Feeling Free

The Feeling of Freedom

There are certain things in this life which make me feel free. I guess one could say that living is what makes me feel free; after all, isn't freedom really a feeling or a state of mind? But sometimes I think simply saying that I am "living" or "alive" is oversimplified, and I want to list things even though such a list can be as equally undescriptive.

I suppose I am just too informed about what is going on around me and in me, and I get it – I see the control. So it is a constant struggle for me, feeling free. I can't let it go, I see too much. I am grown and evolved; I am aware and alive; I am alert and aroused; and I am active and feeling.

So at risk of being undescriptive and misleading in exactly what I mean, I present a sort of list. This list should be understood in conjunction with it's equally oversimplified summary of "I am alive." None of it is the sum total of what I am trying to communicate, but it all gets the reader a little closer to what it is that I believe constitutes "feeling free."

I feel free when I can be myself unrestricted and unpressured by outside influences, including those outside influences which have been programmed into me as who I should be or how I should act. I feel free when I rebel against those influences, not for the sake of rebellion, but because I am consciously aware that my rebellion is truly who I wish to be or what I wish to do. I feel free when I have no guilt brought about by sinning against myself; that is, my true self, not who I have been programmed to be or how I have been programmed to act. In other words, I feel free when I am acting as a spirit with freewill and not some biochemical robot who has been programmed with a bunch of IF, THEN, and GOTO commands.

I feel free when I take the time to question everything: every feeling, every worry, every desire, and every hinderance. I feel free when I know myself: physically, psychologically, and spiritually. I feel free when I know my environment: where I belong, my orientation and direction, my resources, and my physical world. I feel free when I know my society: what society is, how society works, what the purpose of society is, and what parts of me are actually society. I feel free when I know I am not a tool for society, but society is the tool is was meant to be for me and everyone else who chose to be a member (if choosing membership in our modern society is even possible).

I feel free when I am outdoors – that is my physical environment! I feel free when I am in the analytical mind and in my spirit. I feel free when I can find and make my own food and medicine, and provide my own necessities of life. I feel free when I am listening to music or making my own. I feel free when I can smoke whatever or drink whatever or ingest whatever, as I wish too, when I wish too, and without fear of reprisal. I feel free when I can fully express my sexuality. I feel free when I can fully express my emotions. I feel free when I can take full control over my own consciousness and expand it in whatever manner or way I choose!

I feel free when I am naked, not just physically, but on every level and in every way. I feel free when I feel innocent (without guilt). I feel free when those around me feel as I do and they see and accept who I am, what makes me myself, and what it is that makes me feel free. I feel free when I am only concerned with what really and truly matters in my life and all the unnecessary B.S. is removed from my concern so as to eliminate unnecessary stress and anxiety.

I feel free knowing how society controls each and everyone of us. I feel free knowing that we are controlled through the creation of unnecessary stress and anxiety in order to steal energy and generate a passive, apathetic, or docile state. I feel free knowing that we are controlled through the creation of false guilt, false self-awareness, and a false sense of esteem. I feel free knowing that life is not what we are programmed and lead to believe, but it is so much simpler and so much more exciting. I feel free knowing that it is not about society, but society is about "us"!

I believe it was Janis Joplin who said, "freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose." I've often thought about that lyric, and I never quite believed it extended much past talk of love, relationships, and matters of the heart, but I can see where it applies to what I am trying to say, if for nothing, then as the beginnings of understanding what it is that feeling free truly is.

Freedom cannot be bottled-up and taken away. Freedom cannot be imprisoned. Feeling free can be bottled-up, taken away, and imprisoned, but freedom is our natural state and natural right. You can't take freedom, but you can take the feeling, and if you take the feeling, then there is no perception of it except what your captor provides you. Freedom is perceived and known through feeling. Perhaps that is why the philosopher Christian de Quincey intrigues me so much? He, like other philosophers, insists that "feeling" is just as relevant a form of knowing as any other perception; indeed, it may be the most important.

Freedom is one of those states of existence that means nothing without feeling it. We are not free because of a right or a piece of paper (our Constitution), or because of a flag, or even because someone died in some war over natural resources or money or ideologies. We are free when we feel free, and we feel free when we think and do as ourselves.

So, in closing, I would say if you want to be free and you want to feel free, find yourself, know yourself, and then be yourself. Damn everything that makes you not be yourself! Freedom is not money, or a job, or a privilege, or something on a piece of paper, or anything which can be controlled or taken. Freedom is a state of mind. Feeling free is merely living and perceiving that very state of mind!

