As free, beautiful, independent people, our greatest gift besides life itself is emotional freedom. No one can tell us what to think or how to feel. But if only it were so simple! Our emotions are critical to how we deal with the world and how we relate to each other. Without negative emotions, positive emotions are almost meaningless, but we can choose if we want to dwell on the positive or the negative. We cannot control our immediate emotional reactions or deny that they exist, but they provide openings for manipulation by others. To someone who has mastered their emotions, others can only provoke momentary lapses in whatever state of mind they have chosen to adopt, but very few have such mastery, and most of us fall far short.
Invoking emotions in others is a powerful way to control those who allow themselves to be manipulated. We see this every day in our individual relationships, and those that are dominated by emotional manipulation tend to be miserable! Sometimes this is not done deliberately, but is just as destructive when done subconsciously. It often occurs as a result of poor communication skills. When people feel unable to properly express themselves, they resort to emotional appeals or the examples set by those around them, especially their parents. Parents often use such weapons against their children, who learn by example. Awareness is all it takes to stop and prevent it, but that requires discipline and vigilance.
Effective communication can resolve nearly all human conflicts. We often communicate aggressively without even knowing it. We often communicate using deception and emotional manipulation to control others. We hold back from open communication because we fear being judged. Sometimes, we forget to listen to the needs of others because we are too busy judging them. We tend to hear comments as attacks and get defensive. These dysfunctional patterns of communication reinforce emotional slavery. True freedom means being able to communicate honestly, openly, and without judgement. The language of emotional slavery leaves us vulnerable to unsatisfying relationships. Nonaggressive communication fosters emotional freedom and fulfillment.
Governments can control us by the direct threat of force, but it is relatively inefficient and creates far more resistance than emotional manipulation. Governments are especially adept at using propaganda to induce fear among citizens to control their behavior. When people are frightened enough, they turn to governments for protection. Because we all fear the judgement of others to some degree, governments also use propaganda to manipulate our perception of the expectations of others. If propaganda creates the impression that all the other citizens expect us to be obedient, our default position will be obedience, and that can only be overcome with careful, rational analysis. Any time someone trying to control us can fill our heads with emotions, they can keep us from thinking clearly and lead us to believe in whatever bad ideas advance their agenda.
Whether negative emotions come from governments, individuals, or circumstance, allowing them to dominate our thinking is emotional slavery that leads to voluntary submission. When someone tries to frighten us, we cannot always control how we react, but we can choose to stay in a state of emotional reaction, or center ourselves and rationally analyze the situation. When we choose to remain in an emotional state that is chosen for us, we are voluntarily submitting to control. By claiming control of our outlook, we can make ourselves impervious to emotional manipulation from individuals and governments. Imagine how much better the world would be if no one succumbed to government fear! Without fear, the racket wouldn’t be possible. Governments couldn’t convince us to support wars, or the policies of the police state, or the idea of government itself. Patterns of manipulation are passed from generation to generation, but with increased consciousness of this broader problem through therapy, mental health awareness, better communication habits, and better practice of meditation, these habits are slowly being unlearned.
There is nothing more important to living well than a fully-functional mind as part of a healthy body. We all value our health, and yet we trust governments to tell us which food, drugs, and chemicals are safe. They only care about our health so long as it serves their interests. Besides the desire to keep citizens docile and obedient, when it comes to the health industry, governments increase their power by getting citizens to trust them, then selling that trust to the highest bidders in the food, pharmaceutical, and medical industries. Government approval is not good enough if you care about your health. If we are to be free, we must be healthy. If we are to be healthy, we must stop trusting governments.
Except for those who are completely food-independent (by gathering, growing, raising, and/or hunting all of their own food) we rely on many indirect information sources to determine if the food we consume is safe. We seek the approval of experts and authorities to save us from having to do a detailed analysis of everything we eat. There’s nothing wrong with that if we know who to trust. Many private organizations test food for pollution and bacteria and are critical to ensuring food safety all over the world. In many places, governments have completely taken over food safety services. This often results in bribes, lower standards, poor oversight, and opportunities for unscrupulous people to take advantage of people who will eat whatever governments say is safe.
Abuse of food safety authority often means that foods which are unsafe are approved because of bribes, while healthy food producers are shut down or harassed by regulators. Natural, decentralized, or organic food sources are made illegal, and producers who can’t or won’t buy off politicians get shut down. Some extreme interventions have obvious disastrous effects, but the less obvious and more widespread effects can be worse. When foods are subsidized, the market is distorted and industrialized crops become much cheaper, crowding healthy foods out of the market. The detrimental effect on the health of poor people, who have no choice but to eat the subsidized food, is immeasurable.
