The Bloody Revolution of the Soul

I received a comment to my last blog (freedom response, vol 2) that I found intriguing and thought I'd respond to. And Adrian, please feel free to correct me if I misinterpret you.

As I see it, the comment basically says that what I call for is a violent change, an internal revolution of the soul, and that without leadership to guide us, we will fall into an anarchy of the soul, a directionless, violent confusion. That the only beneficial path of internal growth is the golden rule- to do unto others as you would have them do unto you. That this path is not loud, is an internal growth between yourself and the universe, and that no one particularly needs to know about your personal process.

Now, this made me think quite a bit, because on one level I agree. Revolutions are bloody, frequently providing no actual change, and that peaceful change sounds beautiful and harmonious.

But does that actually work? Can systematic, positive growth occur without it causing some sort of rupture? I would say probably yes, but in our modern world almost universally no. In an environment entirely conducive to personal growth, an environment encouraging people to push themselves and protecting them when they fall, a so-called "social health care system", yes that would probably be true.

But I don't think we live there. Anyone who feels that there is anything wrong with the direction we are going has to conclude that one of the things we most surely don't have is a society that is conducive to this process. If everything was happy and hunky-dory, I wouldn't be writing this in the first place.

To me the great injustice our society does is to block us from being able to listen to ourselves, to pressure us not to find ourselves, but rather to accept their model. The corporate model of society says that we should all fit into advertising niches. But I say we don't! That no person is just a collection of other people's ideas.

Here's the issue though- with rare exceptions, we have all been brought up in this system. To even allow yourself the time and mental space to really think explore your values is a break with what we've been given.

If we don't revolt against what we've been given, and what we've been given is slavery, then there is no way for us to find freedom.

And not all revolutions are bad. Some have been quite necessary, and have caused positive changes. The American revolution comes to mind. The emancipation of India from the British. The end of apartheid. To name a few. In all these cases, an external force was causing such a constraint on the members of the society that revolution was an appropriate response.

Perhaps, then, revolution can be positive when it is not providing a cycle of who from society is in power, but when it involves revolting against an outside force oppressing a local population. In other words, advertising's pressure on an individual's value system.

I wish that we lived in a world that allowed for peaceful development of the soul. But I don't feel that we do. And, unfortunately, the issues facing humans in the upcoming century have greater implications for all of us and the world as a whole than our problems ever have before. We don't have the luxury of waiting for people to slowly come to their understanding. I genuinely fear that if serious steps aren't taken now, the tide pulling us in a very bad direction will be too great.

We may have to get to an abyss to learn to fly, but if when we get there we haven't taken the time to build any wings, we're probably fucked.

Adrian Leverkahn said...

Andre- you made me think of the sincere challenge you're speaking of. Its contra-intuitive and its not loud.

I think it was Chairman Mao who said in a bolstering response to Marx: "A revolution is not a tea party. It is a violent insurrection where one party overthrows another."

A sick society is a reflection of ailing leaders and weary citizens. It sounds to me like you're calling for everyone to consider an internal revolution. A revolution of the human spirit.

But if history teaches us anything about revolutions, it is bloody and ugly. There always seems to be casualties.

As controversial as it is, Noam Chomsky poignantly remarked of our contemporary age "Terrorism is the voice of the unheard."

But I'm not sure that's where we want to go either with a revolution, externally or internally. Without foundation, without leadership, too many who try alone often are left to conclude at an anarchy of the soul.

You query two main things in your blog entry - 1) perspective ; 2) motivation. With perspective, simplified, it seems you get two different sides on the coin of motivation. Motivation being the real issue- a cost measured in golden rules.

Who is right?

The categorical imperative might be distilled down to the golden rule. Do onto others as you wish the universe might do onto itself. Alone. Yet sensible for everyone in the universe.

Without paradigm and idolatry, without bloody revolutions, quietly making choices, crossing currents, no one knows you are free, except you and the universe.

"Much madness is divinest sense
To a discerning eye;
Much sense the starkest madness.
'Tis the majority
In this, as all, prevails
Assent, and you are sane;
Demur,--you're straightway dangerous,
And handled with a chain."
-Emily Dickinson

A freedom Response, vol 2

It is no measure of health to be well-adjusted in
a profoundly sick society.


-Krishnamurti


To be truly healthy in a sick society would have to be
considered insane? If so, who's right? The person
everyone thinks is insane, or everyone else who might
actually be insane?

A freedom Response, vol 1

So, I received a few comments about the How's your freedom thing, which I find really interesting and wanted to respond to. I've got a few different responses, so they'll be a few blogs. And at the bottom of this blog is the comment, for reference.

First of all, as I read it, the general point of the comment is that I am equating freedom with happiness, and that to obtain the kind of freedom that I'm talking about requires significant hardship and difficulty. (correct me if I'm wrong).

