The term "Free Thinking" has been in the news of late.
My Personal Philosophy is that "Free Thought" is the ability to not play "follow the leader" for adults. Not being led around by the nose by a group of so-called Peers.
Free thinking is just that. It is mine and mine alone. Free of any and all outside influences; such as religious conditioning, or 12 step programming.
If I am following your lead, then it suggests to me that my way of thinking is somehow severely flawed. Or else why would I need to follow your way of thinking? I was born with my own brain, I have no real use or application with someone else's.
To tell you about the Author here, I am a recovering alcoholic. One who attended, with very little success, for the past 25 years, the program of AA. As a result, I saw and I learned many opposing views from most of the other members I came into contact with.
I was eventually ostracized. And, because I questioned their Big Book, I was told I was "mentally incapable of grasping the Program of AA." A slogan, which, by the way, is the exact wording in their AA Big Book.
It is now my opinion, that these People who have been conditioned and "programmed" by AA, may in fact be sober and happy, but they are in no way mentally free. They remain locked up inside their individual Mental Prisons.
Day after boring Day they manage to stay sober while they memorize the ancient 1939 text and repeat after Bill Wilson; rinse and repeat. In my opinion, certain members are merely practicing a Christian religion of sorts. Or else repeating a mantra and thus programming themselves to think like Christians.
It might also, if I happen to be a Mother, help me get my kids back and maybe just maybe keep me from getting high or drunk again. A higher power, or a belief in a higher power, they tell me, can do all that and more. Ah, but here's the catch. I need to follow someone first, a "Sponsor."
I also need to constantly go to meetings and hear the same nonsense repeated day after day...and I dare not complain either, or I am told I am without Gratitude. A Sin, in their eyes.
If I do all that, well it's then, and only then, that I "GET" the program; or something.
Who knows? Just like the Christian concept of a reward in Heaven opposed to the Hell of getting Drunk, AA has a list of 12 promises—which is also found in the Big Book.
As for their humble opinion of me?
Well, "Garth doesn't get the program."
Q: How often did I hear that?
A: Too damned many times to count.
Well you're damn right I don't get whatever it is I'm supposed to get. Or maybe I do get it. And I am appalled and repelled by the lack of inner strength that some (not all) of these mental weaklings seem to have.
I feel I can judge them now, because I was one of those Mental Weaklings.
What's absent there, in AA, is a Nietzschean philosophy; one that's pretty obvious to me. The "Will to Power." Or having one's own mind and having the power to free your mind from the societal conditioning that it has been trapped in since birth and early youth.
My thinking was once so corrupted that I was told that I needed other AA members to do my thinking for me.
That may have been true at first..but some of us do get physically and mentally better. And when I got well, I took a look around and saw others stuck in the victim mode.
Following the guru's latest suggestions, no matter how asinine and ludicrous, seemed like an avenue toward another disastrous relapse for me..and it was. And I did, time after time.
So, I thought that one thing is for sure here; If I don't want to get a watered down form of Christianity programmed into my brain, I had better start questioning this new environment.
Thanks to a few AA members, who were on the same page as me in life, I opened my eyes, or should I say, they helped me open my own eyes. And you might already know what I am about to say.
Yes, I'm on the same page as the great Kanye West. And if he is saying what I think he's saying, then he's right. It isn't a racial thing. It has no color. It isn't white or black slavery. It's a "Mental" form of slavery, and the truth is that it is only acceptable when one is asleep.
Kanye talked about the little girl who was having loads of fun jumping and playing on the coffee table until her Auntie, who she didn't like, came and yelled at her to stop and pointed out that it was a table she was jumping on.
The childhood undeveloped brain will interpret this episode later in life as: " I am bad and I should not be having fun." The conditioning and programming for this little girl may have started right then and there.
I can guarantee you she will remember the episode until death..especially any time she is carefree. The memory will come back and hit her like a brick. Adult humans are the only animals who form loving relationships and physical attachments to material things. Kids just have fun.
Also, this thing where we always want the greener grass in the neighbor's yard instead of our own well trimmed lawn, which is exactly the same color. After we become awakened, we see how crazy our thinking is. And we change it. Now it's no longer acceptable to try and be clones of someone else. Or to continue to play, "I hate me, so now I wanna be you."
We all have our own persona; it's the one we were programmed into when we were toddlers. And most times it is not our own. It is the hand me down mental programming from generations long gone.
The conditioning and programming of our youth is best administered into us when we are too young to know better. It can be called childhood mental slavery. And some children get programmed more than others.
These unfortunate children get broken mentally beyond repair. They grow up and learn to hate any type of authority. School becomes a trigger for their pain. And, if they choose to pull that trigger, as a result, some become mass murderers.
If then, we choose to stay in that mental state, it is, as Mr. West so eloquently said, very much a "choice."
My buddy, Mister D, once said it best, " We either Stay asleep, or wake the f**k up. But we can't do both."
