Tag: freedom

thoughts

~ What If? ~

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~ What if? ~

Don’t ignore it. Don’t shrug it off. Don’t wait for it to go away or, worse yet, try to make it go away yourself. That deep feeling of abandonment towards something is your call to arms and it is your duty to follow it wide-eyed into the wilderness whenever you feel it. Such a neglect of the soul can lead to a hollow-hearted existence in which you try to buy satisfaction externally because you have rendered yourself powerless to obtain it from within. It can lead to a life of silent heartache and confusion. In a convoluted society where it’s so easy to have a thousand voices scramble your senses, one must keep their ears to their heart and learn what makes it beat with purpose and desire. One must know when to respond and not to ignore the importance of it. Because what if you thought the pull of your destiny was nothing more than a stage you were going to grow out of? What if you that voice you silenced out of fear was the voice to lead others home through the swamp? What if that walk into the woods you wanted to take but were too afraid to finally led you out towards that place you could call home?

     In this life there are few souls more incomplete than those who ignore a strong innate calling – who suppress a deep inner voice and instead allow themselves to be moulded and melded into a formulaic being who lives a life conditioned for them instead of the one they were truly destined for. Such a person grows old in bitter contempt because they allowed the fire in their eye to slowly dwindle away in exchange for some convenient and crowd-pleasing state of existence. They are left staring wistfully out of windows in morning traffic jams wondering what the hell ever happened to the colour and magic and madness of life. They are left looking for non-existent ways to alleviate them from their spiritual emptiness. There is a feeling which will warn you from this and you will know it when you feel it. You will feel it in that burning ache in the heart, in that rumble of fire in the belly – in that rushing in the veins which makes you feel strong enough to march to victory against a thousand armies. That feeling is a light, a guide – a shaman – and it is your duty to follow it whenever you feel it calling within you.

    We are our species so lost and led easily astray in the need to be accepted or to be blindly ushered through the journey of life. Too often we drown out our inner voice and suppress our true nature. Too often drift into idleness and choose convenience over exploration, acceptance over authenticity, comfort over freedom. Such a nature has lead to a society where mediocrity and banality flourishes while the real genuine thing sits ignored in the shadows. It has lead to style winning over substance, to pretty fonts and filters being more important than meaningful words – to fake plastic faces being what’s celebrated over the gritty face of someone’s raw and rugged beautiful self. It had led to a society where others are afraid to follow their inner voice.

    Something real and genuine is a rarity in those crowds of conformity and convention. And now the world needs more than ever those who are unafraid to follow the burning desire within them. So if you feel that fire of passion flaming at your gut, don’t shy away, don’t hold back – don’t tell yourself it’s ‘just a phase’. Throw it all onto the fire and give this world the brightness and warmth it needs. We need the ones with the fire in their eyes – the ones who are ready to fearlessly chase what their very hearts ache for. We need the ones who are willing to go out there and rescue their truth from the wilderness. What the world needs is the raw and rugged face of you, fearless and free, living life so beautifully and authentically that those around you will have no choice but to join you on the same path. The hour is already late wild warrior so rise up now and let your unique passion and madness leave its stain upon the world.

This world waits desperately to hear the symphony of your soul.

an inner discover

thoughts

~ A Storm From Within ~

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~ A Storm From Within ~ 

“It takes courage to be yourself. It takes courage to walk your own path. It takes courage to pursue the life you truly desire and not the one expected of you. Too often you will be surrounded by those who want to see you fail; by those who will seek to pull you back into the darkness in which they dwell because your breaking free causes them to reflect on their own choices and limitations. Throughout the ages of human history the mavericks and pioneers and dreamers have faced such a challenge when liberating themselves from cultural conformity and convention. Many are tamed and return to the safe farm of normality with their dreams and desires slowly gathering dust in dark, forgotten corners. Many let those voices of fear and doubt also infect and infest their own minds. It’s no easy feat to break free from the mould to live a life of total authenticity and personal truth. But there will be ways to stay strong to who you truly are as you walk the path through the wild to the shores of your destiny. Stuff your skull full of madness; overload your heart with passion; summon a storm from deep within your soul. Shake some windows, rattle some walls – let the words of your heart rain down mercilessly upon the blank pages of the world. Don’t apologise for the mess and madness. Let your spiritual thunder awaken this world into life.

Let your soul’s lightning ignite the darkness of the night.”

