Preface...
'Are we really free'? I feel that we bind ourselves over the time in various constructs. Imaginary boundaries which regulates our behaviour and within which we live our lives, we are for that matter slaves of our own beliefs. Constructs that are wedged into our mind from the very childhood by our parents and institutions like schools and society at large. These boundaries perhaps are needed as it facilitates men to coexist together and limits conflict to a large extent. Despite the obvious merits it however remains fact that we as men are not really free. We are indeed enslaved and the society starts this process of enslavement from the very time we are born.
This poem is an attempt to describe how a man is born free but is slowly chained by the society. How biases prejudices and fears are wedged into the naïve human mind, indoctrination that eventually leads to our enslavement. It’s a kind of hypnotic bondage we are bound into; we are made to believe a lot of things with no logical or rational base for it.
When I talk of fellow men it includes my parents my teachers and my friends all those who are part of this process of enslavement. It is for sure not a conscious act of subversion form them, but they are so much a slave of the system and the society that they go about doing this act of taming rather unconsciously. Be it religious indoctrination or any other belief that is passed on to the next generation, is an act of crime…felony on fellow human.
We must train our kids in reason train them to judge for themselves. Knowledge must be passed on and not blind beliefs. Let men be free to judge for themselves what is right and wrong. Yes, to reach such an elevated state of consciousness parents need to train their kids. They are not to be handed over in a platter some age old set of right and wrongs. They must be instead given the right rationales and they must be led to reason it out.
I believe that all rational men will end up having almost the same set of virtues and these virtues will definitely be staunch and uncorrupted. They will for sure help men work together and grow together. All relations will be symbiotic rather than parasitic. All men shall produce their worth and share rather than sacrifice themselves on the name of divine goodness and altruism. In true sense men will be free and so shall be the society that sprouts out of them.
The poem has a reflection of Ayn Rand and Nietzsche’s philosophy. I quote -
“It is not in the nature of man--nor of any living entity--to start out by giving up, by spitting in one’s own face and damning existence; that requires a process of corruption whose rapidity differs from man to man. Some give up at the first touch of pressure; some sell out; some run down by imperceptible degrees and lose their fire, never knowing when or how they lost it. Then all of these vanish in the vast swamp of their elders who tell them persistently that maturity consists of abandoning one’s mind; security, of abandoning one’s values; practicality, of losing self-esteem. Yet a few hold on and move on, knowing that that fire is not to be betrayed, learning how to give it shape, purpose and reality. But whatever their future, at the dawn of their lives, men seek a noble vision of man’s nature and of life’s potential.”- Ayn Rand
"It is not the works, but the belief which is here decisive and determines the order of rank--to employ once more an old religious formula with a new and deeper meaning,--it is some fundamental certainty which a noble soul has about itself, something which is not to be sought, is not to be found, and perhaps, also, is not to be lost.--The noble soul has reverence for itself.--" Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil.
This poem is an attempt to describe how a man is born free but is slowly chained by the society. How biases prejudices and fears are wedged into the naïve human mind, indoctrination that eventually leads to our enslavement. It’s a kind of hypnotic bondage we are bound into; we are made to believe a lot of things with no logical or rational base for it.
When I talk of fellow men it includes my parents my teachers and my friends all those who are part of this process of enslavement. It is for sure not a conscious act of subversion form them, but they are so much a slave of the system and the society that they go about doing this act of taming rather unconsciously. Be it religious indoctrination or any other belief that is passed on to the next generation, is an act of crime…felony on fellow human.
We must train our kids in reason train them to judge for themselves. Knowledge must be passed on and not blind beliefs. Let men be free to judge for themselves what is right and wrong. Yes, to reach such an elevated state of consciousness parents need to train their kids. They are not to be handed over in a platter some age old set of right and wrongs. They must be instead given the right rationales and they must be led to reason it out.
