Life Within the Bubble

"These are the times that try men's souls." If you know your history, you already know that this statement was made by one of our great founding fathers, Thomas Paine. This is my favorite founding father and his writings are highly recommended but that is for another day. The aforementioned words were spoken in relation to the tyranny of Britain toward the United States. We did prevail and establish our Nation as free. We have freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and are the “most free” Nation on the Planet. The former President even liked to say that we were attacked because of our freedoms. But I want to submit a question…are we truly free? We do have freedoms but often, personal freedoms come at a great cost. Thomas Paine, one of the founding fathers and no doubt, a patriot, ended up as an outcast because of his religious writings. He only had a few people that attended his funeral for fear of being associated with him. I have found that living in the South offers a very limited box of freedom. Although you can go anywhere that you like and you can for the most part, even harm your own body with all types of drink, pills and smoke, you are placed into bubbles of reality. Being involved in any of the recognized religions, will place upon you a lot of restrictions and will curb your freedoms greatly. I speak to many friends that I have grown up with and although they say the right things and behave the right ways, they are often very oppressed on the inside and would live much differently if they could do so without being ostracized by friends and family. When you are a part of the establishment, you are often crushed by parents that feel that it is their job to break you into submission. The parents mostly mean well and consider it to be their duty that you go to heaven and declare openly that you accept their religious ways or they will have your blood upon their hands. This is not unlike the ways of Islam and other world wide religions that make it the parents and spouses jobs to convert and keep you in their ways. Again, I am not being anti God but I want to express that unless a person comes to accept these ways as their own, then they are largely meaningless. It is impossible for a person to save another persons soul. With that in mind, we must allow expressions that may roam and not agree with our personal guidelines and beliefs. Freedom is only free when it is given away and allowed to be exercised. Many people in the South are quick to judge and quick to hate anything that is not common or comfortable. The irony that exist is that many that struggle with demons in their own lives, often speak out loudly against those same issues the loudest. How many times have you seen a political leader or pastor speak against being a crook and then they are one or speak against being LGBT and they are those things as well? If we could ever allow for true expression, we would find a truly free society as a result. Honest debate is always acceptable but bullying and hate are not allowable and are not family values. We already have laws to act upon if there would be those that carried the freedoms into areas that exceeded the legal limits. Freedom to speak your mind but not in anger, freedom to be different in appearance through the way we dress or make ourselves up, freedom to explore who we are inside and out and freedom to be as religious or non religious as we determine would be the hope of this simple writer. If you have a daughter and all she hears from you is a hatred for “black” people, then she may end up doing exactly the opposite of your wishes and by the way, once and for all, there is no biblical restrictions or teachings to support racism is association or dating or marrying. I know, “be not unequally yoked” and this does not apply. The bible speaks of not being tied together or married with unbelievers. I was almost removed from a local church for telling a youth group this. It is common to have rebellion in kids and the more extreme the upbringing, the more extreme the rebellion can be. We just can’t wash our hands of others, especially children for making mistakes or deciding to be different. You do not have to agree or condone any actions but also, you can’t force someone to conform through guilt or threats. Guilt is the greatest weapon used in the South and maybe in the Nation. We are taught to feel guilty from a young age and many are never able to live a normal life without guilt and shame and biting and chewing fingernails. I have gone through many major events in my life including a near death car wreck and legal battles. The one thing that I have learned through it all is compassion. I try to make peace and offer understanding to those that may not have anyone to do so. I try to have no shock factor because sometimes folks need to feel that they are acceptable as they are. Tattoos and piercing are expressions and should not be criticized as are music and the arts. There are myriads of people out there who are awesome musicians and painters and free thinkers but they will never stoke the fires within  because they have been mentally beaten down into submission. My one desire for all would be that you can truly find your passion and be able to follow it until the fires burn low. We might find room for all to exist and less room for hate in the end.

The Southern Donkey-06/18/2010