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thoughts

~ The Responsibility Of Freedom ~

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~ The Responsibility of Freedom ~

“So many people say they want freedom, but very few actually mean it. Being truly free means thinking for yourself. It means being solely responsible for the direction in which way your life is heading. To a lot of people that is a terrifying prospect. People would rather sink back into their sofas and be told what to think; they would rather follow the crowd than instinct – would rather be guided by an institution than intuition. The reason why is that living freely is the greatest form of responsibility there is. It means being the sailor of your own ship. It means trusting yourself to the water and self-navigating the ocean. Ultimately, being truly free means getting up to look in the mirror everyday knowing that it is you – and only you – who is responsible should you drift off course and end up sinking into the abyss.”

 

thoughts

~ An Original Path ~

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~ An Original Path ~

“It’s okay wild warrior. You feel different from them because you are different. There’s nothing wrong with you at all. You don’t need to change and there is no reason for you to hide or compromise who you really are. There are as many ways to see reality as there are as many people on the planet. The secret they don’t want you to know is that there is no such thing as ‘normality’. Normality is relative and changes from culture to culture, from country to country – from decade to decade. It is nothing more than an ever-changing, collective hallucination about how life should be lived. Recognise this simple fact and liberate yourself from the masses out there frantically tripping over themselves in the rush to fit into the same mould. Trust in yourself and embrace your alien madness. We all face the same fate at the end of the road anyway, so just go for it: live a life that is true to yourself. Live a life that contributes to the human adventure. Live a life so ferocious and free that even the gods sit on the edge of their seat as they marvel from above.”

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thoughts

~ Reclaiming Your Heart And Mind ~

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 ~ Reclaiming Your Heart And Mind ~

“From the moment you can understand words, you are enrolled and controlled by a culture that teaches us that we are all marginal and that life is ordinary. But venture outside their control for a short while, and you sober up from the illusions. Life is not a formulaic journey to the grave down a grey highway of bills, television and weekend drinking. There is more. Despite what those men in suits say, there is more. I implore you to have faith in your own individual direct experience. I implore you to step out beyond the comfort zone, follow your bliss and wander into the glorious wilderness of the unknown. You may get messy hair, dirty feet and a broken heart – but on your deathbed you will be able to look back and say the thing that matters most: “I lived my life to the full”.

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(taken from my book ‘The Thoughts From The Wild’ available here)

thoughts

~ Into The Wild ~

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~ Into The Wild ~

“The choice between a conventional life and an unconventional life was one we all faced at some point. The period of your life where this happened was mostly in the post-education years. The first part of your life, you don’t have any real agency over – you simply follow the law and go to an institutional education facility for the best part of two decades. But when that was finished you suddenly were given an opportunity to walk whatever path you wanted to. Although there are many vehicles, there are essentially only two roads: A) You start a career and follow a linear and safe path of mortgage, kids and retirement, or B) you go down the rabbit hole and try something different. For me, the only desire I had was to travel and so, two months after my graduation, I caught a one-way flight to South America to begin my journey into wonderland. Over the next few years I continued walking down that path. The way took me to peaks of mountains, to seedy hotel rooms, to erupting volcanoes, to almost dying stranded with a friend in the woods of winter.

While it was thrilling and invigorating, I would be lying if I said at sometimes I wasn’t anxious or worried. Often I reflected on everyone else back home busying away, building their nests and bank accounts while I basically had nothing but a backpack and a worn-out passport. At my lowest point I was on the other side of the world with $50 to my name, sleeping in an airport lounge with no plane to catch. Suddenly I began to question myself; suddenly the homeless people on the sidewalks became society’s warning about where I could end up should I drift too far from the road of normality. Where was I going? What was I doing? Was it all really worth it? Yes, I won’t lie. I won’t lie and say sometimes I wasn’t apprehensive, or concerned, or that I didn’t think about turning around back onto the safe path, but it only took the thought of me slowly dying inside in a life I hated over many years to pick up that backpack and continue walking wide-eyed into the wilderness of the unknown.”

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(taken from my book ‘The Thoughts From The Wild’ available here)

thoughts

~ The Dance ~

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~ The Dance ~

“On your deathbed you will look back on your life, and the question you will ask yourself before the curtain is drawn will be whether or not you danced a good dance. As the light of this life fades away and you leave the transient vessel of your body, the question you will ask yourself is whether or not you actually lived your one life upon the stage of planet earth. In this world there is no greater tragedy than a life that was stubbornly not lived – than a flower that never bloomed out of the fear of showing its true colours – either to itself or others. Too often we hear of elderly people regretting decisions about working too much and abandoning their passions. Too often it’s too little too late for so many. The question of whether you danced a good dance is the greatest question you will ever answer, and only one that can be truly answered in the last moments of your life. In all of life’s hustle and bustle, did you remember to move? Did you remember to live? Did you remember to dance?”