I believe that all rational men will end up having almost the same set of virtues and these virtues will definitely be staunch and uncorrupted. They will for sure help men work together and grow together. All relations will be symbiotic rather than parasitic. All men shall produce their worth and share rather than sacrifice themselves on the name of divine goodness and altruism. In true sense men will be free and so shall be the society that sprouts out of them.
The poem has a reflection of Ayn Rand and Nietzsche’s philosophy. I quote -
“It is not in the nature of man--nor of any living entity--to start out by giving up, by spitting in one’s own face and damning existence; that requires a process of corruption whose rapidity differs from man to man. Some give up at the first touch of pressure; some sell out; some run down by imperceptible degrees and lose their fire, never knowing when or how they lost it. Then all of these vanish in the vast swamp of their elders who tell them persistently that maturity consists of abandoning one’s mind; security, of abandoning one’s values; practicality, of losing self-esteem. Yet a few hold on and move on, knowing that that fire is not to be betrayed, learning how to give it shape, purpose and reality. But whatever their future, at the dawn of their lives, men seek a noble vision of man’s nature and of life’s potential.”- Ayn Rand
"It is not the works, but the belief which is here decisive and determines the order of rank--to employ once more an old religious formula with a new and deeper meaning,--it is some fundamental certainty which a noble soul has about itself, something which is not to be sought, is not to be found, and perhaps, also, is not to be lost.--The noble soul has reverence for itself.--" Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil.
Am I free…this question haunts me
Can see no wall no chain that binds
Yet from deep within my spirit plea
Body is free but mind confined
Like a bird that can fly yet bound to flock the same path
For freedom is not in wings but flight
To follow the course of ones own delight
Not subjugated or proscribed in fear of divine or worldly wrath
Born free I was to humanity
Tied with nothing more than an umbilical cord
My naïve conscious unblemished, free of all discords
Knew nothing of worldly vanity and its insipid insanity
Needs alas, my dependence on fellow men got me enslaved
Allow captivate my conscious before it grew strong enough to construe
Differentiate right and wrong and judge what is true
Customs and traditions, goodness and ill into my conscious staved
In malice my fellow men or in an unconscious subversion
Mitigated my mind to a mellowed subsistence
My essence slowly driven into despondence
Pushed me to the servitude of hell in the name of some supreme salvation
And today I see myself crucified on the so called altar of humanity
Pinnacle of goodness it is called, yet by what standard I don’t know
If man is not an end in himself and his virtues is not what humanity endow
What goodness, what virtue it is in damning self and revering some hypothetical divinity
What virtue it is in sacrificing oneself for fellow men
To let parasites feed on your flesh, your blood and more so on your sweat
To let go on the name of some greater good all that you deeply covet
To be a salve carrying the burden of humanity, and yet be mocked as ‘free men’
Can see no wall no chain that binds
Yet from deep within my spirit plea
Body is free but mind confined
Like a bird that can fly yet bound to flock the same path
For freedom is not in wings but flight
To follow the course of ones own delight
Not subjugated or proscribed in fear of divine or worldly wrath
Born free I was to humanity
Tied with nothing more than an umbilical cord
My naïve conscious unblemished, free of all discords
Knew nothing of worldly vanity and its insipid insanity
Needs alas, my dependence on fellow men got me enslaved
Allow captivate my conscious before it grew strong enough to construe
Differentiate right and wrong and judge what is true
Customs and traditions, goodness and ill into my conscious staved
In malice my fellow men or in an unconscious subversion
Mitigated my mind to a mellowed subsistence
My essence slowly driven into despondence
Pushed me to the servitude of hell in the name of some supreme salvation
And today I see myself crucified on the so called altar of humanity
Pinnacle of goodness it is called, yet by what standard I don’t know
If man is not an end in himself and his virtues is not what humanity endow
What goodness, what virtue it is in damning self and revering some hypothetical divinity
What virtue it is in sacrificing oneself for fellow men
To let parasites feed on your flesh, your blood and more so on your sweat
To let go on the name of some greater good all that you deeply covet
To be a salve carrying the burden of humanity, and yet be mocked as ‘free men’
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