Hey ladies,
It's 5am and I'm sitting outside on the veranda of my 17th floor apartment overlooking a small Korean town that is totally silent. I purposely turn off the apartment lights and everything becomes dark and quite. I light a Virginia Slim cigarette, sit on a small chair in the chilly Korean winter air clad in stocking, a beautiful fuzzy sweater and a soft furry wrap. The soft feeling of the clothes relaxes me and I begin to think. I sit there wondering how I could have ever feared something so comfortable, so relaxing .. but I did.
I became aware of Bill Hicks' quote about five years ago. I've always been lucky that way; to have had great teachers. One of my great university teachers challenged me with this idea: freewill doesn't really exist. Like everything else in this world, human beings are just another predetermined physical system. Without predetermined physical rules, this world wouldn't work. Thermodynamics, medicine, engineering .. even building a simple hut wouldn't work without the predetermined rules of gravity. It isn't possible for some things to be predetermined and other things not to be. This reality either has rules or it doesn't. So our dilemma is simply this: How do we find any freedom at all in a world that is totally mechanicalistic. If our body is based on physical rules (has to be otherwise changing hormone levels would result in changes that are totally random) where do we find any level of choice at all? I have been struggling with this question for twenty years. I believe that Bill Hicks has the answer.
We have (according to Bill Hicks) only two choices: The choice between fear and love (emotions rather than logic).
We live in a world that bombards us with a constant din of fear. Now, I'm not saying that fear is "bad" and the love is "good", please don't misread me here. The fear of jumping off a building or stepping in front of a moving bus is a good thing - the fear prevents a certain death or serious injury. In this case, fear works. I'm talking about all the other fears (especially the ones brought to us though that ultimate weapon of mass destruction we know and love as television). How much of this fear is real? I believe it's nearly zero.
So why do they pump us full of unreal fears? Two reasons: Fear sells and fear zombifies us (making us much easier to control).
The following questions may sound like a Zen koan ("What is the sound of one hand clapping?") but they're not.
* Some random zombie tells you you can't do something you really love and want to do. You can either believe this zombie's bull->-bleeped-<- or ... ?
* You listen to a preacher who tells you to "Submit to (fill in the blank with a random ascended master) or burn in Hell! You can either prostrate yourself or you can ... ?
* An out-of-control zombie puts a gun to your head. You can either shake in your stockings or ... ?
The challenge is to regain control by choosing love (choosing Jiu-Jitsu is just another form of fear). Stop pumping yourself full of fear by watching television, reading ridiculous newspapers or listening to the retarded advice of zombies. Put the Universe on notice: I WILL NO LONGER BE AFRAID! At any time the choice can be love.
"Free your mind." Morpheus
