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Almost all the people live without thinking over the question whether they are free indeed or not. Many people think so, following to the principles of their upbringing, instincts, emotions, feelings. They are sure that their nature is a set of aims, restrictions, prohibitions, complexes and attractions. "I am what I am", "I was brought up so", is their usual answer to any question about their actions. People think that their "ego" is a compilation of the Darwinian heritage from monkeys and psychological reflexes inherited from their parents.
Their life is very similar to robot's function. A robot can react on stimuli, and uses its intellect to follow its aims and solve problems set by someone, to pay false debts [a pun: debts and duties are called with the same word in the Russian language, the article being written in - the editor's comment]. Such a robot can't set aims itself, nor think free. It can be said it doesn't exist.
Freethinking is a way of thinking without any restrictions. This is the only way to stop executing interstitial programs and to regain control over the life of one's own. This is a way of liberating oneself from need to play an imposed role which many people think to be the natural role of their own. Freethinking is necessary to help one to control oneself by means of one's own mind and to discover the potential of one's own, this potential being unbound from within. But for freethinking, neither understanding of the world, nor cognition of its secrets, nor even mere protection of one's interests would be possible. Nobody and nothing can restrict one's freedom as severely as one does it oneself, forbidding oneself to think over something. The main purpose of freethinking is to liberate one's mind from the dictatorship of both the nature of monkey and society.
Human life flows tightly bordered by ideology, culture, religion, national mentality, social role. The infinity of the informational space is inaccessible for those whose life is restricted. Something makes most people unable to recognize anything behind the thick wall of prohibitions and commandments. Something prevents people from doubting the principles which they never confessed consciously and can prove neither for themselves, nor for others. The reasons are various. The reason can be the aim inspired in a somewhat hypnotic way: "you must not think about this", fear for one's own cozy local world, where everything is definite and simple, in the big world with the vicissitudes of life in it. Whatever the reason is, the result is all the same: believer fears to suppose that the God may not exist, ideologist adapts the history to the platform of his ideology and believes in the result, those who were brought up in the spirit of domestic values don't know why they should start families and get children but they are eager to lead domestic life. They all don't want to see the real world, watching the world through the distorting spectacles of public aims instead, being either forbidden or afraid of putting these spectacles off.
Freethinking is originally a sort of riot of the enslaved mind. Why should I always think how to satisfy the monkey within me? Why should I accept the morals which make me degrade? Why should I behave in a way which is far not the best? Why should I want something and shouldn't want something else? How long should I keep on switching from one affair to another, trying to satisfy the capricious animal? The number of questions keeps on growing, the dissatisfaction of mind on accumulating, yet all the answers are behind one's scope, one being strictly forbidden to exceed. Having started to ask questions, a man discovers that the borders of his scope is a wall of illusions and wonders who and for which reason builds this wall generation by generation. He abstracts himself from the monkey of his within and from emotions and discovers that he is not he himself. A huge monkey of the whole his "ego" trained by the society makes mind satisfy its bestial needs and be afraid of everything forbidden by the mentor. Everything is mixed up: the organism whose aim is to keep mind alive rules it. To gain control over the monkey is the only way to curb it. All the bestial needs, emotional reflexes will be analyzed by mind and won't be able to rule a man against his will.
People often behave as "they like" and aim at what "they like". Yet almost nobody asks himself the question who really likes people to do as "they like". It is particularly difficult to think when having a pleasure. The animal from within resists, the emotions resist, the enslaved mind resists. From childhood every man is taught that the "right" behaviour brings pleasure and "wrong" behaviour brings feeling of discomfort, e.g. feeling guilty. The set of "wrong" actions also includes any doubts about the "right" way of life. Negative emotions arise and deaden "harmful" thoughts. This is not the only way to deny to think clear; there is not only direct training, indirect training is possible as well. "The right way of life" is claimed to be the only way to satisfy the animal, while all those who lead the other ways of living have only sufferings as a result. Conjuring of "wrong" thoughts becomes the only way to reach "the happy future", man is afraid to think clear, being warned against misleading from "the right way".
A man without freethinking is but a puppet rushing about between the monkey and the society. Contradictory aims lead him. On the one hand, he is eager to feel bestial pleasure without feeling guilty. On the other hand, he has to do his dictated duty. He is a social puppet considering itself a set of the aims and unconscious of himself as a man with his own will.
One of the needs of a social puppet is to belong to something. The origin of this lies in the principles of one's upbringing. When one is a child, one is considered to be a member of a "cell of the society". Unconscious of this aim, one is brought up to face the choice made for him by other people. As a rule, people accept this choice and consequently are loaded heavily with various duties. The more they live, the heavier is their load. Being eager to belong to something, man is searching for his "appropriate place". He feels happy when attached to collectives, state, nation, race, human society and even to the abstract god or so-called oecumenical mind.
