"People’s minds get complacent, it seems like eighty percent of the people are fucking asleep”

30/4/10

So I figured it might be fun for me to write down some of the stuff I’ve been doing in terms of trying to make a difference. So here is my first attempt at writing said things down.

“People’s minds get complacent, it seems like eighty percent of the people are fucking asleep”

The opening sound bite to Sonic Boom Six’s album “A Rough Guide To Genre Terrorism” was something I wanted to hear before I went out simply to remind me that empathy is a fucking disease and by being afraid to stand up and at least try to do something I’d already of compromised my true self.

As I sat on the bus slowly approaching where I was going to be for the next couple of hours I found myself drifting into a strange state where I was very focused, focusing intently on people, how they looked, acted, behaved and how I’d seen it a thousand times before. Everyone extremely similar; tired, withdrawn, pissed off, all of them inside their own little bubble and refusing to step outside it, myself included. I wanted so badly to sit up next to someone and say “hey what’s up, you ever heard of Hollie Greig? Or that our troops are farming opium? Ever given 9/11 a second thought? Ever thought things could be MUCH FUCKING BETTER?” But I didn’t, I sat quietly. How hypocritical of me.

I’m too poor to hit a place of any real significance, so I just hit the local shopping haven, in this case Croydon town centre. So I’m walking towards where I intend to perform/shout/ agitate/project ideas (the last one is what I like to think I’m doing) and what more perfect an omen could befall me but two Metropolitan Police officers standing right in front of me. Seems like the agents had got to the people before me; they proceeded to talk to passers - by for a quarter of an hour. Quietly I sit down and wait. The agents disappear into a nearby temple of materialism and I proceed.

I pull the megaphone out my bag, flick the volume up high and proceed as such “Ladies and Gentlemen, a message from the official electoral commission; thank you very much for voting in the recent election, it definitely made a difference, thank you for blinding supporting the democracy that definitely exists in this country.” Across the next 2 hours I continued, trying to express ideas about politics, philosophy, spirituality and anything I feel is worth thinking about. To many people just passing by I was probably the crazy guy with a megaphone, some lunatic being loud or that twat who was giving out free hugs the other week.

For the few who came up and asked questions, the few who said keep it up, the few who said “I dig your vibe man” the endeavour was certainly worth it.

(This is the bit where I get all pretentious and up my own ass about what happened so feel free to stop reading at this point.)

Something I think about frequently is “reality” and what is and isn’t real. How much of what I experience actually happens and how much is a result of me thinking a certain thing. Here is an interpretation of reality from my strange little head, which is probably simple and not so profound, but one that I find rings true none the less.

The way I see it there are two realities. One is the true reality; the other is the collective reality. The true reality is you, in your rawest, purest most honest form. The person who talks to them self, the person who says what they think, the person who is separated from society and as such happily believes what they want and explores the ideas that interest them. This is the true you. This is who you really are and ultimately you’re most comfortable when you can be this.

The collective reality is what we enter every time we enter a collective social situation. The collective reality could come in the form of school or work or just being in a public location. The collective reality is where laws and social boundaries come into effect, when we step into it general protocol is for us to abide by these laws and social boundaries. However by doing this we end up compromising our own reality, the true reality of who we are. Slowly as the collective reality dominates where we spend the majority of our conscious time it breaks down and erodes away our true reality. Leaving us, to quote Bill Hicks, “a mere shell of our former shadow”. We become another number on a screen, another sheep in the herd, an empty vessel ready to be made complete with material wealth.

There is a very significant difference between the two realities. The true reality, is controlled entirely by your mind, the collective reality is controlled only slightly by your mind. With this being the case we can change our true reality just by thinking it. Think change and change occurs. This is the power of our mind. The collective reality however cannot simply be changed by thinking it. The structure of the collective reality is complex; it consists of deep rooted cultural and psychological divisions and practises that have been put into us since birth. We have been conditioned to conform. We take what our institutions tell us as truth to be truth, at least to a certain age and this provides sufficient boundaries and separation within the collective reality to keep people apart and to slowly push away their true reality.

To create change in the collective reality requires two things, a strong sense of your true reality. What you think, regardless of what anyone else thinks, for you in that moment is correct. The second thing the collective reality requires for change is physical action. To change the collective reality we must physically go into it and exert out true reality outward from ourselves. A small light in expansive darkness, which expresses simply an idea, an idea of your true self, if enough lights go on we start to see more and more of what individual’s think is true and by exploring this light we can expand and evolve our own ideas and perceptions.

Going out and speaking on a megaphone is my meditation. A stupid and simple act. It is an exercise in truth to myself, I leave my comfort zone, I leave my computer screen or my little group of friends where my true self comes out and I try to breach the collective reality. And by doing this, my true self, my true reality becomes stronger and stronger as I slowly become governed only by my true reality even when the incredible force of the collective reality is bearing down on me. The beauty of this simple act is that you can physically see the reality changing around you, you see people get angry, you see people smile, you see people laugh, you have people ask you questions and in the brief time you project your true reality in the collective reality you change the collective for all who walk by. Whether or not they’ll remember the change is another matter but the point is no matter how strong the collective reality may seem, it can be changed by one individual.

In love.

- Tom -