freedom

Bored

There is something about a sunrise. Early in the morning. It must be the light, but it seems cleansing and rejuvenating. Especially on a day free from plans. Nothing is needed. No desires and no one desires anything of you. The light, the freedom from and the freedom to. The hours ahead drip calming your head consciously.

These mornings fresh from sleep, a little drowsy, coffee in hand, before the world wakes up are the church where god is found. These minutes are void of those pesky minutia and memorandums that we so often live our lives by . Days like this are silent and still and I wait for the second coming: boredom.

But this boredom is nothing to scoff at. It is needed. It is the sky in which my mind soars. It is the sun which doesn’t burn us as we fly ever closer. It is space in which dreams are born and ideas are molded. Boredom is the topsoil that we plant our hopes in. For without boredom what are we but the mechanization of a narcissist?

Be bored and see what dreams come.

Looking Up

It is within the annals of history that we can learn the underlying issues of the day. The unforgivable sin of unwarranted opinions held true and unquestioned; the absolutism of religious fear, arrogance and stupidity. Human beings have beliefs about their world, yes, but to force upon the world those beliefs is a human failure, a frailty of mind.

To argue against Truth is to cut off the very branch we sit upon. To insist upon respect unearned is to disrespect any act, any thought worthy of being respectful. To rely upon rhetoric over rationality is to be a liar and a thief, and to hide behind the guise of honesty for the sake of profit is to undermine the civility of any society.

There are freedoms and there are limitations, and these are not set in stone but are not easily moved once set by the forces of nature. The only way, the only viable path is to recognize the failures and mistakes that we and our forefathers have made. We humans are proud and arrogant, but we are also curious if only we would allow ourselves that magical perspective of wonder and surprise.

As Plato showed us, we are shackled in a cave and watch as prancing shadows amuse us, numbing us to our slavery, the ignorance and easiness that those that would enslave us rely upon for their own power, being blind as they are and lacking any foresight. The sun is shining bright if we only look up once in a while.

Finding Your Way

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“Finding myself” is one of those phrases that deserves the despite that it often gets. Like many other words and phrases it has become a watered-down excuse in many cases. However, I think that there is something to it. We do find ourselves wondering about who we are, and especially why we are. These are those thoughts that come to us when we wake up suddenly in the middle of the night, the world outside of us silent, creating room in our heads to think. Perhaps it is this silence and space that reminds us that we have lost our way, have never found it, or simply changed without realizing it.

Of course, to lose your way, you must first know which way you are going. This, I think, is where the despite for this otherwise beautiful thought comes from. Many of us who are out to “find ourselves” have never found anything much less our “self”. We have no way to get back to if we have no way to find. This is not as obtuse as it may first seem. Consider where our societies have come to today. We are far-removed from the agrarian lifestyles that we depend upon, the nature that we are a part of, and the relationships we depend upon for our well-being. It is an unfortunate truth that many of us have never experienced any of these lost albeit necessary components to life.

If we have lost our way, then we do not need to necessarily find it again if it was not the path that we wanted in the first place. Good trips are like this: being lost is part of the fun; not having a plan makes the trip interesting and often leads us to the very thing we were not looking for, but needed, in the first place. When I became more interested and involved in agrarianism, it was surprising to me just how revolutionary (in the political sense) that food is. To “opt out” of the system in any way seems to create ripples that are not welcome. I think this is because many people are on a path that they have not chosen. Perhaps losing their way is precisely what they need?

If there is anything that we all need it is to realize that change is the only consistent in life. We all change; whether or not we realize this is up to us. I had a friend that told me that after twenty-six years of marriage he realized that he did not know who his wife was: he had changed without realizing it. They were soon divorced. If there is a purpose to getting older, perhaps that purpose ought to be that we make sure we realize how we change; that we change is not in question.

So, in the end finding your way through life is like so many of the important things in life that get lost in the shuffle: love, family, time, philosophy, fun, and happiness. It is these things that we will have left in our lives if we grow old. It is my hope that we can all find our way long before we realize we can do nothing about the path we are on. Realize change while we can still do something about it, and we will find that life is truly worth living. Finding your way, we must remember, does not necessarily imply that there is path that we ought to be on. It simply means that there is a possible path for us all.

The Freedom of Bread

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I bake bread most every weekend.  The smell of fresh baked bread in the house is one of those pleasures that can only truly be experienced  if you’ve had your own hands in the dough, rolling it out, kneading it, feeling its warmth.  I don’t use a bread machine, but a big mixer and my own hands.  I use my own vegetables (squash mostly) in the dough as well as the spent grain from the beer I brew.  I do this for many reasons, but mostly the bread feeds me, but also and perhaps most importantly, my curiosity.

Baking bread is one of the human endeavors that separate us from other animals and bread is one of those few cooking endeavors that brings to life rather than takes life from the things that we cook (to paraphrase Michael Pollan [Cooked]). I’m not quite sure why, but bread-making is not only useful, educational and fun, but it is also as addicting as it is necessary.  That first mouthful of warm, wheaty bread is a luxury; the taste is exquisite.  But, it is not in the eating of the bread that the imagination takes flight, but rather in the making of the bread that mind finds solace.

There are hundreds if not thousands of recipes for bread that can be easily found, and I’ve tried a few, but the bread I bake is best when I simply poke my fingers in the dough before letting it rise the first time, adding flour or water as I see fit.  The best bread I bake is that bread that I scoop out of the bowl and watch the filaments of gluten and protein strands stretch and break.  Life from water, yeast and flour somehow gives life to mind, body and imagination.  This is, realize, all symbolic for something greater than bread.  I do bake bread, but I also garden, and am about to embark on beekeeping.  These all symbolize the same concept: freedom.

I am often reminded by many that I tell these things to that “it doesn’t pay”, and that “why do it when it is so easy to ‘just go buy it’.”  But to me, their words ring empty.  I answer, “Why just go buy it when you can just do it yourself?”  Their only answer seems to be that “It is easier.”  But, I ask, why is “easier” better?  Is it better bread?  Do you learn from it?  Are you freer?  For a while I couldn’t understand why it seemed that so many people became defensive when I talked about doing things rather than buying things, but then it dawned on me: baking bread, keeping bees, gardening, brewing beer; doing things symbolizes what we all believe that we have, but also reminds us that we often don’t actually have it and how difficult it is to achieve.

Baking bread comes at a cost.  Now that I bake bread, I want to make my own yeast strains, grow and thrash my own wheat; in short, become self-sufficient.  I have learned that while “easy” comes at a cost, so does freedom.  There are limits to what we can do, and there are limits to how free we can become.    Aristotle defines a virtuous life as one lived intellectually with intention.  This, he claimed, will lead the virtuous man to Happiness (Eudamonia), but in order to achieve this Happiness one must realize one’s limitations.  In other words, the road to freedom is paved with many un-risen loaves, but of course you can always compost them!