This is the official home of The Free Self Project.
What you will not find here, is a political movement, a religious movement, or a social movement. It is not a 'movement' of any kind, in the traditional sense of the word. I do not advocate demonstrations, civil disobedience or political action of any kind. You need not move anywhere, wave any flag, wear any button or ribbon, post any ballot, pray to any god, or follow any rules.
The Free Self Project is about nurturing the freedom we all share already, in order to discover the truth of self, and exploring that truth with others. It is about philosophy and the psychology - thoughts and emotions - of everyday life, how to understand them in the context of the past, and how to apply them to personal action in the present with an eye toward a more free, happy, and loving future for ourselves, and as a consequence, for the world as a whole.
The Free Self Project, therefore, is - and can only ever be - a personal project. This site, then, is a record of my personal journey through the project. In the coming months and years, I will be slowly expanding and developing this site with thoughts, ideas, and impressions from, for, and about me as a free self. In time, as the scaffolding forms a recognizable and transmittable model, and as others start their own free self projects, the content could expand to include those works. But for now, my voice all there is.
What am I good at?
2008/11/18 02.29
| Permalink
I've been thinking about an old pattern of mine.
I get all cranked up and write something I think is really good, then I post it, then people make great comments about it, and then I hate it. In other words, the quickest way to shut me up, is to tell me you love my writing. I remember that was a pattern for me in the creative writing classes I took years ago. Without fail, an instructor would give me some comment like, "You just need to keep doing what you're doing!", and I would promptly stop doing that.
I don't think this really has anything to do with any secret desire to be a writer, anymore. However, I do see this pattern as important to me in the broader sense: I hate being praised. Or, rather, I'm wracked with anxiety, guilt, and self-doubt, when I get positive feedback. More accurately, up until recently, I've let myself be ruled by that anxiety, guilt, and self-doubt.
Recently, I finished the first unit in my mediation course, and besides giving me a top mark on the unit's analysis paper assignment, the instructor included the comment, "It's the best Unit 1 Analysis I've gotten yet". Well, in months or years past, my habit would have been to roll my eyes and ask myself "what does he REALLY mean?" But I didn't do that this time.
This time, I spent a week negotiating with my inner critic first. I wrote the paper entirely over the course of about 3 days. Then, I sat on it for a week. In the course of that week, my mood shifted from flush with satisfaction to wracked with self-doubt and back to tentative acceptance. I let my inner critic rage for days about this paper, but I refused to let him tell me what to do. He wanted me to proofread it continuously. Then, he wanted me to reorganize it. Then, he wanted me to read more literature on the subject so that I could include more references, and finally, he demanded that I rewrite the whole thing. At each stop along this journey, I would simply ask him two questions: (1) Why is this not good enough? (2) Why is "good enough" bad?
On the proofreading, he was mostly right. But on all the other stuff, he was unable to explain himself. So, at the end of a week, with a few minor edits in place, I closed my eyes, and pushed the "send" button.
And I got an A. Not just an A, but "the best Unit 1 Analysis yet".
And afterward? I don't feel any compulsion to question the instructor's judgment. Not a lick. The critic is back there of course, complaining away, sneering, crossing his arms, and demanding to know how this was possible, but he doesn't run the show anymore. He gets to have his say, but in the end, he doesn't get to dictate the terms anymore. The job of the decision-making belongs to someone else now. That someone else is the boy I left behind 30 years ago. He's waited patiently, quietly, for decades. For me to quiet down and ask for his help. And he offered it without reserve, without recrimination, without any expectation, as soon as I was genuine enough to accept it.
My parents have had a spokesman in me for long enough.
It's time now for the boy to have a champion of his own.
I think I can be that champion.
I hope he agrees.
I get all cranked up and write something I think is really good, then I post it, then people make great comments about it, and then I hate it. In other words, the quickest way to shut me up, is to tell me you love my writing. I remember that was a pattern for me in the creative writing classes I took years ago. Without fail, an instructor would give me some comment like, "You just need to keep doing what you're doing!", and I would promptly stop doing that.
I don't think this really has anything to do with any secret desire to be a writer, anymore. However, I do see this pattern as important to me in the broader sense: I hate being praised. Or, rather, I'm wracked with anxiety, guilt, and self-doubt, when I get positive feedback. More accurately, up until recently, I've let myself be ruled by that anxiety, guilt, and self-doubt.
