Tag: freedom

To Find True Freedom

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

We get used to things. I’ve discussed habits probably as much as anything else on here but this is slightly different. This would be more about adapting. We adapt to our environment then. When we stay in one place or in one environment long enough it becomes normal and we find a way to at the very least survive. In the extreme you could have someone going from a position of power and wealth to one of poverty and subjugation, think of any successful class based revolution for example. If they didn’t end up getting their head chopped off, end up in front of a firing squad or find a way of smuggling themselves out of the country; there is a good chance they would have to either adapt to their new way of live or die. That then is an extreme example and for me right now I am as far from that as I can think. I have adapted to my surroundings though, my admittedly comfortable surroundings.

For me this adaptation has been more about a change in a way of life. Having spent ten years as a traveller living wild and being free – that is the version my romanticised ego would like to portray – I found myself in this little village by the seaside. It was only supposed to be a couple of months, the winter at most with spring bringing new adventures. There is no need to go over this years events but as I’ve previously discussed they have been habit changing to say the least. Now though I potentially change these new habits again and see whether further ones are created or old ones return. Today is Friday, on Sunday I leave my home by the sea.

Undoubtedly there has been a lot I’ve enjoyed about life here. I’m beside the sea and when not rammed with summer tourists it’s slow and chilled out. It is though a bit backwards and insular which is enough to push me away, but it has also shown me enough to imagine a new way of life is possible. There were many times in my past travelling in which I openly admitted to being exhausted and tired of constantly moving and packing but I also really enjoyed the discovery and constant new in front of my eyes. I’m still after all this time like a child when I see something previously unseen. This time has made me realise I am in my heart a wandering traveller. It has also made me realise how easily I could settle somewhere too given the right conditions. It’s all about balance apparently. This mythical never been seen or fully understood beast called balance. But you can’t have balance when you want it all.

As I pack my now enlarged pile of stuff I realise I am happy to move on while also not being entirely keen on the exhaustive side of this moving on. The stepping into the unknown excites and the prospect of being free is overjoying. As I would have discussed yesterday though had I not got distracted by Miley Cyrus, freedom is an entirely mental construct. We need to find freedom internally, allow the mind to accept the ever increasing randomness of existence and responsibly live in the moment. It doesn’t matter whether you’re stuck in the endless toil of menial labour or sailing the ocean. Admittedly one is probably easier to feel free in and we can do ourselves favours with the environment we exist in, but as I said, it’s how we approach existence that matters. One more moment before the next then in this constantly testing journey to free the mind. Maybe that would be a good habit to create. I already have the key after all. I could get used to finally being free. Just be careful not to want it too much.

The Final Cries Of Empire

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Let’s be honest you’ll struggle to find many complaints from me about the toppling of a statue in honour of a slave trader in Bristol or the latest vandalism of a statue in honour of Winston Churchill, the aptly entitled ‘complex character’. I was chatting with someone today who seemed to agree with me on those points but who also mentioned that war memorials had been vandalised and that she disagreed with attacks on these as they honour people who fought for our freedom. This exhaustively well worn and manipulative word makes me cringe but I can understand why she felt it unnecessary. To understand why people may damage memorials then we must look beyond the obvious surface rational for these protests.

Clearly black lives do in fact matter and the police are responsible for excessive violence. This violence which comes in many forms only serves to exacerbate a systemic racist imbalance within society. This alone is worth rioting over. It’s abhorrent and urgent change has never not been required. The issue of how we are in this situation though relates to our imperial past as a nation. While the Americans may have been conquering the world for the last eighty years, Britain got there long before those upstarts from over the pond even existed. The statue in Bristol celebrated a slave trader who operated in the seventeenth and eighteenth century. Britain used slavery in the same way modern corporations and their national protectors use Asian sweatshops and cheap African labour in mines. These modern corporate empires are built on the back of the economic descendants who died on the sugar plantations. They also mined the lithium for the battery in this laptop I’m writing on which mustn’t be overlooked even if I inevitably will with any tangible actions beyond sentiment. While war memorials honour those who fought Nazi tyranny or were massacred in the trenches of Verdun, they are also emblems of an imperial past, one which relied upon the extortion of other nations and played upon the notion of a supreme race of white Britons. While they may represent your Grandfathers, as they do for me in many ways, for others they’re nothing more than a constant reminder of the injustice inflicted upon their ancestors which is still being felt in communities across the country and the world today.