Peace & Happiness,

Alraune

Sexual Assault, Society, and Anarchy

One of the more common arguments against anarchism or any form of less or smaller governmental power and control is the irrational declaration that more crimes will be committed and the weak and innocent will not be protected. On the contrary, it is my feeling that the weak and innocent will be if not equally, then quite possibly more cared for than they are in our so-called civilized modern society. I will use the crime of sexual assault as an example and compare the natural reaction to the "civilized" reaction and permit the reader to judge for their self which reaction is more efficient and satisfactory.

Before I do so though, let me state that I am well aware that our current civilized societies have programs that do aid the weak and innocent and which often can protect them, but these programs come with a trade-off. These programs are only possible because of law and order and social structures. The trade-off is that law and order and social structures bind the hands and the mind, and often create new problems, and many times make it so that cheap deceptive masks must be thrown into society so that the reality can be repressed rather than actually dealt with in an efficient, timely, and quite natural order.

Let us assume that in our example a young autistic girl has been sexually assaulted by a close relative or a friend of the family, as is most often the case. Let us assume that we know for a fact who the perpetrator is. The girl has been raised decently and knows the difference between "good touches" and "bad touches," and like many autistic children, is not particularly prone to lying.

Let us further assume that this young girl went directly to her mother after the incident occurred and told her what had happened, and that this young girl demanded that her father be called immediately because she was terrified of the perpetrator and she knew her father would not only protect her but that he would give her the justice he has always given her, because he loves her.

What in our example would occur in our so-called "civilized" society and what would likely occur if the consequences of the crime were dealt with in a more natural setting? By natural I mean with hands and mind unbound by law and order and social structures which are not fabricated but perhaps more natural social structures.

In the civilized setting the mother would call the father and she and/or him would call the police. Despite their natural feelings (which are very real) they would do nothing else but console the child, which itself, when looked at for face value, is pretty meaningless when no immediate corrective action is seen. They would then take the child to the hospital to be poked and prodded and interviewed. Then the child would sit in terror for days, weeks, or maybe even months as the perpetrator roamed free until enough evidence had been collected to lock them in a cell as they awaited a trial. Finally, perhaps a year or more after the crime occurred and the child had finally started to heal and get past the incident she would suddenly be forced to face her accuser in a big scary courthouse and re-live the incident all over again.

By this time thousands of dollars have been spent and lost, lives have been in constant turmoil, the child has lived in terror that the perpetrator may "get them", and really...absolutely nothing has been done. That is, nothing has been done except the child now feels less empowered, the child feels as if their parents, family, and friends are less capable of protecting them and rendering aid, and generally somewhere deep down inside the child has grown colder because of a lack of efficiency and action.

In the more natural setting the mother would call the father and she and/or him would call friends and family. They would console the child and attend to any medical needs, but they would immediately apprehend the perpetrator and deal with him. The child would not live in terror of the perpetrator because he was already dealt with and the child knows this and has been made quite aware that it has already been handled. Very little money was lost, it was handled quickly and efficiently, and the child feels empowered knowing that they can get justice and that their family, friends, and neighbors will always be there to render them aid and protection.

Certainly, the actual events of the more natural setting could have went quite differently and the perpetrator could have been too powerful for the family to gain justice (maybe the perpetrator could have been a warrior with a large and mighty family or something?), but at least the child would have seen that someone tried to do something!

I know my example is not perfect and I know such an example does not encompass all possibilities, and that it does not necessarily make a strong argument for or against anything on a truly rational and educated level, but it is an example which comes from the heart and the heart is very real.

Personally, everywhere I turn I see a failed society. Certainly our modern civilized society has accomplished many things, but each day I am more and more convinced that it has harmed, hindered, or hoodwinked more than it has helped, healed, and made whole. Our society is inefficient and empty, and it does little or nothing for the soul, which to me, means it does little or nothing at all.

I am not looking for perfection in society, but I am looking for balance and wholeness. Our world is out of whack because it is unbalanced, unfulfilling, untrustworthy, and unhappy. Bad things will always happen but those bad things must be met with equally swift goodness. I believe a short poem which I wrote sums up my feelings on the matter quite succinctly. It has no title which is fitting because the poem is about emptiness:

I am so tired.

Where is my world of butterflies,

where children laugh and no one cries?

Where is this place with steps ahead,

where dreams are made and plans are had?

Empty. Empty are the arms of angels...

Peace & Happiness,

Alraune