Free Will

Freedom.

That is the only thing that man's agreed upon. In modern days, we've decided that, since it's no longer in fashion to simply order around people and force them to go fight to their deaths in some foreign place (a noticeable moment in a man's evolution in history has been the moment when so many millions of people had died that he finally asked himself -- "Why?"). As I was saying, as that is no longer an option for politicians to use and abuse, then it's the opposite -- give everybody free will. And then of course, manipulate it.

Recently, I, and probably many many other people who are far more intelligent/ older than me, have realized that neither man, nor woman likes being free.

Freedom is something we've rarely truly possessed and when we do finally have it, it becomes something we like to see blasted into pieces... We're horrified by the idea that it can be taken away, because we've all agreed that it is our duty to pass it on to others willingly. I can almost hear somebody calling out on the market, "Want my freedom? 4.99$, only today! Buy me, get my children for free!"

We've decided that if we'll visit Death earlier than our bodies would expect, then it might as well be our choice instead of somebody else. It might actually be something we want to do. We're tired of dying for other causes that aren't ours. We're tired of having to travel the Globe because a man whose name is now used as a curse word in some places has the inner urge to show the people from the Middle east that his **** is bigger than theirs. Retardedly slow, yes, but eventually, we did it. We've made the step not to want our freedom taken.

So now that we've figured out we don't want some evil despot above our heads dictating our every move, what do we do with our new-found freedom?

Why, give it to somebody, say a freedom adviser, who will use it wisely. Or at least, he tells us so.

It is just so simple when you don't have to make the choices -- when you leave that to someone else, when you leave your freedom to someone else. Then, if he/she screws up, we can blame him/ her as well! And, of course, if we can't blame him/her, we can always blame God, just in case so that we're sure we aren't the ones who made the choices. I could give examples here, but the issue at hand isn't about what is consistently thrown at us as information, it isn't in what I know, what we all know. It's in what we don't know. And the fact that we don't want to know. Because knowing makes things harder and ignorance is bliss, or so the knowledgeable say. Knowing means being able to choose all by yourself, without any manipulation, which is basically having a choice without being able to blame anybody if it turns out a bad idea.

Oh how hard it would be to actually stop and think about the "why?" in our lives that should be fast, progressing, constantly updated, emancipated, independent -- independent from your friends and family, but not from your country or the people who have the money in your country, etc. etc. etc. Nobody asks himself, "Why am I chasing/choosing/saying/doing this?" and when the deed is finally done, nobody asks himself, "Shouldn't I turn back and see if doing it didn't do more harm than good?" Nobody stops and takes a look at his life, pondering is it right or wrong by their own judgment because everybody's too busy rushing through it. We don't think on our actions, that takes time! We just do whatever person A tells us to, no questions asked, because there's no time. Being forced to live as quickly paced as possible, we've ignored our freedom and just picked the first option -- give it to somebody else.

Now, somebody might say that thanks to all the technology, people have started to become weary about manipulation. However, they haven't noted that the manipulators also know that and dedicate a lot of time and definitely a lot of money (of which they have by tons) into making their manipulation unnoticed. And we've ignored that, because we're comfortable with it, as long as it's not too obvious. It's like an unwritten rule that has made its way after we've given our freedom over.

But ignorance is bliss. And freedom -- too much to bear.

P.S. To anybody who is thinking at the moment how knowledge and freedom are connected, well -- if you're presented with only one option because of the lack of knowledge, then you're not really free to choose, are you?

In God We Trust

Hello, this will be another post in English. But first...

Ако не желаеш да четеш/ не разбираш английския език, погледни архивите и си избери нещо от там.

Once again, today's topic is about a being that is in one way or another a concern for everybody. Whether they hate Him, ignore Him, believe in Him, people are interested in God.

However, my subject will not be faith. It will be its child -- something that has come out of faith and yet has nothing to do with it. Sometimes, I find it even gets as far as possible from faith, as any child should do at a certain point.

That child's name is religion.

You see, once again, I am not interested in what people believe in. It's their freedom to do so, therefore I do not care, as long as they do not care about me either.

My concern today is more likely to do with, quite bluntly put, how people use it or more precisely put, abuse it. It would seem that one type of abuse unites all people that have/are or will believe in a higher power, no matter race, skin color, accent, religion or intellectual capacity.

And that thing is called blame. To elaborate more, that thing is excusing yourself with someone else who should be held responsible for every single action that you have or will do on this planet.

People do a lot of things in the name of God or because of God. Even more interesting though, it would seem that even if some do not believe in Him (or Her, or It), they hold responsible that same deity for the actions of His believers. Some kill excusing themselves with God, others blame God for being killed and everybody altogether blames God for having to watch such extremities.

God gets stick for everything -- from serious issues as war, poverty, hunger, misery and general disorder to everyday problems such as running out of gas, not getting that job spot you've always wanted, not getting an A++, losing the girl and having to cope with bad weather. Everything that is even slightly irritating or troubling is because of God.

When it gets to finding reasons for our failures, we've got everything figured out.

However, when it comes to good deeds... Well, that's when a lot of people suddenly forget God. A lot of people still don't, notably, but the majority of people are too busy shouting random sounds or thinking how truly awesome they are ("Man, I'm awesome!") to remember the same person who had been responsible for all the trouble so far.

Once again, it would appear that the very first reaction of a person that just succeeded is to think "I deserve this!" Do you now? You're entitled to everything good, because you've suffered at a certain point in your life? Well, what about John over there? He's suffered too, but he lost what you just won. Oh, don't feel guilty for that. Don't blame yourself for taking everything from John. Blame God. That's what John is doing.

Whatever you do though, do forget the two apparently unimportant words 'free will'. Because apparently we're pretending that the moment when God gave man (and woman) free will never happened. Now that moment is just a blank spot in history. We never turned 18 (or in some countries 21), we never got old enough to take responsibility. Anyway, why should we take responsibility? It's so much easier to have the best excuse ever, right?

Hey, it wasn't my fault! It was because of my spiritual dad, who lives in the clouds!

Humanity has existed for quite a while now. But we, humans, are smart. We've stopped pointing fingers at each other. Oh, no, we're better than that. We've figured out that if everybody blames their neighbor, then everybody's other neighbor will blame us.


That's why we started pointing fingers at the only being that will not speak back -- God.

If you ask me, I'd prefer if we could blame God. But we can't, because we have free will. Because supposedly, we can distinguish good from bad. It's what eating that shiny apple got us, according to some interpretations. One of the rather big jumps for mankind has been to decide that no spiritual entity decides its fate. "I can do whatever I want to!" Or at least that's how it started. Then people saw what they'd lose from sticking up to such a statement. Therefore, I'm certain, somewhere there's a secret document of conduct. And it's probably saying:

In a world ruled by man (or woman), God gets the stick. Taking responsibility is simply too much for us at this stage.

Eating the apple got us free will, but no responsibility. Perhaps eating a grape will do the trick this time?