In my last post I touched on my notion of (non-financial) poverty, how it connects to our behaviour and what understanding poverty in a slightly different alteration can do for us.
In this post I’ll pick up one of the keywords I postponed addressing in the last post: the concept of willingly doing something.
Or perhaps more concisely unwillingly doing something which is the fabric of being a slave.
Sidenote: I’m on a new medication which makes not only a lot of cognitive functions very costly and even inaccessible at times but also manipulates the comfortability and feelings associated with the cognitive functions. My expressiveness suffers quite a bit when translated from thoughts to written words. The medication also cause some angst and a feeling of physically being unwell that result in a much less elegant flow and more frequent, more fragmented leaps which I feel are evident in this post. I don’t intend to come back and change the material when/if I regain clarity because I respect all the parts that make up the sum that this post is. The context from which I wrote this are as much a part of the post as anything else.
In many people’s perception slavery is something which is part of history. It lies distantly in the past.
During anytime there will be some who are stubbornly blind to the existence of a powerful force – like fish can be unaware of the water that grants their existence.
I describe it as stubborn because it’s a choice made that consistently have the same outcome. Right till it doesn’t.
Also know that blindness is an active part of seeing. Our eyes only see a tiny slice of the electromagnetic radiation which we call visible light.
Slavery is a powerful force that bends anything it touches.
Your immediate reaction upon experiencing slavery might be that slavery is bad… which it is… But also be aware of the need to reflect upon what bad means in this context.
How does glass bend? It doesn’t, it shatters.
How does metal bend? Most metals will resist while applying force and then spring back, overshooting slightly till it returns to its equilibrium.
Metals wears out and gets fatigue when having bended too many times and eventually it will break.
Now, the above mentioned physical behaviours depends on the temperature in which these things take place. Molten glass will bend almost fluidly and the many different ways metals can behave depending on their environment has spawned its own spectrum of concepts and vocabulary.
How does gas bend? It doesn’t, it moves and gets out of the way.
Human cultures are environments that cause the same humanness to behave differently.
Experiencing powerful forces always demands action but within some environments the most common action is inaction. The response action will stubbornly be inaction – right till it break its mold and becomes something else.
By the numbers, there are more slaves today than ever before. There even is an online tool to test your behaviour to learn how many slaves work for you.
The nature of slavery is that it’s a forced stability and forced stability is bound to become unstable. Unstable conditions are not sustainable.
What are we if not slaves to this torment?
Is a quote by one of my favourite protagonists/antagonists, Lady Sylvanas Windrunner.
Like any well-portrayed protagonist/antagonist she walks the very fine line that draws good from evil and vice-versa and her behaviour and expressions gives insights to the fluid state good and evil exists in.
This torment references the nature of existence. Ultimately we will always depend upon the rules that makes up our universe – till we figure out how to leave our universe.
Slaves to this torment touches on the nature of the unwillingness that comes with existence and the struggle it is existing.
If you place a thing in the center of your life that lacks the power to nourish it will eventually poison everything that you are and destroy you. As simple a thing as an idea or your perspective on yourself or the world. No-one can be the source of your contempt. It lies within, in the centre.
This quote is from the intro from the Faithless’ track Liontamer.
I have a few issue with this quote but mostly it has nothing to do with the quote but our common misconception of what simplicity is and what within means. Most of the quote speaks truth to me. I will dwell on simplicity another day.
Slavery at its heart is survival. It’s unwillingly doing something simply because it will prevent us from not existing.
- Working exhaustively simply to maintain being alive which is to keep working exhaustively is a form of slavery.
- Addiction is a form of slavery.
- Being a prisoner of your own habits/thoughts is a form slavery.
You cannot arrest an idea.
There are people whose existence has transcended their physical being and they’ve become an idea because they refused to become slaves of dogma.
Far from everybody is meant to break the mold or transcend into an idea. Most are simply meant to exist for themselves and for those they care about. Nobody is meant to be everything for everyone. We all hold just a tiny piece of the puzzle.
So don’t feel too bad when you notice your own slavery and the prisons you exist in; or perhaps just know that feeling bad is okay.
You will come across things in life that are not what you want but what you need (SPOILER: don’t watch if you haven’t seen The Dark Knight and intend to watch it).
These things will test your willingness/unwillingness. Keep in mind they are two faces of the same coin that reflects living and survival.
In order to survive we also need to live.
To deny our own impulses is to deny the very thing that makes us human.
To everyone who carry Kalaallit Nunaat (🇬🇱 Greenland) within their heart, happy national day. 🎉
The tags I append my posts are keywords that’ll help me find a post again. You’ll see Steve Jobs in the tags because I made a reference to his definition of dogma just like The Matrix is tagged because the last quote in the post I learned from the character Mouse in the popular movie The Matrix.
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