The first question that comes to mind to me is how do you propose to find happiness if you don't have the ability to find for yourself what you believe or think? Buying into someone else's ideas of how you should live your life sounds like a situation that would make finding out what you want pretty much impossible, almost by definition. If someone else says you need to become an accountant and in your heart of heart you want to work on cars, then if you never follow your own path I don't see how you could ever be happy. And if you never even explore the option, I don't see how you could ever even find out what makes you happy in the first place. Is ignorance really bliss? Or does it just mean living ok enough and not knowing the difference?

Nobody ever said finding out what you care about is easy. And probably, the only way to really do it requires some sacrifice- if it doesn't take effort, will you really be able to appreciate it?
Now, that being said, the whole point of that other blog was that the way our society is built, the set-up is designed to make this path even harder on us. If the structure says follow one of our long list of pre-designed options for life, and we will make things easy, then by definition it's saying try anything else and you're on your own. Can you even imagine what it would be like if society was structured to encourage people to find themselves as opposed to following along. If, to go along with the skiing metaphor, we were provided with universal health care for our falls instead of having to buy our insurance from some insurance company whose sole interest is making money off us?

Look, what it really comes down to is this- what's the purpose of the time you have on this earth? You're going to die, it's not going to be that long from now, in the grand scheme of things, so what are you going to do? And it may be easier to be safe, to take the given road, follow someone else's path, to accept lowest common-denominator happiness. But is it really worth your time? If you only have one chance at all this crap, is it worth spending it on mild?
Well, maybe. But don't you think you should know for yourself? Some people are probably happier safer, and some are probably happier pushing themselves, but neither side will ever know where they fall if they don't take the time to figure it out. It's a lot easier to come back to safe from pushing yourself than to take the step out in the first place.

And there isn't any other way to do it. There is no road map. You built your own as you go. You stumble, you fall, you get up, you learn, you get one step closer to understanding yourself. That's how it's done. It's how we learn to walk when we're babies. In the end, it's the way we really learn anything. And if you want to ensure that you never fall, you must never try to walk. And I don't really want to live in a crib for my entire life.

Stevie Bloom said...

What you seem to be talking about should be distinguished from Happiness. True FREEDOM might be attained by making conscious choices, through volitions that give ownership over these choices, but that doesn't mean it leads to happiness.

There is a lot of pain and sacrifice that comes with the kind of Freedom you're talking about. The cost of this has tall shadows. And it becomes hard to see straight. Then you have to make more choices. More burdens just to hold onto this Freedom.

There's a steep price to pay to get into this wintery country club of yours. Though its not an exclusive membership, it might as well be. Navigating down these chutes and slopes, the gear, and even the insurance premium one should have if they fall and break their legs going off a jump. Most don't have all of this and you might argue most should not. What happens when there's no medi-vac to chopper your broken self home?

You sound crazy. Just not stupid. That's your problem. You lead people up a mountain, tell them to choose their path down and stick with it. The difference is you have a map. Most peopled don't. And nowhere around your blog do I see a triple black diamond warning sign: Experts Only. Go down at your own risk.

Me, I choose to take the ski-lift back down to the lodge, drink my hot cocoa and hit on some blonde ski-bunnies.

On the lam from Walker, Texas Ranger

I’m a fugitive from Chuck Norris!

That’s right, as of a few days ago, I have the illustrious honor of having a warrant out for my arrest in the beautiful state of Texas. Which means, of course, that I might have Walker, Texas Ranger chasing me down for my crimes. What crimes, you might ask?
Why, the crime of speeding! At the beginning of our tour west, I got a speeding ticket in Texas. I assumed that I had slightly more time than I had and could pay it when I got back to New York. Incorrect- I had two weeks to pay it. My fault, I more than admit. However, the catch is that, in Texas, rather than giving you a late fee the first time you are late with a payment, they immediately put out a warrant for you. So, on this drive back to New York we will be avoiding driving through even the smallest portion of Texas.
It’s good to see the rusty wheels of Justice still spin quickly somewhere!

I’ll pay the ticket.

How Music Can Change the World

To me, the greatest conflict going on in the world at the moment is not a military or political war. It is a cultural war. More and more, people feel as if they have increasingly less effect on their own lives, that huge decisions are being made that they have absolutely zero say in. And there are two main responses to feeling powerless- apathy and violence. To me, most of the problems in the world at the moment can be traced to apathy and violence- if not the causes, then certainly the issues arising with how they are being dealt with. People are getting pissed off, and the people who could do something about it are either looking away or clinging desperately to what makes them feel safe. And this is one of the few issues that I feel music can help the world.
Music can open your eyes to what is going on, not just around you, but inside of you. It can help people realize that they are not powerless, and offer ways in which they can be more powerful in their own lives, as individuals and as groups of people. Music can inspire people to feel passionately about their own lives, and to me this is the beginning of what is required to address the world's major issues- actually being willing to stand up and care about them. Music certainly works this way for me.

How's that Freedom Coming?

