We have been programmed to educate myself, to feel bad at myself if I am not doing something that should be called productive (oriented to success also called goal-oriented)…

For example:

You have to workout because I can’t be fat, not for health issues but looks. You have to fight for justice, not for others but within your belief (blindness due to social conditions) of what is fair. You have to be strong so you can be able to bare any adversity, but if the adversity is against your tradition of belief you have to walk away, and so on…

How does those programmed ideas affect me?

It can bring to my mind a lot of insecurities if I do not fulfill what I am supposed to do. If I get fat, I could call myself a worthless person because I cannot achieve something I am supposed to.

If I ask myself why am I getting fat?

The answer could be I feel bad about the way someone has treated me, so my sense of “you need to be strong” could be failing, so then you fall into a type of silent depression:

Where you don’t know you are sad, but get angry at everything that doesn’t work out as I thought it should, so you get very mad at yourself. As a result, you eat toward a state of believed comfort that is actually killing you.

Memories and experiences can have a positive impact in you, but if you are not aware enough they can take over you.

How can you think clearly when there is so much baggage being carried through your life?

For example, if you’ve been a person who has been kidnapped, your experience may cripple you in such a way you may begin to get furious at anyone who tries to tell you what to do.

However, fear has perfect ways to become an unnoticed companion. It is like the smoke, sometimes it is dense and seen, but others it can only be sensed by a keen nose.

Could fear manifest itself with anger and depression?

Searching for answers, there are two ways out:

01Numbness Certainly, this may feel the easiest way out, but it is really painful. To be blind, and ignore everything happening around you is never a solution because life will find a way to make you realize: This is an insensitive path, and only by comprehending your surroundings may you be released by the chains it brings.

02Creativity You may use art to explore yourself, you may take the analytic route by questioning it all, or you could become aware of your thoughts 24/7 trying to unveil the secrets deepest of your mind. In any case, creativity is the key because it leads us to what is not known by us, to create is to bring from what we see as nothingness to our sight. That means whatever is dark and unknown (that could bring us fear) will be revealed to our eyes.

How does fear cripple life? In any possible way you let it by not being aware of it.

Photo Credit: By David Oliva

Liberty is an inner thing, why do we always want to develop it outside of ourself, and out of our control? When liberty is out of our control it becomes: the need to become powerful over others to give them what “we think” they need.

That is just what is happening in those regions of famine. We think we know what they need. There is something terribly stinky here because we place our conditioning in their own context…

Have we ever really asked them what they need after giving them the help for a proper nurishment? Why do the people who so famously help eradicate famine do it in exchange of their faith (as a type of colonization)? Why do they help in the name of a certain “faith” or commercial goal? Who do we want to place in their ways of life who we expected them to be? Is everything purely goal oriented? Why? Where is that goal orientation leading us as a society?

Why do we want to change those who are not like us?

Well, let’s imagine we are there for a little bit. Imagine the people starving, people who don’t have the nurishment to think about stuff we could, but then imagine the contradiction:

People laughing because their happiness does not depend on their shopping sprees, people hard working for a dime, and yet do it.

Why do these people do this? Could it be because their values and ideas are different from ours?

What does it mean to be rich? Is richness inner or exterior?

What has happened… that the world seems to be gone mad?

The contradiction: People who have less than us appreciate what they have because it is scarce, people who have a lot don’t see the privilage it is to have it. Why?

My question is…. Have you ever appreciated the country you live in? The kind of privilege you have every day because you can eat almost whatever you can if you have saved enough money to buy it and we have the liberty to do so?

It could be a chocolate or a cookie. Many people are not as fortunate. If we took some time to admire our reality, our country, and our people… Perhaps, our reality could become peaceful and fulfilled.

One of the reasons we live with violence and self-depreciation is the lack of compassion and love toward others and oneself. I am not talking about egoism. Egoism is the lack of love toward oneself and others.

Why? If I really love myself I could see that love makes me feel “wow”, and so loving others makes me feel so happy and fulfilled.

Egoism brings sadness, loneliness, and bitterness. Why? Others is us. How is that possible? If we could stop our inner dilalogue for just a little, and take time to admire our surroundings we could see there is no difference between what I eat and who I am.

Plain physics? I eat an apple. The apple becomes me or do I become the apple?

Better yet, I don’t become an apple and the apple doesn’t become me because we are already the universe. Are we sensible enough to see that or have we lost it?

How can we find it? Think it by yourself. I may be wrong!

¹ Old entry of Wikipedia about Famine.