How to Be Free by Joe Blow (best large ereader TXT) 📖

one and that, to the extent that we may behave in an unhelpful way either to ourselves or others, this is due to unfounded ways of thinking about ourselves. The truth, once properly understood, sets us free.

Anger is what occurs when we become aware of a chink in our armour. Imagine you are defending a castle. What happens when someone tries to climb in through a window? That’s when you pull out your gun and try to shoot them. Anger is like that.

Or you could think of it in terms of a volcanic eruption. The earth’s tectonic plates are like our armouring. Where there is a weakness is where the magma can spew forth in an eruption.

This doesn’t mean that anger is a bad thing. Like every emotion it is trying to lead us to wholeness. It needs to be felt, and, where possible, healthily expressed.

We can tell something about the truthfulness of an individual’s belief system by observing their behaviour. A belief system which is logically consistent with observable reality is very stable and requires little effort or discipline to maintain. By contrast, a deluded belief system, i.e. a lie, requires great effort and discipline to maintain. We have to be able to block out contrary evidence, think around internal inconsistencies and cling to a learned framework of thoughts, i.e. a dogma, which is not supported by what we observe around us.

The more an individual’s armouring is based on a delusion the more volatile their behaviour is liable to be. There are more chinks in their armour and so they are going to be angry more of the time.

Where possible we express our anger verbally, but sometimes the anger is too strong and our ability to put it into words insufficient. This is when we resort to violence. Violence is the language of the inarticulate.

Violence, and to a lesser extent anger itself, invalidates the belief system of the individual who uses it.

There was a case of certain individuals from a particular religious faith who were so offended by a depiction of their central prophet in some cartoons that they killed the cartoonist. In so doing they proclaimed to the world that that faith was incapable of giving them the strength to cope with ridicule. Some have been happy to be martyred for their beliefs because they sensibly recognised that, when execution is the only response one's enemies have left, the moral battle has been won. If one is killed because of one's beliefs alone, that is a strong admission of failure on the part of those who do the killing. On the other hand a faith so weak that it is not sufficient unto itself but requires that others tiptoe around it for fear of hurting it, knows deep down that it is a lie. Violence in the service of religion, from witch burnings to inquisitions to crusades to terrorism, has always been an expression of the fear that comes from weak faith.

Most of the time, the best thing to do is to allow violent individuals to drain as little of our energy as possible. If we can step in directly to get in the way of them hurting someone, that is reasonable, but the way they will change and find health is through the inevitable collapse that will occur if they are left to their own devices.

A New World is Rising

If we have within us an original nature characterised by unconditional love which can be liberated when we feel secure enough to drop our armouring, then what about humanity as a whole?

Dogmas and forms of conformist social behaviour are to humanity what the inflexible character armour is to the individual.

But, just as a sudden breakdown of the armouring can be painful and destructive to the individual, the same applies to social or political structures. Racial conflict in the Balkans was kept repressed for decades by communist oppression. When communism collapsed a bloodbath ensued.

It is much better if repressive structures are gradually eroded by better understanding. But we don’t always have much control over what happens in the world. We can try to respond to the emergencies, but supporting oppression because its collapse might unleash violence probably wouldn’t be a good idea.

We can, however, see positive things happening in the world as well. The breakdown of old dogmas and conformist behaviours has allowed some of us to be more honest about aspects of our lives, such as sexuality, and has opened up a social space for the exchange of new ideas. If I had lived during the Middle Ages and tried to express some of the ideas I have here, if I was lucky I might have been able to talk to one or two people before I was executed for heresy. Today I might be dismissed as a loony by many, but at least I can reach an audience via the internet.

If dogma and social conformism and oppressive political structures are what is keeping our deeper nature as a species repressed, then, even though the collapse of some parts of that human equivalent to the earth’s tectonic plates, may release repressed hostilities that express themselves in violence, the overall direction could be towards health.

Jesus said of the last days : “You will hear of wars and rumours of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of birth pains.” Matthew 24:6-8.

To me this suggests the very thing I’m describing. The wars are the death throws of the old neurotic world, and the collapse of that world is necessary for the birth of the new.