Need to belong to something cultivated by the family leads one to be afraid of solitude or social dependence. Belonging to something is not but a sort of label. This is all the related purposes, tasks, duties, views, stereotypes. Feeling joy when following them and guiltiness and dissatisfaction when deviating, blame for treachery when disagreeing fundamentally, and being afraid of being divested, man leave his own way for the collective stereotypes of thinking and behaviour. The simplest form of this change is to find "the other half". Man can be said not to consider himself as a whole entity and when he finds "the other half" he is ready to accept her stereotypes, being afraid of "the other half" to fall off.
The search for the sense of human life is yet another consequence of the need to belong to something. A social puppet can't imagine itself without its master, for which its life would be of any value. All those who are searching for will find their places: some of them will be slaves of the invented gods, some others will serve for the sake of the abstract human race, nation, state (it should be remarked that this process is harmful for great many particular people, often depending on the nationality and citizenship of the latter), or become members of a totalitarian sect or whatever sort of cannon-fodder.
What about the freedom in choosing? There is a variety of religions, ideologies, collectives, "other halves". There is an infinitely great freedom in choosing: There are cages and manacles of any kind. Would you like a tight or roomy cage? Or would you like an iron one? Golden? One chamber? Two chamber? No, thank you. Freethinking is the way to be free and outside any cages instead of the freedom in choosing the cage.
A freethinking man doesn't belong to anything. He appreciates communities and participates in them as a peer, on terms profitable either for each side or him alone. A freethinking man never considers any demands "right". He knows clearly that fulfilling of any demands can only be but a concession made for some purpose. Any schizoid communities like nation, race, society, humankind, the herd of the sheep of the god, oecumenical mind can't be considered as a subject of co-operation at all, being but illusions.
The freethinking are self-content, yet they unite. They do so not in order to find "a missing part of oneself", but in order to share useful information, thoughts and ideas with each other, to overcome restrictions together, to participate in group projects, to help each other in this world of the belonging and the prisoners. It is reasonable to deal with a man who owns himself rather than with a living thing fulfilling a community's intention. The freethinking make their choice consciously; they would rather prefer to remain alone than to spend time with people unable to think.
The freethinking meet great many barriers built for social puppets. We are going to consider only some of them, as it is impossible to list them all; there is no ideal, but there is a direction to move in.
The fear of inevitable natural death makes many people avoid considering this fact, forbid themselves to think about it. Man tries to deceive the fear of death, but the only thing he succeed is to deceive himself. It is very strange that such a little number of people is working over the problem of gaining immortality or extending of human life. Most people invented false immortality for themselves and stopped to criticize such fictions as life after death, the descendants' memory, eagerness to "leave something after oneself" and "extending oneself", one's own children being the extension. Every freethinking man knows clearly that he will inevitably die and he doesn't run away from this fact. We all will certainly see ourselves whether there will be something after death; there is no reason to hurry.
There is also a fear of keeping control over one's own life. Most people prefer to blame for their faults everyone and everything but their own mistaken, often stereotyped, usual actions and mode of life. They are afraid to think that the words of their authorities such as parents or doing "as all the others" lead them astray, while the attempts to revise their views lead to negative emotions. As a result, they blame hampering, upon their opinion, persons such as stupid partners, masons, government, situation. Sometimes nationalists complain that their great and invincible nation is impaired by a little group of strangers. It is remarkable that the ideologists themselves refuse to notice their marasmus.
Some people make themselves falsely be sure that the stereotypes and aims lead to the right way. Refusing to notice the disadvantages of the system, they insist on making the same faults. They make themselves think that first of all they must "live as all the other people". If the stereotypes are unapplicable then they invent an explanation claiming the current time to be "wrong". They can't see that their stereotypes are wrong. The principle "as all the people do" may be a confession of one's inferiority. The strong belief in "the only right" stereotypes implies the belief in "the triumph of justice", coming of a kind government, god's help, "the better world" to be granted after death. The concept of "justice" denotes the expectation the stereotypes to triumph at last, as it was promised by those who inspired them. Usually, it is necessary, upon believers' opinion, to follow a set of simple rules for the justice to triumph and for the believer to reach the paradise. At least, the believer should suffer bitterly after breaking them. As an example, the ten commandments can be considered. Believers don't have to change anything in the rules. Freethinking man, on the contrary, does in the most effective way and searches the causes of his faults in his own actions. To improve something, it is necessary to learn lessons from one's faults and to improve oneself.
Currently, no social puppet has become a completely freethinking man. Yet there are some people starting to comprehend themselves, overcoming the restrictions one by one. There are also those who are to discover their capabilities to think free. Potentially, each man can regain control over his own life and choose his own way. Would be that way his own indeed? Or may it be defined by the principles of upbringing, but masked carefully? Ask yourself this question every time when making important decisions in your life, think, analyze the situation. Always remember, that to claim oneself to have overcome all the possible restrictions is a certain way to remain hidebound.
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Posted by lovingod on 2008-05-20 13:37:18 | Rating: | Views: 50
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"Free thinkers" aren't as free thinking as they think they are. They're just as biased as anyone else (just visit "freethinker" on thoughts.com, if you don't believe me). And, by my experience, they're usually more rude, crude, and filthy-minded.
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Posted by theophilus
on 2008-06-19 23:04:59
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lovingod
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