Recently, I finished the first unit in my mediation course, and besides giving me a top mark on the unit's analysis paper assignment, the instructor included the comment, "It's the best Unit 1 Analysis I've gotten yet". Well, in months or years past, my habit would have been to roll my eyes and ask myself "what does he REALLY mean?" But I didn't do that this time.
This time, I spent a week negotiating with my inner critic first. I wrote the paper entirely over the course of about 3 days. Then, I sat on it for a week. In the course of that week, my mood shifted from flush with satisfaction to wracked with self-doubt and back to tentative acceptance. I let my inner critic rage for days about this paper, but I refused to let him tell me what to do. He wanted me to proofread it continuously. Then, he wanted me to reorganize it. Then, he wanted me to read more literature on the subject so that I could include more references, and finally, he demanded that I rewrite the whole thing. At each stop along this journey, I would simply ask him two questions: (1) Why is this not good enough? (2) Why is "good enough" bad?
On the proofreading, he was mostly right. But on all the other stuff, he was unable to explain himself. So, at the end of a week, with a few minor edits in place, I closed my eyes, and pushed the "send" button.
And I got an A. Not just an A, but "the best Unit 1 Analysis yet".
And afterward? I don't feel any compulsion to question the instructor's judgment. Not a lick. The critic is back there of course, complaining away, sneering, crossing his arms, and demanding to know how this was possible, but he doesn't run the show anymore. He gets to have his say, but in the end, he doesn't get to dictate the terms anymore. The job of the decision-making belongs to someone else now. That someone else is the boy I left behind 30 years ago. He's waited patiently, quietly, for decades. For me to quiet down and ask for his help. And he offered it without reserve, without recrimination, without any expectation, as soon as I was genuine enough to accept it.
My parents have had a spokesman in me for long enough.
It's time now for the boy to have a champion of his own.
I think I can be that champion.
I hope he agrees.
Comments
Putting my money where my mouth is
2008/10/21 20.34
| Philosophy, Psychology, The Self
| Permalink
One of the strongest recurring impulses in my life, has been the drive toward consistence between my actions and my expressed expressed values and perceived virtues. Among that list of values, can be found three fundamentals: the principle of non-violence, the principle of self-direction, and by extension, the principle of spontaneous order. These principles are valuable to me, because I believe they are both an expression of, and a support mechanism for, the virtues I proclaim to both love and to possess: integrity, curiosity, empathy, and courage.
My involvement in Freedomain Radio has been of enormous and nearly incalculable value to me, in pursuit of these aspects of myself. Indeed, when I was introduced to Stefan's work nearly 3 years ago, I was, at best, only partly conscious of the fact that I even held these stated values, or admired these stated virtues. As part of my growth during this period of my life, I've always intuitively and instinctively known that my life as a technician was drawing to a close. I know my value to the world is very limited there, in general, and I also know I am an embarrassingly bad liar. How can you convince others, when you can't even convince yourself?
For a time, I believed this failure of confidence was born of a deficiency of self-esteem and self-image. Over time, however, I've come to realize that this answer was only partly true. It is true that I've suffered from self-worth issues over the last 20 years, and it's also true that, had I a stronger ego during that time period, I might indeed have been far more successful as a computer specialist, than I already was (which was, objectively speaking, not stellar but well above average).
But as I said, that's only half the story. The other half, has been a growing realization that my happiness - my value to the world - lies in the expression of these values and virtues to the world, in some woefully unclear way... and that I.T. was not the way... and that, if I remained in that place and refused to take up the challenge of my own courage and integrity, I would die without ever really realizing this freshly understood potential in me. The example Stefan has set at Freedomain Radio has felt to me, at times, like a prison yard spotlight, singling me out and demanding to know why I was trying to hide from my 'duty' to the truth. Only at times, though. Lately, his example has felt much more like a lighthouse beacon, keeping me on course when the ship has seemed all but lost to the storm.
For over a year, that beacon was all I had to rely on, since I was so busy refusing to listen to myself; so adamantly struggling against the voice inside me, trying to tell me we could find our own way, if I would only just relax for a moment. And, in that time, I convulsed in the anxiety of perceived expectations, wallowed in the self-indulgent despair of perceived failures, and shook my fist at the world, for the fate it had handed me. I was certain I would never find an answer to the question, "What am I supposed to do with my life? Why won't someone just tell me?"
