Surmounting barriers to freedom (2)

Here’s part two of El Ray’s “Surmounting Barriers to Freedom,” from the August 1969 issue of Innovator.

Think of yourself as a pioneer as you achieve freedom; you are. Synthesizing a new way of life is what any pioneer does. (Rarely does anyone truly settle new land; European migrants to America, for example, developed new lifestyles in an already-inhabited land.) As a pioneer, you must learn new approaches and skills — sometimes you must invent them. If you prefer the routine, self-liberation is not for you.

Honestly recognize your servile traits and treat these as bad habits to be broken. Don’t alibi. As Dr. George Boardman has said: “The most emphatic problem facing people who are trying to find the road to freedom, today, involves habits created by too many years of donothingness. Except for a few persons who have been in business for themselves, most of the people dissatisfied with the status quo have spent most of their time taking orders. The remarkable hesitancy displayed is only mildly disguised by jumping up and down, rather wildly, in one place, proclaiming, waving arms, arguing and generally wasting time.” For overcoming servilism, different techniques work for different individuals: writing personal “scenarios,” long meditations, solitary wilderness trips, or psychedelics may help.

Be confident, don’t overestimate difficulties. Many stories of wilderness and ocean, written for the titillation of armchair adventurers, exaggerate the dangers. In reality, almost any liberated lifestyle is safer than existence within the Grave Society. Of course, ignorance or carelessness can be fatal in the wilderness, but no more so than on a freeway. The biggest hazard for most people is not storms, wild animals, nor even the predators of the State, but, as mentioned before, their psychological dependence on others — their inability to direct their own lives — to motivate and entertain themselves.

To be continued.