Religious individuals may assert that Jesus was describing something supernatural which would include his personal return to earthly existence, but I believe that individuals who, for whatever reason, have access to their original nature often speak as that nature using the word “I” to refer to what is perhaps more properly thought of as “us”. During psychotic breakdowns individuals very often claim to be Jesus or God. Though they may be confused and what they say may be unreliable, they are merely acknowledging that what we term “God” can speak through any of us when armouring is either non-existent or broken. So the return is the return of the voice not the vessel through which it spoke.

Jesus also said this : “At that time if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Christ!’ or, ‘There he is!’ do not believe it. For false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and miracles to deceive even the elect - if that were possible. See, I have told you ahead of time. 'So if anyone tells you, ‘There he is, out in the desert,’ do not go out; or, ‘Here he is, in the the inner rooms,’ do not believe it. For as the lightning comes from the east and flashes to the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. Wherever there is a carcass, there the vultures will gather.” Matthew 24:23-28

Here we can see that what is being referred to as “the coming of the Son of Man” is not something focused in an individual towards whom others can look for guidance. Rather the phenomenon is something which happens everywhere seemingly in a flash. This is consistent with the concept that the social space opened up by the death of dogmas, repressive regimes and social conformism allows for the decentralised improvisation of a new consciousness by those whose thinking has been thus liberated. I believe this book is a part of that, but only a part. There are many other useful ideas out there. And the internet is a key to this coming together of a new consciousness because it allows for completely decentralised communication similar to that found in the human brain. If we are to be one entity the internet will be our nervous system. The last sentence refers to the dying dogmas. A lot of people, like those vultures, will have their attention focused on those dogmas in their death throws, but the real action is happening elsewhere.

It should be emphasised that there is nothing supernatural about Jesus’ predictions. They are descriptions of a generalised pattern of events which would be predictable by anyone with insight into the operation of the system being observed, in this case, human society. Jesus was quite fallible as he predicted that these things would happen within the lives of his own generation.

General Advice on Becoming Free

1. Pleasure is healing. Just as suffering directs our attention towards ourselves, pleasure reassures our deeper nature and allows us to be less armoured. The path towards freedom from needing things is to enjoy them more. Addiction occurs when we need more of something to get the same kick. This formula of decreasing returns may be unavoidable with drugs like heroin. But if we have a strong need for particular kinds of food or material possessions or particular activities, then we need to get over the idea that it is wrong to pamper ourselves and instead of criticising ourselves should really surrender to the pleasure that these things can give us. If we get quality of pleasure we won’t be so much of a slave to quantity. Sexual pleasure also is healing. We need to be careful about others' potentially fragile egos and also the possibility of disease, but otherwise sex is something which can heal us and help us to reawaken our ability to bond emotionally with our fellows. And if a partner is not immediately available, masturbation is an easy way to access healing pleasure and thus become more open to the new loving and co-operative society.

2. Scary thoughts can’t hurt you if you accept them rather than fighting against them. Also, you are not alone with your disturbing thoughts. These are a common, perhaps near universal, experience. When we express our sick thoughts through sick humour it takes the pressure off of others who have similar thoughts. (The films and books of John Waters, as well as the man himself in interviews and in person, has been a major source of comfort to me.)

3. The truth will set you free. If you can find a way of doing it which feels non-threatening to you, telling truths about yourself which you may have previously hidden can be tremendously liberating. Hopefully some of the ideas in this book can help to provide a context in which being more open and honest about ourselves is not the scary process it once was.

4. Don’t criticise anyone if you can help it. Let your behaviour towards them carry the message of a better way of living.

5. Share this book with others and discuss it with them. While we can work on our own healing alone, this is not as powerful as what can come about when we use ideas such as these as a catalyst for more open and spontaneous communication with others.

Keith Johnstone

I highly recommend reading the book Impro : Improvisation and the Theatre by Keith Johnstone (Eyre Methuen, 1981). It was the book which helped me more than any other in the formulation of these ideas. Especially the following passage :

"Grotesque and frightening things are released as soon as people begin to work with spontaneity. Even if a class works on improvisation every day for only a week or so, then they start producing very ‘sick' scenes : they become cannibals pretending to eat each other, and so