I’ve had this one waiting in the wings for a little while. And now is the perfect moment for it. See, it’s mid-week and some perspective is needed, some insight is needed, some energy is needed.
Which is where
comes in.If this one doesn’t get you fired up and ready to create then I recommend you check your pulse.
Enjoy.
TJB.
Animals in captivity suffer from many problems that they generally don't face in the wild. They are removed from their natural habitat and from their natural state of being. They are confined to small, unnatural spaces, and sometimes forced to entertain people or to perform tricks. They are dependent upon their keepers for food, and for health care, and thus, sometimes die prematurely from illness or stress. They can become overweight. Listless. Uninterested in life.
If that sounds familiar to you, it's because you are recognizing a description that applies to a big percentage of modern humans. Free in name only, but captive, the new world man has evolved from homo sapiens to homo captivus. And we have been indoctrinated to think that this is normal!
We sit in cubicles, managed by our keepers, as we work "to put food on the table." We pay our taxes as tribute. We watch the news fear porn. We tune in to receive our “regularly scheduled” programming (of our minds). We mostly do what we, as civilized people, are expected to do.
Like the captive animal, most of us are dependent upon those in charge of the system for health care. Unlike the captive animal, we are expected to pay for it. Can we freely go to any doctor we wish without asking permission from our insurance company who, in turn, may ask permission from far away bureaucrats if our request is valid?
Are we stressed out by things over which we have absolutely no control? Are we overweight? Depressed? Uninterested in life? If we want (or need) to do something, anything really, can we just drop everything and do it? Or do we have to ask for permission from one of our captors?
Do we have ample opportunity to run on the open plain and revel in the power of our bodies? Or are we trapped within confining walls both physical and societal?
We are forced to perform tricks, to entertain visitors, to "work" so that we may "live." There is nothing wrong with honest work, but many of us have forgotten what it means to actually live. So many of us are walking undead captives.
It wouldn’t be called work if we liked doing it, we console ourselves. wink wink, nudge, nudge, we attempt to soothe each other.
Thank God it’s Friday, we say as we smother our reality with mind altering substances, starting at “happy hour.”
Shouldn’t most hours be “happy hour?”
We ask each other "so, what do you do?"
And we answer as expected, as if what we do defines who we are:
"I'm a doctor."
"I sell insurance."
"I write technical manuals."
But the real question isn't what do you do. We don’t like answering real questions.
The real question is this: What are you? Are you free? Can you do the things that light a fire in your soul?
For when we are truly free, we are free to be what our soul yearns to be.
The freedom we long for is to live in a way that there is no distinction between what we do and what we are. Then we will have embarked upon an adventure to evolve into homo spiritus.
A lion in a zoo, really, is no longer a complete lion, it is something else. Something less. It would not describe itself by what it does, “I am an entertainer! I play a lion in the ongoing play called, ‘the zoo’!”
This is the same dilemma that modern man, homo captivus, faces!
The lion's soul yearns to be a lion. To roam the savannah, chasing big game, culling the herd, and napping languidly in the shade with his spouse and the pride. And, after doing so, he roars at the heavens in an act of worship and warning!
So too, do we, as the species homo captivus, sit at our desks, good human specimens, working on those spreadsheets that will optimize costs and deliver an additional 2.4% profit to the company's bottom line. And, being good, we pay our taxes, and support our favorite sports teams. We enjoy happy hours and are allowed a taste of freedom every once in a while so that we can come back “refreshed” and do it some more.
Meanwhile our souls are screaming at us to be a human.
Ironically, while existing in this state, we ask ourselves if there is life after death. I think a better question to ask is this: How can we have life before death?
Go outside! Go fishing! (Be sure to get permission by renewing your license!). Pay attention to what you see! Create art! Enjoy the afternoon with your family. Go walk in the forest! Write a concerto. Paint an oil painting! Write a novel! Dance! Play! Pet the outside cats!
Inside you, and each of us, is a tiny spark, dying to become the roaring bonfire that is the birthright of homo spiritus - creation! So create!
For when a human is allowed to be, to be internally free, what we do is create.
We create meaning. We create art. We create technology. We create knowledge. We create family. We create society. We create civilization. We create our lives. We create our very selves.
We have the potential, in fact, to be co-creators with the divine in the ongoing evolution and expansion of order, complexity, pattern, meaning, beauty, love and goodness in the universe. We could be, if we stop our petty squabbling and wake up to the call of our inner promethean soul-fire, co-creators of paradise. We could evolve from a bunch of warring homo sapiens into something new, powerful, wise, creative and collaborative: homo spiritus.
Stoke that creative fire inside you and you too will feel, like the free lion, the natural urge to roar at the heavens in worship and to those around you in warning that you are not undead but that you exist and that you live.
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Great post Clint and I ask myself these questions all the time. We are essentially caged animals, as you stated in ways that we should all be questioning.
Great post with deep social criticism and also hope! thank you for writing this. I touched me deeply. I am question all of what I am doing today thanks to this post.