There will be narratives pushed on these issues, the Conservative MP’s making an embarrassing self serving show of scrubbing the graffiti from Churchill’s statue doing just that. This concept of freedom means nothing if it doesn’t apply to all, people need more than sentiments. Once you believe, even unconsciously, that there are a deserving free and an undeserving then you’ve already lost the argument. I’ll leave you then with the quote made by the previously mentioned ‘complex character’ in 1937 to the Palestine Royal Commission;

“I do not admit that the dog in the manger has the final right to the manger even though he may lain there for a long time…I do not admit for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place.”

Elizabeth, Victor & Some Contradictions

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As I stare blankly at the screen I realise I have nothing to say. So why say anything at all. I have to don’t you know. I have to because I decided I have to. The plan had been to write this before I went and made pizzas but I have been having too much of a nice time sitting around in my reading corner I lost track of time. It turns out too that I do actually have enough books for a suitable stack, one which now doubles as my coffee cup stand for extra pleasure. I also bought two plants yesterday and have promptly named them today. They go by Elizabeth and Victor. I’ll leave you work out which book I have been enjoying in my new armchair reading corner. It’s really nice having plants, how I waited this long is beyond me. They add an extra layer of life to a house even if they are from Lidl. I see them as rescue plants. They’re going to recover and grow into something beautiful, in their own right that is, however they see fit to evolve.

The idea then had been to just quickly introduce todays piece which was going to be on one quick idea I had while making pizzas but I seem to have gotten a little carried away and written half of today’s piece. It can be like this with anything though; we use so much energy avoiding starting something because we imagine it’s going to be exhausting or beyond us but the only exhausting bit is the avoidance and it’s only beyond us because we avoid doing it. There was a period in which I decided an approach to completing both tasks and pleasures which involved effort was to do them the moment they entered my mind. I believed that they entered my mind because it was now I had to do them and not wait until later once I had finished procrastinating. I still kind of believe it but only kind of because my attempt only lasted about half an hour on the two separate occasions I tried. Our abilities to put so much effort into avoiding effort is quite remarkable. There really are so many levels to human fallibility, we’re such complex creatures that these simplistic boxes we all stuff ourselves and others into do everybody such a disservice.

…

Well I didn’t leave much room for my moment of wisdom and understanding I had while making pizzas. It does mean though I don’t have to write much now I’m back in and it’s late so maybe I’ll have my first early night in a while. Drum roll please….in light of these VE celebrations going on today, why is it people who seem most intent and proud of celebrating the victory of freedom over tyranny as it is described, are also the ones happiest to support people and laws which aim to take away our liberties and take us further down the path towards possible tyranny. It is a generalisation and a stereotype, but it is also an accurate representation of many people. There just seems to be something odd and contradictory about it. That was my thought.

An Unknown Transition Into The Unknown

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I’m not someone who feels the need to play music all the time. I enjoy silence. I enjoy podcasts. I enjoy music. But a balance between them is vital, as is my mood on their regularity. I have been listening to some music for the last half hour while I was online and avoiding writing this. When I see people listening to music and being able to study, read or write, basically concentrate, I have often wished this was something I was capable of. The words coming on this page would be inspired by the sounds around me but I can’t focus and not even one word follows.

I was listening to some dub and desiring a party or a festival. These last few years have been an interesting transition in life. Everyone goes though different chapters in their lives, even if they marry at 18, never divorce, never leave their home town and keep the same job, there will still be chapters within this. Mine have been slightly more adventurous and I can recognise periods when I wanted nothing but travel and others when I felt a need to rest for example. It took about five years from my first desires for rest to get to were I am now but life is all so extreme that I’m still longing for adventure equally alongside some kind of ‘normal’ existence. ‘Normal’ is a strange and inexplicable concept, which is why I won’t even try explaining what I mean by it and I know my version of it will still be a long way from the man with many chapters in the same town above. But fuck, right now having listened to a little music and recollected a few memories, there is a part of me that wants to put down the ‘normal’ so much and pick up the alternate once more.

