Yes, I know, this blog is supposed to be about freeing oneself from mental slavery, and ironically, the bulk of my efforts here to date have involved the stuff we do on Twitter. It’s funny how that works, yes, but there’s a reason why it’s happened that way. It’s not just my own mental slavery to Twitter, but the several types of mental slavery that essentially equate to gainful employment and taking my job seriously.
All of which changed last week when I resigned my position. I’m not terribly thrilled with the prospect of having to choose between restarting my former business (19 months ago, I quit 16 years of self-employment to take that job), or putting my head back on the chopping block known affectionately as “job hunting,” but it was exactly this concept of mental slavery that prompted me to leave. I’ve never been totally thrilled with the idea of playing by the rules, and when the rules are written by people who really don’t understand the paradigm, following those rules becomes even more bogus.
And that’s about all I’ll say about work. They’re good people, but the industry they serve will hopefully go away with national health care reform anyway. My own bitching and moaning about our health care system was a bit duplicitous on certain levels.
Anyway, late last Thursday and most of Friday were spent in reflection on the various things in my life for which I have forced myself into strict and/or linear ways of thinking. I don’t have a set rule or methodology for this kind of self-analysis. Partly, it’s a bit of compare/contrast with similar past experiences and also between the various things I have going on right now. It’s also just a general assessment of where my mind is at, and how the thought-patterns I use when I’m teaching could be applied to other situations. In short, I discovered several aspects of my life weren’t exactly being approached in an unenslaved way, and that was quite frustrating for me. I try to be holistic about these things. They’re not just good ideas, you know.
Ironically, one of the most enslaved ways of thinking I believe I undertake is this belief that I don’t have time to blog. That’s really just not true, but I make it true, since I don’t take the time to do this very often. See where I’m going with this thought? We make our own realities; we enslave ourselves in these ways. At least, I do, but I really doubt I’m alone. But we do this all the time, in love, in activities, in all sorts of things. We tell ourselves that we don’t have time to do a thing when really, we’ve simply put other things first, or we want a rest, or….whatever. But since we repeat the lie of “not enough time” to ourselves so often, we believe the lie, so “not enough time” becomes real.
Which, of course, is quite easy to say, now that I do have the time. Except that I don’t. I take job-hunting pretty seriously, and when it’s done right, it’s like the most time-consuming job there is! Nevertheless, I’ve resolved to blog and vlog here more, hopefully with a semblance of consistency, because I do have several subjects that I want to communicate on. The trick for me will be finding a new job, or a set of contracts For example:
- The…er…stigma of the word Atheist and how that simple word halts communication with certain mindsets
- Getting people to understand that Agnosticism is not, in and of itself, a final conclusion
- Working together with people who subscribe to disparate beliefs to affect social and governmental reform
- Beginning to turn the tide of perception of those Atheists who work in the public sector, into a good thing. Away from the not-so-tacit ‘requirement’ that public servants be religious.
- Remembering the works of freethinkers, humanists, secularists and atheists who have had a profound impact on our culture
Those are just a few of the things I hope to undertake here in the upcoming weeks. I will (hopefully) no longer hold myself bound by this get-nothing-done mental slavery.
Peace.
