Dear Friend,
This morning going out to look for something in Lou, our little car, I noticed the rain. We named the car after Lou Reed, and made them a ‘they’ so we could practice using the unfamiliar pronoun.
The air smells clean, the raindrops like a pat on the head from nature.
The thing I’m looking for isn’t there.
Earlier in the kitchen Chiara was talking about accessibility to art, for families on low incomes. Even if the entry price to a museum or gallery is free, the cafe’s are premium prices.
Freedom culture, sprang to mind. Taking pleasure in freeing one’s identity from the culture of consuming.
I’m recalling some of the kids in school who had the latest branded trainers and others with oddly ill fitting and threadbare clothes. Sometimes the collars of their shirt ingrained with grime.
There’d be the kid who kept themselves to themselves. Walking in solitude round the edges of the asphalt playground. Balancing on the curbed boundary where scrubby tufts of grass made miniature islands in the compacted dusty earth. Sometimes pausing to look up at the sky, often watching, absorbed in the scuffed worn shoes on their feet.
Silent amongst the roar of their peers.
There was a social stain on kids in that situation, you stayed away from them for fear it was catching.
How many generations of conditioning did it take to turn engaged citizens into passive consumers?
In our family talking about money was taboo.
Neither is there any meaningful financial education taught in schools, to my knowledge.
I’m intrigued what freedom culture might look like.
Maybe you bring delicious home made sandwiches and a thermos of tea to the art gallery. Spend your attention on beautiful and challenging works of art.
Everyone learns about the family finances.
Kids know the difference between liabilities and assets. How interest compounds.
It’s modelled by the adults.
How many generations until we live in harmony with one another and the earth?
Harmony within ourselves?
Saints and teachers gently turn our attention to appreciation, thankfulness, kindness, forgiveness and realising that only the present moment exists. The past a mental construct, as is the future.
Freedom culture would involve freedom from or freedom of time. Creating time for each other. For ourselves to do the things we love to do.
More than any other freedom, perhaps freedom from fear.
Fear grabs attention and so is promoted by those who want it.
We’re experiencing social inflammation.
The ones fanning the flames of fear - what they want - if they were to know it, is peace.
I’ll be okay when I’m rich.
I’ll be okay when I’ve defeated my enemies.
I’ll be okay when…(fill in the blank)
A recipe for strife, an endless downward spiral.
Freedom is now.
Peace is now.
It’s an inner state of being that is cultivated independently of the outer world, and it’s the work of our lifetime.
Even just to contemplate peace, and how that looks and feels is a beneficial act.
Giving ourself credit for each moment, each instance of letting go of a harsh judgement. Each kind thought, word or deed. A gentle persistent breeze prevailing despite the storms of the false self.
Bringing our attention back here to the present moment.
Here, we experience peace.
There is no other place.
Till tomorrow
Love
Mikey
Did you listen to the Reith lectures on freedom? They were very good.