I have also come to appreciate this life though recently and value the people living it far more than I ever did at the height of being a prick in my more adventurous moments. I’ve come to realise there is as much value in this existence as one lived with daily excitement and variety, it’s different value but it’s still value regardless, as it too is exciting and varied regardless. That doesn’t stop me wanting to drop it all and jump on a boat heading somewhere wild and exotic though but I doubt that will ever leave me. Equally this current existence is an extreme in the other direction as I know the ideal will be somewhere in the middle. I only meant to come here for a few months to help a mate out and it’s been nearly six months. He’s taking great pleasure in reminding me a few more months and I’ll have broken my longest job record. With this pizza takeaway now being a thing and coronavirus being an even bigger thing it seems I may still be sitting in this same seat in four months trying to understand what the drink in my hand represents.

Is this now life? Well it’s the current version and I’m starting to learn enough from it that interesting things happen when we roll with whatever comes up. In a way that’s a freedom more real than any enforced search for a liberty that ultimately becomes constrictive. There are always things out of our control which make us jump between paths, enduring the grey transitional space between, but once we’re actually on it; life never really seems all that bad. Quite often the opposite. It has become clear to me recently that we’re owed nothing, their is no destiny, that desires will never happen if we wait for them to and ideas of fairness miss the harsh unknown nature of life. It is an irrational and absurd world. Nothing bad has happened but seemingly I’ve managed to understand the knowledge I previously had and it all seems to make a little more sense. This is why discipline is necessary. Why being able to focus the energy to achieve the goal is the only way we can really get things done. Why I’m curious, excited and unsure about what comes next. It’s a little unknown. But then everything always has been.

Why With All The Terror?

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There was another terrorist related incident in London today. It seems we have one roughly every six months these days. I know that’s not accurate but it certainly feels that way. I also don’t really understand what such an ambiguous statement terrorist related incident means. The media love jumping in without all the facts and throwing around accusations of A, B and C before they really know anything. This is as much down to their irresponsible necessity to sensationalise anything they can as it is to the constant demands of twenty-four hour news coverage. I also don’t know the facts but I’m also quite sure I’m not going to dangerously mislead the seven people, including my Mum, who read this.

Seemingly a man entered a shop and started stabbing people. He was someone who the police had been monitoring for a while now and it must be for this reason that they believe this was the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims, thank you Google dictionary for that definition of terrorism. To speculate what exactly happened and what his motives and rational for doing what he did are pointless. This is partly because I don’t know and probably never will, but also because I imagine them to be far more complex than the lazy and dangerous ‘bad man’ narrative some would have you believe.

The London Mayor Sadiq Khan used the exhaustingly tired cliche that he wanted to “destroy our way of life” but curiously enough also said that the Metropolitan Police truly “are the best of us”. Despite all the other information that entered my mind while reading about todays incident, this statement shocked and offended me the most. I’ve met the Met as the sticker they stuck on my bag once said; I have certainly felt compelled after and since that moment to use a rather different type of superlative to describe them.

The idea that people are trying to destroy our way of life though is a very interesting one and something which never really gets discussed in much of a mature manner in any of these public news style debates. Are we supposed to just believe, as many do, that this man simply hates democracy and freedom, two increasing loose and ambiguous concepts. Is our way of life not in fact capitalism and globalisation? There seems to be something more constant and tangible about that than some abstract notion of freedom and the illusion of a version of political theory invented over two thousand years ago.

Perhaps to admit that there may be reasons other than that he hates us simply for existing would mean not only that we may have to discuss whether any of his beliefs or rationale have any credibility or justification but that this de-humanising narrative is an irresponsible and dangerous one. It must be said that at no point do I justify killing anyone, especially innocent people going about their daily lives but this narrative we’re all willingly skipping along to never really deals with why this man felt compelled to do this in the first place. Perhaps if it did we may just have to deal with the one thing we really can’t and that’s ourselves.