So I choose to "Stay Woke."
Thank you for reading this.
GWM
I was eventually ostracized. And, because I questioned their Big Book, I was told I was "mentally incapable of grasping the Program of AA." A slogan, which, by the way, is the exact wording in their AA Big Book.
It is now my opinion, that these People who have been conditioned and "programmed" by AA, may in fact be sober and happy, but they are in no way mentally free. They remain locked up inside their individual Mental Prisons.
Least of all are they free thinkers who are practicing their own free thought. Instead, they peruse and skim over the Big Book, adding their own interpretations where needed. Mostly to fit their Guru agenda. Next, they get programmed; and in the 12th and final step, they are told to go on a mission or missionary quest to bring other drunks and addicts into the fold.
Day after boring Day they manage to stay sober while they memorize the ancient 1939 text and repeat after Bill Wilson; rinse and repeat. In my opinion, certain members are merely practicing a Christian religion of sorts. Or else repeating a mantra and thus programming themselves to think like Christians.
For example: They demand in a not-so-subtle way, that one should eventually acquire a belief in something outside of their own flawed selves.."a higher power." This will, I am told, save me from going to jail again.
It might also, if I happen to be a Mother, help me get my kids back and maybe just maybe keep me from getting high or drunk again. A higher power, or a belief in a higher power, they tell me, can do all that and more. Ah, but here's the catch. I need to follow someone first, a "Sponsor."
I also need to constantly go to meetings and hear the same nonsense repeated day after day...and I dare not complain either, or I am told I am without Gratitude. A Sin, in their eyes.
If I do all that, well it's then, and only then, that I "GET" the program; or something.
Who knows? Just like the Christian concept of a reward in Heaven opposed to the Hell of getting Drunk, AA has a list of 12 promises—which is also found in the Big Book.
As for their humble opinion of me?
Well, "Garth doesn't get the program."
Q: How often did I hear that?
A: Too damned many times to count.
Well you're damn right I don't get whatever it is I'm supposed to get. Or maybe I do get it. And I am appalled and repelled by the lack of inner strength that some (not all) of these mental weaklings seem to have.
I feel I can judge them now, because I was one of those Mental Weaklings.
What's absent there, in AA, is a Nietzschean philosophy; one that's pretty obvious to me. The "Will to Power." Or having one's own mind and having the power to free your mind from the societal conditioning that it has been trapped in since birth and early youth.
My thinking was once so corrupted that I was told that I needed other AA members to do my thinking for me.
That may have been true at first..but some of us do get physically and mentally better. And when I got well, I took a look around and saw others stuck in the victim mode.
Following the guru's latest suggestions, no matter how asinine and ludicrous, seemed like an avenue toward another disastrous relapse for me..and it was. And I did, time after time.
So, I thought that one thing is for sure here; If I don't want to get a watered down form of Christianity programmed into my brain, I had better start questioning this new environment.
Thanks to a few AA members, who were on the same page as me in life, I opened my eyes, or should I say, they helped me open my own eyes. And you might already know what I am about to say.
Yes, I'm on the same page as the great Kanye West. And if he is saying what I think he's saying, then he's right. It isn't a racial thing. It has no color. It isn't white or black slavery. It's a "Mental" form of slavery, and the truth is that it is only acceptable when one is asleep.
Kanye talked about the little girl who was having loads of fun jumping and playing on the coffee table until her Auntie, who she didn't like, came and yelled at her to stop and pointed out that it was a table she was jumping on.
The childhood undeveloped brain will interpret this episode later in life as: " I am bad and I should not be having fun." The conditioning and programming for this little girl may have started right then and there.
I can guarantee you she will remember the episode until death..especially any time she is carefree. The memory will come back and hit her like a brick. Adult humans are the only animals who form loving relationships and physical attachments to material things. Kids just have fun.
Also, this thing where we always want the greener grass in the neighbor's yard instead of our own well trimmed lawn, which is exactly the same color. After we become awakened, we see how crazy our thinking is. And we change it. Now it's no longer acceptable to try and be clones of someone else. Or to continue to play, "I hate me, so now I wanna be you."
We all have our own persona; it's the one we were programmed into when we were toddlers. And most times it is not our own. It is the hand me down mental programming from generations long gone.
The conditioning and programming of our youth is best administered into us when we are too young to know better. It can be called childhood mental slavery. And some children get programmed more than others.
These unfortunate children get broken mentally beyond repair. They grow up and learn to hate any type of authority. School becomes a trigger for their pain. And, if they choose to pull that trigger, as a result, some become mass murderers.
If then, we choose to stay in that mental state, it is, as Mr. West so eloquently said, very much a "choice."
My buddy, Mister D, once said it best, " We either Stay asleep, or wake the f**k up. But we can't do both."
So I choose to "Stay Woke."
Thank you for reading this.
GWM