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thoughts

~ The Poachers Of Life ~

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 ~ The Poachers Of Life ~

“I always found it interesting how we all united in contempt whenever there was a story about poachers in the news or on the television. Nothing was more disturbing than seeing a wild animal tamed, thrown in a cage, shot or hacked down for their personal treasures. But so often we were blind to the fact that the same thing happened to us. While migrating across the plains of life, so many of us were captured and thrown into the cages of fear, doubt, dogma and a constant chase of security. So many of us chose to live lives that were safe and acceptable, rather than living the life we truly wanted. The danger was relentless and the poachers approached from many angles. They didn’t always have guns and spears – but instead they were the people putting their hands on our shoulders and telling us to forget about our dreams and passions. Sometimes the poachers were the advertisers, the politicians, the teachers, the parents. Sometimes the poachers were those closest to us; some negative voices ridiculing and dragging us down. Sometimes it was even yourself – the man or woman staring back at you from the mirror – who was the greatest poacher of all.”

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(taken from my book ‘The Thoughts From The Wild’ available here)

thoughts

~ An Invisible Prison ~

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~ An Invisible Prison ~

“The blocks flew open and suddenly I entered into a race I didn’t even ask to be a part of. My immediate thought was of escape, but everywhere I turned it seemed the coordinators were there to usher me back onto the track of the rat race. I looked and looked for the alternative but it was near impossible to find. The people who called themselves alternative wore hippy clothes and tattoos, but were still tied down with careers and cars and televisions and credit cards. The track was hard to leave and even if you wanted to – the warnings were there. The homeless people on the side of the street. The mental asylums. The prisons. The cemeteries. Abandoning the arena of normality may have sounded grand in my head, but the reality was that it a dangerous and even deadly affair. Many a man or woman has hit the bottom after leaving the state-owned racing track towards death. Such an undertaking was not something one did lightheartedly. But on the other hand, what about the others who found the gold in the wilderness? What about the Kerouacs, the Dylans, the Edmund Hillarys? The wilderness of the world had many dangers, but the static life of the suburbs that awaited me seemed like a death sentence. Anything seemed better than being silently imprisoned in an invisible prison which no one else could see. How could you explain the pain of a prison which many people aspired for? The pain of a prison where the fridge was full but the soul empty? The pain of a prison which came with a shiny automobile, a high credit-rating, and a HD television?”

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(taken from my book ‘The Thoughts From The Wild’ available here)

thoughts

~ The Contract Of Normality ~

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~ The Contract Of Normality ~

“The more I went through life, the more it seemed that signatures were life’s way of reeling you into a life of normality. The dotted lines were always there waiting. Whenever you started a job, you signed that dotted line. Whenever you rented an apartment, you signed that dotted line. Phones, cable TV, cars, internet and even marriage – that line was always waiting to hook you in and keep you fixed in one place. The way I saw it, all of those individual things essentially constituted an entire contract of normality which was offered to each and every one of us. The contract of normality much have been the most signed piece of paper in the world. The big question simply was: to sign or not to sign? Signing yourself over to a normal life had its perks after all. You were guaranteed of lifetime supply of steady small-talk and fitting in amongst the crowd. You got a TV, a car, a few weeks’ vacation each year and even a pension to fall back on. Your days and weeks may have had some surprises, but more or less you had your life schedule sorted on a spreadsheet right up until your funeral. It was a solid deal – a tempting one – as proven by its popularity. But did I want to sign? Life was safe and straight-forward if you put your name on that dotted line, but where was the thrill? Where were the surprises? Where were the moments where you weren’t sure whether you were going to reach the mountain top or fall into the abyss?

The more I thought about it, the more it seemed that signing the dotted line meant I was giving away all the excitement and adventure. So whenever the contract of normality was put in front of my face, I simply put the pen down and walked away from the table. Sure, I may have been residing myself to a life of unpredictability, discomfort and lack of security, but the journey into the wild was just simply too much fun to hand it all over to a life defined by rules and regulations.”

(taken from my book ‘The Thoughts From The Wild’ available here)