The Hobbyists Dear Diary

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Although I am starting to become concerned that I may just be turning this into a glorified diary I’m seemingly on such a self indulgent enough trip at present that I’ll continue.

Dear diary,
Today I started a new hobby. You see dearest diary I love hobbies, in fact I’ve seemingly been treating too many things in life as hobbies. Some call it not sticking to anything, but for me I really really wanted to be a yoga teacher so I did a course and got a certificate, a tree surgeon so I did a course, a sailor so I did numerous courses, an English teacher, a philosopher, carpenter, engineer, proofreader and I’m in no doubt there were others that I have forgotten about. I loved learning all these things with the intention of turning them into a career, and in a way I did, just my own version of a career. Oh dear diary I just love to refer to them all as a series of hobbies, my life appears to be one long hobby and it’s just such fun. And now I have a new one. I’m going to learn computer science and become a coder. The ultimate jack of all trades has finally tried to pick up a computer and turned it on successfully. Isn’t that so exciting dear diary.
love you love you love you love you

But yes that is that. I’m a grown man with a diary online. It’s funny how things naturally evolve and I know I take the piss out of myself but I don’t mind or care what I am writing about or where I am now. In truth there is so much time for a hell of a lot of evolution in this thing and currently this is where I’m at. The diary phase.

Coding though, for someone who has prided himself on being a technophobe all these years and forever too cool for school, this is quite the corner to have turned. Who knows though, I’ve got to stick to something one day and this allows for a hell of a lot of flexibility, freedom and creativity. It may just be something that grabs my attention when I’m not sailing or getting beaten up by girls.

With all that in mind it is worth pointing out that there is always more to anything. We are put under so much pressure from society to achieve X, Y and Z, and to have done it by a certain age. For sure there are many people out there lost, with no idea what they’re doing or where they’re going. It is a stressful existence and it disgusts me that people have been allowed to slip through the cracks, forgotten and ignored. They may feel alone but they’re not, that’s almost the worst part. Stand up my brothers and sisters, societies outcasts who have not, can not and do not want to achieve success in a style unnatural and forced upon them. Be free and embrace your freedom. Realise you are the lucky few. And while you’re at it, why not take up a hobby or two.

The Bonded Free

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

It has taken me over half an hour to get this far as first my computer gave me problems and then I couldn’t load up the website. Throw in the fact my eyes were getting very heavy and really this was a tempting push in the direction of sacking it off and not doing anything today. But I will persevere, for that is the trip I have chosen. What it also means though is that this will be the first of two pieces tomorrow – today as you read it – and none for today – yesterday as you read it. My god I’m ready for my bed.

I was listening to a podcast today and the guest was some porn mogul who’s name I never bothered attempting to remember. He seemed like quite an interesting person and he was discussing freedom. As a Scotsman this is a topic we’re weaned on from a young age but I’ll not go into the antics of Mel Gibson and instead what freedom means for us. This porn mogul believed freedom was about being able to choose what you want to do or don’t want to, as well as being able to act upon this or not. When I was traveling around Australia about seven or eight years ago, I was in search of complete freedom and for me that meant shutting off the constant stream of guilt that I should or shouldn’t be doing something, or producing something creative, or whatever it is I think I thought now eight years later. I felt totally free, although I forgot I was looking for that, and for better or worse just kind of was. I forgot this at the time and realised a few years later when I wasn’t free mentally and really made an effort to be totally free again. This time though, the ironic thing was that this intense desire and search for freedom was in itself incredibly restrictive, there was nothing liberating about it and understandably was just an escape from the justifiable tap in my head. 

What then is to be free? This porn mogul has it because he’s got nobody telling him what to do, although lets be honest we always answer to somebody, and I had it when I forgot I was looking for it. And then Mel Gibson the Scottish freedom fighting Australian; who desired his people to be free from their bondage to a foreign crown as bondage to their own would be much more palatable. Can freedom then be defined on a universal basis or is it just another subjective construct? Can we objectively be free, perhaps the very act of pure objectivity is in itself the most liberating act of all. As I discovered a few years back, it’s probably best not to spend too much time desiring answers to these questions. The more you think the further from it you get and the more the tap opens…drip, drip, drip…the inescapable bondage of the mind.