But of course, I've always had the answer - as I've already admitted, in fact. It's always been in there waiting for me, in the womb at the center of my being where those values and virtues live. I was just unable to see it, because I was so busy trying to "will" an answer. So busy not listening to the wisdom of the child born to the world with those values and virtues lying exposed and naked to the world. Not listening, because I was afraid of him. Afraid of his nakedness. Afraid of his vulnerability. Or, rather, the ego that I call "I" - the transparent man that formed like a heavy wax sarcophagus around that child - feared. My shell is constructed almost entirely of terror. Terror of externalities, sure. But mostly, terror of the naked child within. Terror that his nakedness would not just shame us, but destroy us.
"I" could not find a purpose for life, after starting this latest journey into the self, because "I" had long since lost his only function: to hide. Hide from the world, hide from others, hide from the naked child within. "I" had become a swollen ancestral appendage, blocking access to me. Still, with time, and effort, I have managed to egg-tooth my way through enough of the layers of wax to be able to see him again. To see my true self. To feel him. To connect with him. To listen to him.
What did he say to me?
The same thing he's been saying to me for decades: Terror, shame, and suspicion are no way to order a world, and certainly, no way to raise a child (in particular, me). But I didn't understand what it meant years ago. I chased blindly after politics and abstract moral philosophy for years, in pursuit of that nagging question. I was looking in all the wrong places, of course. Looking in those places, because "I" was refusing to listen to the wisdom of the child.
And as soon as "I" had relaxed enough to listen to that child, the answer rang out in my head like the bells of St. Patrick's cathedral.
I was sitting at my desk reading some random article, when a friend of mine passed a URL over IM to me. He's been taking a course in business law, and the chapter they were working through at the time, focused on various alternatives to civil and criminal law. In essence, an overview of the problems of the public legal system, and some potential solutions to it. One of those solutions: Private practice mediation, and dispute resolution services.
Dispute Resolution Organizations. A central theoretical example used in support of the philosophy of Freedomain Radio, or what I had thought was only a theory, was actually working. In practice. Right now. Today. And people were earning a living doing it.
And again, my head filled with the chanting howls of a fanatical football crowd: "WE - CAN - DO - THIS!" It scared the crap out of me.
But it was so obvious. If conflict is the central problem of all human relationships, and I loved to solve problems and help people in the process, then why was I not doing something to expand our understanding, and to potentially solve, THAT problem? I mean, I know I am a problem-solver. I know my mind is highly attuned to analytical thinking, and I also know that I have a fairly deep, though undisciplined, well of creativity in me (even if, a bit linear). Combined with the psychological insight and the confidence born of self-development that I've gained working with Stef, what did I have to lose by applying myself to THIS particular task?
There are no coincidences. I'd "coincidentally" just spent the preceding 18 months shedding everything. Everything. Even most of my old identity. Really. I had nothing to lose. Absolutely nothing. Yet, I still allowed ambivalence to shadow the enthusiasm that had sprung out of me entirely spontaneously. Having nothing to lose is an easy way to avoid the risk of doing something that could potentially cost you everything. Skepticism and cynicism. My old companions. "I" couldn't just have that enthusiasm, and let that be enough. "I" demanded justifications, which of course, are not to be - can NEVER be - found. A self-fulfilling defeatism.
Then ego boy was reminded to "ask the kid". And so he did. A dozen times over the course of a week, until the boy was positively fuming. And "I" finally capitulated. He did not want to lose everything he'd gained in his relationship with the boy. He knows they need each other. And he promised to commit to the enthusiasm. In a substantive way.
So, I signed on to a private mediation course. I'm learning the trade. The practice, of employing techniques, tactics, and strategies for mediating personal and professional disputes. Learning it for myself, so that I can practice what I preach. Learning it for others, so that I can help teach the value and the beauty of finding peaceful solutions to apparently irreconcilable differences. Learning it for the future, so that I can help, in my own minute and incremental way, move this multi-generational project of freedom forward by a step or two before I die.
And finally, learning it, because I'm having fun learning it.
Because I feel passionate about it.
Passion.
I haven't felt that, in a long, long time.
And it feels great.
My involvement in Freedomain Radio has been of enormous and nearly incalculable value to me, in pursuit of these aspects of myself. Indeed, when I was introduced to Stefan's work nearly 3 years ago, I was, at best, only partly conscious of the fact that I even held these stated values, or admired these stated virtues. As part of my growth during this period of my life, I've always intuitively and instinctively known that my life as a technician was drawing to a close. I know my value to the world is very limited there, in general, and I also know I am an embarrassingly bad liar. How can you convince others, when you can't even convince yourself?
