Having a Response

I often read through the various forum-entry’s around Redbubble.com and many blogs around the WWW: Sometimes I feel the need to respond, but invariably my comments end up quite lengthy. Thus, I often convert my thoughts to prose or short stories for publication here.

Here are three separate yet entwined written pieces that I didn’t want to be a statement for one situation, but an idea for for a few.

1. Perpetuate the evil, and life will remain as is. Finding solution through education and compromise, and your answers will help make a difference. Neither your religion nor ballot makes the country, it’s who YOU are that makes the people the country.

2. While many seem to think that burning flags, raising effigies and vandalising for the sake of revenge is the only way to retaliate, I prefer to dwell on what I do have. I have free speech, but I don’t have to use it all the time. I could march in the street, but I prefer to shoot photographs of such events. I have food, water and a roof over my head, yet somehow I represent the minority. Civilisation needs to be built by the people, not the geography nor the state.

3. According to wikipedia , ‘enlightenment’ is the acquisition of new wisdom or understanding enabling clarity of perception .

In Zen it is the state of being with no mind, the disappearance of the ego, the loss of all identification with the body and the mind, and the freedom from beliefs, opinions, ideals and concepts. Not to be confused with escapism, enlightenment is attained by those who don’t feel the need to pass opinion nor judgement on everything. Rather, they listen, learn and apply.

Ok, so it’s a little rhetoric that may seem a tad naive, but the concept is amazingly simple. We should all try it sometime.

PS. When I was a teenager, yes, my views were narrow-minded and uneducated. Twenty five years later I now have a more ‘enlightened’ view of religion, civilisation, communication and many other subjects. I’m not an expert in any one thing, but I do have an opinion on most. When I don’t know enough about a subject to make an informed opinion, I do enough research to play ‘devils advocate’.

Thanks to the internet, subjects such as education and enlightenment is free.

Yes, this piece was previously in my ‘Writing’ within Redbubble.