Let us make this our own personal imperative in life:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To obey ourselves, our own inclinations, to follow our own instincts, and when our gut says something is bad for us \u00e2\u20ac\u201d to listen to our gut!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
To become more self-focused. To obey our own selfish needs and desires (not to see \u00e2\u20ac\u0153selfishness\u00e2\u20ac\u009d as a vice, but our ultimate creative virtue!)<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nLead or follow?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s leaders and there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s followers. But I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d rather be a dick than a follower.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d – Kanye West<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
Were you a good student in school, or a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153bad\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and disobedient student?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It seems that the primary task of schooling, education, and religious classrooms is to:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
- Teach us to obey<\/li>
- Teach us to extinguish our inner child \u00e2\u20ac\u201d in order to become \u00e2\u20ac\u0153adults\u00e2\u20ac\u009d who learn to cower and obey authority, against our own desires and wishes.<\/li>
- To teach us to become fearful of our teachers and authority. To distrust our own instincts and inner-guide. To learn that our own inner impulses are evil, illegitimate, and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153bad\u00e2\u20ac\u009d.<\/li>
- To teach us to become \u00e2\u20ac\u0153focused\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and productive cogs in the machine of society.<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n
In essence \u00e2\u20ac\u201d schools, religions, and traditional education teaches us to become more generic, more obedient, more able to withstand boredom for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153virtuous\u00e2\u20ac\u009d ends, and for us to prefer the collective over our individual selves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What is the problem here?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Do we want a future society of only followers who listen to algorithms which are programmed by nerds who only trust \u00e2\u20ac\u0153metrics\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (online clicking decisions by the uneducated masses)? Or do we want a noble, bold, and audacious future of epic individuals?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Of course there will always be a need for both leaders AND followers. But if you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re reading this and you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re one of the rare, brave, and few \u00e2\u20ac\u201d better for you to strive to become a leader (instead of follower). It takes no remarkable skill to obey orders and to follow trends and what is popular and acceptable. It is far more difficult, challenging, and even dangerous to embark on your own path \u00e2\u20ac\u201d and to live contrary to the desires and beliefs of society. To act differently, to think differently, and to act\/create differently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153You was who you was before you came here.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d – JAY Z<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
Don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t try to become anyone else besides yourself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It seems the best role model you should have is yourself at age 5, 6, 7, 8 or even 12, 13, 14, 15 \u00e2\u20ac\u201d before you were corrupted by higher education and society at large.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For myself this was me at a younger age:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
- Didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t really care for money<\/li>
- Loved to create artwork, to be social, to explore.<\/li>
- Love of technology<\/li>
- Interest in travel, philosophy, photography, music, dance, physical fitness.<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n
Free spirit<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
My personal goal is for myself to become more free spirited, more foolish, more brazen, and more bold everyday. I see this as my own personal apotheosis and becoming stronger and more powerful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Everyday, to censor myself less. To speak my mind more brazenly, even though my words or actions may offend others. To be seen more as \u00e2\u20ac\u0153without social sense\u00e2\u20ac\u009d. To lose the ability to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153read the air\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (from a social sense).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It seems to live the best life is to live life with the least amount of fetters, chains, or things which impede your personal movement, thinking, acting, or creating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
How high can you fly? Let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s devote our lives to this bold task, and see how strong our wings are!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
BE BOLD. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
ERIC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Let us make this our own personal imperative in life: To obey ourselves, our own inclinations, to follow our own instincts, and when our gut says something is bad for us \u00e2\u20ac\u201d to listen \u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":148842,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_ek_photo_artist_note":"","_ek_photo_thesis":"","_ek_photo_camera":"","_ek_photo_place":"","_ek_photo_human_moment":"","_ek_photo_sequence":"","_ek_photo_question":"","_ek_photo_canonical_claim":"","_ek_photo_ai_summary":"","_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-148840","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-posts"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/136DF6BF-173A-4128-8A7C-B4669077A59F.jpeg?fit=1242%2C1863&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148840","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=148840"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148840\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":148843,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148840\/revisions\/148843"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/148842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=148840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=148840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=148840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}