(snip)
I don't "try to practice my freedom", I've actually lived my freedom each and everyday since June 4, 1993!
(snip)
I found my freedom when I gave myself permission to live my life as a free Human Being. Each of us must follow our own path, may your choosen path lead you and yours to the freedom that you seek.
sj, I do not think that anyone anywhere has anything to add to what you are, what you've done/accomplished, and to what you've just said here to the worrybug. I salute you, and am grateful that you are there doing whatever you do each day. Btw, I spent most of my life south of the lakes, down in Memphis, but I've been all over the bluegrass state and find it to be a very beautiful part of America. And I'll never forget one summer night's dancing with a chick I met in Franklin, Kentucky under a full moon on a wooded country road. We danced in the car's headlights, out on the road, never thinking about all the owls we might disturb. But I won't bore you with stories about my adventures in Kentucky; just wanted to let you know that imo Kentucky would be a great place for a dude like you. Of course, if you ever changed your mind, or have it changed by martial-law's ominous steel hand, Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho constitute a pretty big piece of real estate, and there are, already, birds of a feather out here in numbers which swell the flight to sovereignty and freedom.
Keep hammering away at people who are in the early stages of their self-discovery, who are new to the path of personal freedom, and who think freedom is a definable, quantifiable product of focused effort and intent, something which they will achieve "in the future", when they've done all their tasks which they feel will furnish that freedom. It amuses me to hear them question sagely vision with their own newly-evolving perspectives. Maybe Mr. Worrybug will get it if you just shout it at him a dozen more times: "I found my freedom when I gave myself permission to live my life as a free Human Being."
And a note-in-passing for Mr. Worrybug, as an aside: Dude, there is nothing *wrong* with anything you value, as stated previously by you. If you want material security, that is fine. Some of us don't, but that doesn't mean we don't have anything else left to lose. Speaking for myself personally, I've had the wealth, the money, the facilitation, the business licenses, the tax accounts, the credit, portfolio, banking, comforts and conveniences which inspire most Americans. If that is what you want, I say go for it. All I want these days is to write down my reflections and live modestly and eat regularly. When my propensity for smoking cigarettes kills me, I'll have died on my terms, by my choices and decisions regarding how to live. That is very central to my personal notions about being free. I will not be in some damn hospital begging or paying some doctor to avert my natural fate, to extend my life, lol! For those of you who believe in the healing arts as practiced by modern AMA-sanctioned standards, more power to you, but I'll pass. You are right; there is nothing wrong with accumulation of the fruits of your labor; in fact, in most cases I think that is a very *good* thing. But you don't have to make an issue over it. You be free, yourself, and then you'll see that you don't have to be with a "freedom group", that you don't have to move or live anywhere, that in fact you can be yourself wherever you are. *That* is your freedom in your own lifetime. Anything else is just something somebody is trying to sell you. A plan. Sure, it's cool to play with the FSP plan, to participate; hell, it's the best game in town at present, imo. I sure do enjoy telling people about it, supporting it with my mentality. And the FSP will doubtess have soul-mate types of people who share your particular sorts of values and y'all may end up with the envy of the nation, a community which literally reclaimed governance by pooling votes. I'd say that would be a good thing. But you're still going to have to claim your freedom, instead of "working toward it", for "working toward it" is an ego-defense system, a mind-set which says, "I am not free, but I cannot find my inner freedom, so I must look outward, elsewhere, for my freedom." You are correct in thinking that you must live your freedom according to your views. But remember: your views come from within. < wicked grin >
If you want to move amid neighbors who promise to share your principles, I see nothing wrong with that.....aside from the fact that once again someone who is not "you" seeks to place a "definition" upon the infinity which dwells in the spiritually-exact meaning of the word "freedom" as it exists inside your soul. You'll make it, Dude; just, in Joni Mitchell's words, try not to "lay your religion on your friends", eh? That way, you won't appear to be a worry bug.
Elias
