling through, I changed my focus and my philosophy and my life. For three years I have been working on changing my life to align with my goals. I have been working to remove the things from my life that truly do not matter. I have been working to leave folks to their own devices and their own diversions and their own illusions. I now only look for the raised hands asking for help rather than traveling to the land of the heathens to convert the infidels. That was me and that is me now.

One of the things folks want a lot of for themselves is forgiveness BUT are unwilling to extend to other folks. It takes empathy to look at the whole situation and get some perspective rather than just reacting and making the problem worse. We tend to get emotional with emotional people and that is probably the thing they need the least. So, I try to be calm, embody calm, exude calm. I want calm dripping from my words and my actions because I control myself.

I could just have easily told him I wasn’t scared of him. I could have easily goaded him on with insults. I could have easily looked into legal matters and government solutions. I could have easily chosen to give him support in his actions. Emotional people do not need us to feed into their struggle. Whatever their emotional state, we need to hear where they are and stay out of that space. We can identify with their struggles. We can empathize with their situation. We can feel for their state. BUT we can’t encourage their behavior by feeding it, by being emotional as well.

I haven’t watched all of the Douglas Abrams interview with Dr. David Perlmutter BUT in the sound byte I posted last night, Abrams talks about how the evil things we have in this world evolved out of our need for that evil to survive the environment. So, when you see someone that is struggling to live morally, to live correctly, to live aligned, remember that they are doing what it takes to survive in their environment. We may all live on the same planet, share the same space, and have the same structure BUT we are all living in different ecosystems. Some of these ecosystems are harmonious and balanced while some are literal warzones. There are battles raging in people just to survive their physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual environment. So, let’s help them see that there are better places to be physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually?

#ThinkBetter #BeBetter #NoGodsNoMasters #MyBodyMyChoice #MakeYourselfGreatAgain #BeTheChange

Be the Change no. 14

“Knowledge is less important than directed action.”

Be the Change.

Most of us like to believe that we are so much smarter than everyone else as if being intelligent prevents us from doing the wrong thing and making poor choices. That is totally untrue and one of the key talking points I try to drive home whenever someone says that other people don’t get whatever point they’re trying to make by calling into question their intelligence.

Intelligence does not make you a moral person. Intelligence does not make you a good person. Intelligence does not make you a free person. You can know a lot of things and still be immoral, evil, and enslaved. There is no study I have read that links intelligence with any of these human conditions BUT I am happy to find those studies so you can send them my way.

There is a lot of value put into knowledge and learning things for the sake of learning them. Every child needs to have so many years of whatever subject in government school, private schools, colleges, and universities BUT they are never asked to apply that knowledge, that learning to their lives. So, what’s the point of knowing a lot of things and never acting upon those things?

What do I say? “Your beliefs are your actions. What you say is just what you think.” And we have a society of thinkers that do nothing. We have a society that know a lot of things that do not move the needle in the direction of freedom. And you can see it every day you look at social media. You can hear it when you go out in public places. You can even hear it when folks come over to hang out. Folks love to concern themselves with things that are truly not important to their overall well being.

Folks prefer distractions to doing. I have another middle schooler in the house right now. I seem to get rid of one and then the next just fills that void. And one thing I have noticed about a lot of middle schoolers is how easily they get bored. They just do not know what to do with their time. They have a lot of time and no direction. And when you suggest action that is meaningful like building something, going outside, working with dad, reading a book, they do not appreciate those suggestions. And I think folks hit that stage of mental development and never mature out of it. They want to be entertained BUT they don’t want to be in charge of providing the entertainment. They want someone to turn the crank and the dancing to occur for them. They know a lot of things BUT they can’t apply those things to entertain themselves.

Folks are worn out from all the information. It gets a bit tedious if you try to keep up with the news and entertainment and sports and gossip and work and life. It gets exhausting. I find myself about this time of year saying that I can’t learn another thing about something I am trying to figure out BUT I work through that every year now because I have to keep learning new things and applying the things I already know to my life. I like to work on solving my problems and there is always a problem to be solved around the plantation.

Whether it’s thinking up new ways to generate food, store food, renew resources, and improve designs, I have something new to fix and improve on the property. I am constantly learning from behavioral science and psychological studies. I am listening to doctors that make sense about health and wellness. I am listening to ways to control my life and create new systems. I am always looking forward from what I have done in the past. It isn’t a knowledge problem. It isn’t an intelligence problem. It’s a problem of action or boredom.

#ThinkBetter #BeBetter #NoGodsNoMasters #MyBodyMyChoice #MakeYourselfGreatAgain #BeTheChange