We are free in body, but are we free in mind?
No, this isn't some sort of Matrix musing, more an observation about a psychological prison I see many Americans (and people in general, I'm sure) committing themselves to, usually with the help of parental or teacher figures who hammer out their perception of success to which they expect you to conform.
Most people believe the route to success is to go to a good college, study, work your way up, find a spouse, have children, settle comfortably into a suburban home, and retire.
Why is that success?
Honestly, please tell me why that is success. To me, it isn't, because there's a key ingredient that's missing - happiness. If you're happy with who you are and what you're doing, that's success. Or, if you'd like another definition from Winston Churchill, "Success is failing over and over and not losing your enthusiasm."
I question the amount of true freedom we have simply because, with the College + $ + Marriage = Success equation being the most ubiquitous, so many people are conditioned from day one to believe it is the only method through which we can measure our self-worth, and validate ourselves in the eyes of society. We are free to move about wherever we want and to say whatever we want, but what we think is an amalgam of pressing external forces that bombard us the day we take on a physical form. Thus, many people, I am sad to say, are not free in the slightest, not psychologically.
So free your mind. Do what you want and be happy. Fuck society (daily meditation really helps get you to this point -- at least it's working for me). And don't let anyone set your worries aflame about "biological clocks" or anything with the terms "need to", "should" or "shouldn't" attached to them. We all come from and end up in the same place, so the differences between a lawyer and a hippie are pretty inconsequential.
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1 comment:
Boy. That wedding really got to you didn't it? ;-)
I think as writers, our families and friends often don't "get" it or validate us until we can bring home a publishing contract. Even with some of my online friends, it feels like visual art gets more validation than written art. They don't know what to do with that.
Writers are so close to philosophers in nature. I think that's why both types of people get the, "oh yes" vacant smile when we tell them what we do. They don't know what to do with us.
Keep writing, Mike! Keep thinking and cogitating and all that other stuff.
Yay, you!
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