Things are changing at lightning speed as they tend to do these days. I feel myself digging deeper into my programs than I ever have before.
This is a topic I want to write an evergreen piece on but I don’t have the time or energy right now so I’m going to share a rough draft of something I plan to write in more depth later.
I feel the shackles coming off. I thought I had liberated myself once, maybe twice, but I never really liberated myself from my most pervasive fears…perhaps the central one being the fear of attention.
I’ve already developed a come-what-may attitude when it comes to fame, I’m not longer running like I used to, but I’m still preventing myself from doing some things that are uncomfortable to me, simply because they will call attention to me.
Attention to me always meant danger. “The nail that stands out gets hammered down” is a Japanese proverb that people use to describe the collective nature of Japanese society, but it was my reality too growing up in suburban America, I’m sure it’s the reality of a kid growing up in a slum too, and that pressure must certainly exist in much of “high society”. “Don’t be different” “don’t stand out too much”.
Of course we praise the people who pull of being proud of their uniqueness, not only in the states but also in Japan. But we separate those people from the rest of society, placing them on pedestals so that we cannot relate to them. They are living lives that we only dream of, and accomplishing things that we only dream of.
If we do act different enough, there are many who will try to stop up, in almost every culture on earth. It manifests in different ways, but it’s always present in the presence of people who are not living in accordance with their heart, the illness which we must collectively heal in this new era.
The fear is not something to dismiss lightly. It is reasonable. If I had said all the things I wanted to say as a kid, I could have been put in a mental institution. If only I was a little smarter, I would have realized that my ideas were shared by many others but that they were afraid to speak too, otherwise The Matrix and Fight Club and Rage Against the Machine wouldn’t have resonated with so many people.
The secret has always been to encode these messages into art, but at some point some people need to stand up and live the way they believe and not let the potential consequences stop them.
If we have no desire to hurt others, if we are capable of being self critical, if we are determined enough, then perhaps it’s us who are meant to travel that road.
There are still things I will resist saying, just out of a tactical realistic observation of cause and effect. But if my heart tells me it’s something I should say, maybe the question isn’t about whether or not I should say it but how I should say it.
I’m done waiting to become the person I was meant to become. It’s no longer a question of when. Now. It’s merely a question of how, and my heart has all the answers.
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