A relatively new intrusion in the food industry is the regulation (or more importantly, protection from liability) related to genetically-modified food production. Genetically-modified organisms (GMOs) have great potential. We can now alter the genetic properties of so many living things to better meet our needs. However, this technology comes with many dangers like making food less safe, polluting non-GMO crops, and throwing ecosystems out of balance. Because this technology is being pursued by massive corporations already adept at bending governments to their purposes, we suffer the consequences of the unsafe side effects of this technology without the chance to hold producers liable. Conscious consumerism can address these problems, but as long as we trust governments to decide what is safe, we don’t stand a chance against dishonest producers.
When governments are used to control pharmaceuticals, many life-saving drugs are kept away from people until their manufacturers can navigate the approval process. Many unsafe drugs are approved because the regulators have been bought off. Due to subsidization of the pharmaceutical industry, patients are encouraged to turn to pills when much more effective, but less profitable cures are available. Doctors who are protected from accountability and paid to push prescriptions will sacrifice the health of their patients for profit. In some cases, doctors can be made liable for not providing specific treatments. Vaccines have a role to play, but because of their mass appeal, they are often required, subsidized, or pushed by governments, and “public health” is compromised to serve government sponsors. While modern medicine has its virtues and can accomplish things natural remedies never could, the balance between natural remedies and modern medicine is skewed toward corporate interests by trusting governments to oversee the health care industry.
The modern, government-controlled lifestyle makes people unhappy in many ways. When unhappiness is uncontrollable, it is known as depression, and it affects millions of people all over the world. But unlike many diseases, depression is not an organic phenomenon, and aside from the obvious ways that governments make us unhappy, there are some specific policies that promote depression. Many government-approved ingredients in processed foods, pollution deemed acceptable by governments, and drugs judged safe by governments cause depression. Governments also promote depression-inducing tax slave lifestyles with limited access to nature. By choosing a different lifestyle, we can avoid these risk factors.
The choice is clear: trust the government and sacrifice your health for corporate profits, or think for yourself and enjoy a healthy life. While governments limit our choices and make healthy living more difficult and more expensive, this is one area where we still have many choices. We can grow our own food, be more conscious consumers, exercise properly, eat right, seek natural remedies, and collect our own water! We can opt out of the unhealthy lifestyles promoted to keep us enslaved! Choosing to be unhealthy and susceptible to chronic diseases makes you more dependent on modern medicine. In the long run, investing in your health pays off by helping avert chronic disease. If you can’t be healthy, you can’t be free.
Because governments exist to serve the needs of their sponsors, they often herd people into tax slave jobs that make them miserable. This is achieved through “education” and propaganda, but also by more direct means like taxation, incentives, and impeding creation of small businesses. Governments also employ numerous people directly because it gives them more control and makes people even more dependent. More people employed by governments means fewer people who will want to challenge government power. Government employees are often well taken care of, but they are also responsible for all the immorality attributed to government.
If you work for a government, you might be doing very good work, but it is important to acknowledge that the money you are paid comes from some form of theft. Governments often take over legitimate social functions, like public safety and charity. Even people who provide value as government workers are, at best, contributing to dependence. At worst, they are committing horribly immoral acts as enforcers who point guns at peaceful people, or carry out other acts of coercion. Most government employees are simply feeding off the taxpayer and providing little value to society. If you work for a government, you might have been promised great pensions and benefits. All such promises from government are promises to steal from future taxpayers. Government pensions are not as dependable in the long run as they would have you believe, especially now, as so many governments are being replaced in revolutions or defaulting on their debts.
Many people who don’t work for government do so indirectly, and not just as taxpayers. If you work for a corporation that contracts with government, you might be having a worse effect than someone working for it directly! Many people in this position understand exactly what they are doing. They are working against the cause of freedom and sacrificing their morality for a paycheck. This may come with perks, but you can’t buy happiness, and without living virtuously, it is much more difficult to be happy.
In most countries it is difficult, but not impossible, to make an honest living without sacrificing a portion of the fruits of your labor as taxes. We should all strive to minimize the amount we pay in taxes in order to defund government violence. If we want to minimize our contribution to evil, we must consider how we can change our lifestyle or sources of income. Because governments cannot steal from what they cannot see, they demonize people who work “off the record” or “under the table.” However, this course is far more noble and moral than working in a way that guarantees you will be a sponsor of government violence.
Sometimes, working off the record gives you much more flexibility. You may find this flexibility is worth earning less, but it often leads to earning more, as you can be far more creative. Creatively directing resources is the heart of entrepreneurship. Governments work very hard to beat this creativity out of citizens to keep us working as tax slaves, but it is easy to rekindle and very rewarding. Governments stifle entrepreneurship with regulatory barriers to small businesses, but a true entrepreneur is not discouraged by challenges.
Governments and banks encourage tax slaves to take on debt as a way to make them dependent on their jobs. Many people fall into this trap by living beyond their means. Sometimes high earners are trapped by their salaries when they use them to take out loans for big homes and expensive cars. Debt makes you a slave and we should all avoid putting on any more chains than necessary. Sometimes, earning less money, or just living within your means, provides more flexibility and freedom.