You know what really pisses me off? The illusion of freedom that we have in this country. Everyone yells about freedom, freedom this, freedom that, freedom haters, freedom lovers, the land of the free, the fight to free the oppressed. But what actually is the freedom we have that is so holy?
To me, most of how it works in America is the confusion of infinite choices with genuine freedom. Just because you can select from a gangantuan list of possible life choices doesn’t mean you have freedom- it means you have the freedom to choose from a list of someone else’s pre-selected categories.
It’s kind of like going down a mountain covered in snow (that’s right, feel my analogy!). There are a whole bunch of chutes that are already dug out. And because they are already dug out, they’re significantly easier than having to dig one yourself. And then everyone behind you is saying, “Go on! Pick the one that suits you best!” So you try to find the one that best fits, and you’re off.
Digging your own chute takes time, energy, and struggle. And it’s even harder if everyone is pushing you to choose one of the already existent ones. But none of them could ever fit anyone completely because we’re all different. And I don’t mean different like I want a blue fence instead of a red one, I mean profoundly, substantially different. Different in how the various pieces of our souls and experiences come together to define who we are at this point in time.
It’s like the general process of turning everything into a chain version of itself. In order to do that, you have to file off the edges, make sure that it fits the needs of more people. In so doing, you ensure that it will fit people less. It will fit more people somewhat, but will not completely fit anyone. So what we lose is how to be really good at something in the name of being better than average at a lot of things.
In this case, what we lose is being really good at life. Satisfaction/happiness/whatever you want to call it, is attainable, but not if you are choosing between an Abercrombie life and an Urban Outiftter’s life. In the end, they’re all the same- slightly inferior versions of a real life.

A video experience, water-boarding

So, over this past weekend, we shot a music video for our current single, "Sacred Cows". The song is kind of a call to arms to people to wake up and start living their life with intent, as opposed to drudging through. So, the director (who is a good friend of mine) had the idea of having people doing "normal" activities (eating, sitting, watching tv), while intense things happen around them that they don't respond to. There's more, but I'll save it for the video itself.

A number of the things they are watching, though, involved me getting tortured. Different stuff, again I'll wait, but the thing I really wanted to talk about was that one of the scenes involves me getting water-boarded.

And we all agreed that it would be best if I actually got water-boarded for the experience.
I've talked about this since with a few friends, and we all remarked that, even though we've heard of water-boarding, heard it described as torture, and heard that they do it in Guantanamo, none of us were completely sure what it was. It's amazing to me that, in spite of all the coverage of the controversy over water-boarding that has gone on, very little of it actually includes a description of what it is.

This seems to me a good example of how we are just getting played by the news. This whole debate has been created over water-boarding- is it torture, isn't it, can America do it and retains its credibility, blahblah. It's certainly something that has been brought to people to discuss- should America do it? But how can we reasonably be asked to come to our own conclusion if we don't even know what it is. Then, like in a lot of other circumstances, our responses fall down pre-conceived lines (those who agree with the status quo and those who are against it). The people I expected to said, "We have to do it, the government needs to get answers by whatever means necessary from the terrorists!" And the people I expected said, "This is a violation of human rights! The US cannot condone torture in any context!"
But no one I know said, "This is what water-boarding is, this is what it makes someone feel like, this is why I think we either should or shouldn't do it, understand really what happens."

I can't believe how fucking duped we are. See, if we are allowed to debate as much as we want, but we can only do it in the subjects that someone else picks and with the information someone else provides, that's not much of a free dialogue, now is it?

And we all fall in line- conservatives back the war and the government, liberals rail against the lack of ethics of our actions, and no one really looks at each situation in terms of itself. Because we are encouraged not to.

So, then, this is what water-boarding is- the victim is lain on a downward slope, feet up. A gag is placed in their mouth so that they can't close it. A blindfold is placed over the eyes so that the victim does not know when the water is coming. And then water is poured over the mouth and nose. For usual 5-10 seconds at a time. That's about it.

The thing is, on that downward slope, the water goes right up the wrong direction, both up your mouth and up your nose. Basically, it makes you feel, instantly, like you're drowning. You are immediately gasping for air, and water is going in to whatever you open to get the air from. So you just keep getting more water. And you can't hold your breathe. The water just comes in and comes in.

It's frightening. It's shocking how quickly the basic primal fear of drowning kicks in. I don't think you actually can die from it (unless they kept going long enough that you couldn't hold your breathe and really drowned), but it certainly feels like you can.

And I did it with friends, in about as safe an environment as possible. Everyone else, in fact, was much more flipped out about it than I was. The idea of doing that with an unknown torturer, not knowing how long it would go on, if it would ever stop- well, you get the idea. It was bad enough done safely.

If you don't have the information, you have nothing- you're just a puppet playing a role for or a role against. You want to do something- go out and make sure you've got the information about what you're talking about. And find out what you really think, not what you're supposed to think.