For a time, I believed this failure of confidence was born of a deficiency of self-esteem and self-image. Over time, however, I've come to realize that this answer was only partly true. It is true that I've suffered from self-worth issues over the last 20 years, and it's also true that, had I a stronger ego during that time period, I might indeed have been far more successful as a computer specialist, than I already was (which was, objectively speaking, not stellar but well above average).
But as I said, that's only half the story. The other half, has been a growing realization that my happiness - my value to the world - lies in the expression of these values and virtues to the world, in some woefully unclear way... and that I.T. was not the way... and that, if I remained in that place and refused to take up the challenge of my own courage and integrity, I would die without ever really realizing this freshly understood potential in me. The example Stefan has set at Freedomain Radio has felt to me, at times, like a prison yard spotlight, singling me out and demanding to know why I was trying to hide from my 'duty' to the truth. Only at times, though. Lately, his example has felt much more like a lighthouse beacon, keeping me on course when the ship has seemed all but lost to the storm.
For over a year, that beacon was all I had to rely on, since I was so busy refusing to listen to myself; so adamantly struggling against the voice inside me, trying to tell me we could find our own way, if I would only just relax for a moment. And, in that time, I convulsed in the anxiety of perceived expectations, wallowed in the self-indulgent despair of perceived failures, and shook my fist at the world, for the fate it had handed me. I was certain I would never find an answer to the question, "What am I supposed to do with my life? Why won't someone just tell me?"
But of course, I've always had the answer - as I've already admitted, in fact. It's always been in there waiting for me, in the womb at the center of my being where those values and virtues live. I was just unable to see it, because I was so busy trying to "will" an answer. So busy not listening to the wisdom of the child born to the world with those values and virtues lying exposed and naked to the world. Not listening, because I was afraid of him. Afraid of his nakedness. Afraid of his vulnerability. Or, rather, the ego that I call "I" - the transparent man that formed like a heavy wax sarcophagus around that child - feared. My shell is constructed almost entirely of terror. Terror of externalities, sure. But mostly, terror of the naked child within. Terror that his nakedness would not just shame us, but destroy us.
"I" could not find a purpose for life, after starting this latest journey into the self, because "I" had long since lost his only function: to hide. Hide from the world, hide from others, hide from the naked child within. "I" had become a swollen ancestral appendage, blocking access to me. Still, with time, and effort, I have managed to egg-tooth my way through enough of the layers of wax to be able to see him again. To see my true self. To feel him. To connect with him. To listen to him.
What did he say to me?
The same thing he's been saying to me for decades: Terror, shame, and suspicion are no way to order a world, and certainly, no way to raise a child (in particular, me). But I didn't understand what it meant years ago. I chased blindly after politics and abstract moral philosophy for years, in pursuit of that nagging question. I was looking in all the wrong places, of course. Looking in those places, because "I" was refusing to listen to the wisdom of the child.
And as soon as "I" had relaxed enough to listen to that child, the answer rang out in my head like the bells of St. Patrick's cathedral.
I was sitting at my desk reading some random article, when a friend of mine passed a URL over IM to me. He's been taking a course in business law, and the chapter they were working through at the time, focused on various alternatives to civil and criminal law. In essence, an overview of the problems of the public legal system, and some potential solutions to it. One of those solutions: Private practice mediation, and dispute resolution services.
Dispute Resolution Organizations. A central theoretical example used in support of the philosophy of Freedomain Radio, or what I had thought was only a theory, was actually working. In practice. Right now. Today. And people were earning a living doing it.
And again, my head filled with the chanting howls of a fanatical football crowd: "WE - CAN - DO - THIS!" It scared the crap out of me.
But it was so obvious. If conflict is the central problem of all human relationships, and I loved to solve problems and help people in the process, then why was I not doing something to expand our understanding, and to potentially solve, THAT problem? I mean, I know I am a problem-solver. I know my mind is highly attuned to analytical thinking, and I also know that I have a fairly deep, though undisciplined, well of creativity in me (even if, a bit linear). Combined with the psychological insight and the confidence born of self-development that I've gained working with Stef, what did I have to lose by applying myself to THIS particular task?
There are no coincidences. I'd "coincidentally" just spent the preceding 18 months shedding everything. Everything. Even most of my old identity. Really. I had nothing to lose. Absolutely nothing. Yet, I still allowed ambivalence to shadow the enthusiasm that had sprung out of me entirely spontaneously. Having nothing to lose is an easy way to avoid the risk of doing something that could potentially cost you everything. Skepticism and cynicism. My old companions. "I" couldn't just have that enthusiasm, and let that be enough. "I" demanded justifications, which of course, are not to be - can NEVER be - found. A self-fulfilling defeatism.