The most important thing to consider when choosing how to apply ourselves is whether or not the work is consistent with our values. Many of us sacrifice doing what we love for a steady job, or one that meets the expectations of others. Do not succumb to such emotional servitude. If you can’t find a way to sufficiently support yourself or your family by doing what you love, at least do something you can be proud of. When we sacrifice our values for immediate material gain, we suffer in the long run. Assert your freedom by applying yourself to what you love.
If we don't know how to be happy, what's the point of being free? What good is it to live in a free society, in a free country, or a free world, if we are so emotionally crippled that we are incapable of enjoying it? Why would we struggle to escape the oppression of police, parliaments, and presidents, if only to remain enslaved to fear and insecurity? Many of us would assume freedom should lead to happiness, but that does not correctly describe the relationship. The way most of us understand freedom and happiness is backwards. Happiness is not the result of freedom. Happiness causes freedom!
Do we need freedom to be happy? Most certainly not! Happiness is not pursued, captured, beaten over the head with a club, and hauled home to be enjoyed for ever and ever! It is often pointed out that money can't buy happiness. Money can "buy" happiness only to the point at which money can no longer buy independence, but even that independence is based on an illusion of external conditions. The most successful people, by any measure, are as prone to misery and depression as anyone. Looking at the modern world and antidepressant consumption, we might conclude that wealth causes depression! Even a brief examination of the human condition reveals that happiness is not a pursuit, as much as a choice.
True mental freedom is empowerment to choose your state of mind. If the only happiness you ever know is dependent on external factors, you will remain a slave to circumstance and never be truly happy. You can only swing between happiness and fear, knowing deep down that if conditions beyond your control change, you won't be happy. What a sad state of emotional servitude and vulnerability! A crude animal in such a primitive state is dangerously prone to manipulation. While you will never control the challenges that life presents you, and you may never master your animalistic reactions, your mood and your frame of mind are YOUR CHOICE! This is the unique gift of human consciousness. This is the great beauty of human nature. This is the foundation of our capacity for love and connectedness . . . and thus freedom!
Being happy is as simple as changing your mind! Of course, this speaks to a range of mental states we can choose. With true mental freedom, we can choose to be determined, thoughtful, compassionate, patient, loving – but beneath all that, why would we ever choose to be any less than perfectly happy? While it really is that simple and it really is that easy, it is a discipline of happiness.
Emotions serve an essential role for survival. Fear and the "fight or flight" response have saved countless lives, but such hardwired responses often take over our evolved brains and keep us from fully using them. Rational fears become anxiety and insecurity. Disappointment becomes depression. Hostility becomes anger and hatred. The discipline of happiness is separating these reactions from how we deliberately choose to live our lives. It is the practice of living well. This empowerment liberates us (as individuals and as a species) from all past misdeeds of our primitive nature. Living well is not just the best revenge, it is the only revenge worth having! Happiness is the ultimate measure of success. But if you choose to dwell in fear, disappointment and hostility, and choose to be unhappy . . . then you’ll be unhappy.
We are programmed to fear death, but wouldn't you rather face it rationally? Calmly? Happily? Fear not only makes us vulnerable to manipulation by those who would oppress us, it also tempts us to become oppressors. The tyranny of democracy encourages the broadest participation in fear-based oppression. Every politician's pitch is based on some version of, "If you give me power over you, I can make you happy and take away your fear." In the act of voting, we are not choosing leaders for ourselves, we are trying to impose our choice of leaders (and fears) on others.
Instead, we should seek to be the alphas of our own lives. Someone who is truly emotionally free has no need for imposed external authority. The people who are the driving force behind statism are not happy, and truly happy people are not very political. The freedom movement is not a political movement. It is an anti-political movement! A truly happy person can appeal to the better nature of fellow human beings, can meet them with peace and persuasion and displace coercion with voluntary relationships and self-government based on self-ownership.
A person who knows their own capacity as a free, beautiful, independent person will never say, "But what will people think of me?" A person who can be happy in any situation will never say, "But what if I lose my job?" A person who knows self-discipline will never say, "But what if the sacrifice is too great?" The compassion of a truly happy person will say, "How could I possibly not share my joy and let some poor victimizer continue in the misery of oppressing others?" Only a mental slave will hate their oppressors. A free mind will pity them, and seek to share joy with those who are deficient in love. We should not "fight" oppression, or “struggle" for liberation, but rather empower those who have succumbed to mental slavery.
The greatest weapon against tyranny is a mind that refuses to submit to manipulation. If we want to be warriors for truth, soldiers for justice, and champions of freedom, we must first attain the discipline of happiness and a great capacity for living in love. Be the master of your own mind. Choose your demeanor at all times. Never meet a fellow person with force or coercion. Strive to live by reason. Smile because you're alive. Remember, HAPPINESS is the ultimate act of defiance.