Then ego boy was reminded to "ask the kid". And so he did. A dozen times over the course of a week, until the boy was positively fuming. And "I" finally capitulated. He did not want to lose everything he'd gained in his relationship with the boy. He knows they need each other. And he promised to commit to the enthusiasm. In a substantive way.
So, I signed on to a private mediation course. I'm learning the trade. The practice, of employing techniques, tactics, and strategies for mediating personal and professional disputes. Learning it for myself, so that I can practice what I preach. Learning it for others, so that I can help teach the value and the beauty of finding peaceful solutions to apparently irreconcilable differences. Learning it for the future, so that I can help, in my own minute and incremental way, move this multi-generational project of freedom forward by a step or two before I die.
And finally, learning it, because I'm having fun learning it.
Because I feel passionate about it.
Passion.
I haven't felt that, in a long, long time.
And it feels great.
Comments (1)
The Beginning... of sorts...
2008/10/21 01.16
| Permalink
This is actually the end result of 2 years of study and introspection itself, so in a way, it is the end, rather than the beginning. But in a way, it is also the beginning. The beginning of my new life, and my new hope for the future.
Mission Statement: The purpose - the greatest desire - of my life, is to employ the truth, as discovered through philosophy, to pursue my own happiness to the fullest extent possible, and in the process, to make the world a better place than it was when I entered it.
Applied Objective: My objective is to demonstrate, through word and deed in my own life, the value of personal peace and freedom to promoting happiness and building constructive pleasurable relationships, amongst all people.
Goals: The following are a list of mid- and long-term goals, I hope to accomplish in pursuit of my mission and objective:
I’m posting this here, now, because I want to put this in a public place. But not just any public space. Someplace where it will matter to my true self. Some place that demonstrates my commitment to it - demonstrates it to myself, by declaring it to those I care most about. A sort of “marriage ceremony” to my own goals, I guess.
Greg.
Mission Statement: The purpose - the greatest desire - of my life, is to employ the truth, as discovered through philosophy, to pursue my own happiness to the fullest extent possible, and in the process, to make the world a better place than it was when I entered it.
Applied Objective: My objective is to demonstrate, through word and deed in my own life, the value of personal peace and freedom to promoting happiness and building constructive pleasurable relationships, amongst all people.
Goals: The following are a list of mid- and long-term goals, I hope to accomplish in pursuit of my mission and objective:
- Personal: Establish a daily and weekly routine that encourages a regimen of self-care. Specifically, continue to build on every-day habits such as exercise, meditation, socializing, and study, to increase the potential for sharing values with those around me.
- Romantic: Find someone with whom I can make my dating profile motto a reality: “The greatest pleasure in life, is the shared joy in living itself.” What this means in practical terms: A long-term love relationship, with a woman who will challenge but not threaten, expect but not demand, and question but not criticize. Someone with a deep curiosity about herself, and the world.
- Social: Improve and expand friendships. Through continued self-exploration, study and improved socialization, I increase the likelihood for sharing value, and bringing joy to those I associate with in a casual context. In doing so, I greatly improve the chances of succeeding at the the personal and romantic goals, and increase the potential for new value in the professional goal as well.
- Professional: Establish a career more in line with my stated mission and objective. Firstly: through the promotion and practice of extra-legal dispute resolution, in the form of private practice mediation, I will earn a living while promoting peace and freedom in general and my own happiness specifically. Secondly: through continued support and promotion of Freedomain Radio, I will continue to build on my network of friendships, and nurture simultaneous opportunities for enhancing my own mediation practice, and the philosophical and psychological work going on at Freedomain Radio.
❑
Read WANTS List Morning 10 mins (1hr+ p/week) ❑
Meditate Morning 30 mins (3.5 hrs p/week)❑
Physical Exercise Anytime 30 mins (3.5 hrs p/week)❑
Study Evening 1 hrs (7 hrs p/week)❑
FDR Evening 2 hrs (14 hrs p/week)❑
Casual Reading Weekend 3 hrs (3 hrs p/week)❑
Outdoor Activity Weekend 3 hrs (3 hrs p/week)❑
Watch Movie Weekend 2 hrs (2 hrs p/week)I’m posting this here, now, because I want to put this in a public place. But not just any public space. Someplace where it will matter to my true self. Some place that demonstrates my commitment to it - demonstrates it to myself, by declaring it to those I care most about. A sort of “marriage ceremony” to my own goals, I guess.
Greg.