I'm up for the challenge
I've always been up for a challenge. From as far back as I can remember, I would rarely turn down the opportunity to prove myself and compete (to win). I loved games and was usually the last one to want to stop playing, and it was even more so if I wasn't any good or lost all the time. Losing didn't bother me as long as I competed to the best of my ability, knowing that there would be a chance I'd at least be able to win once. In life we all face challenges of varying degrees, they are each our own and cannot be compared to those of others as easily as some assume. I know it is assumptive to say that physical challenges have more limitations than do mental ones, so the focus here is to reflect on, and tackle the mental issues surrounding the idea of what is challenging.
I spent the morning and part of the early afternoon yesterday witnessing thousands of people challenging themselves. In fact, my role was to prepare them for the challenge ahead the best way that I could, lending to the theme of the event, Spartan Race. I've been hosting the Spartan Race here in South East Asia for about two years now and it really wasn’t until this weekend that I challenged myself to make my interactions as meaningful as possible. Aside from the Elite competitors, most of the participants were everyday people from a various walks of life. So I went back into my past and took a lesson that I had learned and applied and delivered it with sincerity. If you don't know Spartan Race, it's an outdoor course race filled with many different and challenging obstacles. My words of wisdom to each heat of racers (30 in total)
"Of all the obstacles you are going to face on the course today, the greatest of them all will be the one in your own mind. Yourself."
Emancipate yourself from mental slavery
These simple yet powerful words, sung by the legend Robert Nestor Marley, have been emboldened into my mind for the longest time. Before I even understood what they meant to me, I would sing along to Redemption Song, feeling its conviction and delivery as it touched my soul. Yet today, when most of us speak or hear about slavery it tends to take on a very Western paradigm of White slave-master and Black slave. This Ameri-centric take on slavery has made the discussion on a broader sense skewed into the idea of the oppression of Black people by the oppressive White people being the only relevant form. It is used to describe the result of the current situation in that part of the World and dominates every social and political crevice.
From an ethical perspective, with regard to the historical brutality of enforcing slavery, it is safe to say that around the world we have made great progress. It's important to note that slavery cannot be defined solely by one groups experience within a specific period of time as that would only allow for a relatively narrow scope in which to define it. Rather, I find it is important to understand its complex history in order to really grasp where we are today. Many forms of slavery have existed since as far back as historical records can allow (over 10,000 years) and some of them still do today. Now this is what Bob Marley was telling us in his lyrics and where it really struck a chord with me. So let's all take a step back for a minute, look at the history, see how it has brought us to where we are today and explore how we can overcome as much of it as we possibly can (almost no escape for most of us who are debt or wage slaves). See, true freedom is the tale of the hunter-gatherer, true freedom is eliminating the idea of ownership, true freedom is currently, and most disconcertingly, physically impossible. But.. None but ourselves can free our minds.
Don't worry, be happy
I was a bit disappointed that I wasn't able to stick to my daily delivery of writing this post. It didn't make me unhappy because I knew what I was doing with my time was well worth it, and that sometimes we have to accept that we can't do everything we want to do. I was a relatively disciplined youth, a son of a single mother who dominated the household in a way that shaped me as such. There's an unhealthy obsession with the concept of happiness that I now find troubling. Happiness seems forced and coerced upon those generally surviving in climates of oppression (yes, we're all relatively oppressed to varying degrees) in order to quell any potential uprising. We are made to feel bad about ourselves if we are not happy and continually pursue this almost unattainable albatross. I began to notice that the more complex a society (or environment) was, the more unhappiness festered and the more perverse the ideas of pursuing it became.
When I was in Indonesia in 1993 I spent time in a small village in Central Java for about 3 months. The village had no running water or electricity and could be deemed isolated (if that's possible on an island of over 100 million people at the time). What I witnessed and experienced changed my life forever. I saw some of the most genuine and happy people I'd ever seen in my life. There was one TV in the whole village, that ran on a car battery and very little external influence had arrived yet. The communal concept of Gotong Royong is where a community comes together and identifies something that needs to be done and as a collective, decides which of these things are most important and should be tackled first. While I was there, sitting in the village meeting and being a part of this, the people decided that a communal toilet and washing area should be built, along with a small housing project and roadwork. Of course they knew that a group of 8 Canadians and 8 other Indonesians were there to help, otherwise I don't think they would have embarked on as many projects. The reason I tell this story is because of the profound impact it had on my perception of happiness, which in the West tends to be put on material wealth and status. I saw people who had none of those things, who were happier that anyone I'd known in my life, who gave even when they had nothing, who smiled and enjoyed what they did have with immense authenticity.
So if anyone tells you, don't worry, be happy. You should be worried enough to seek out another perspective on the acceptance of unhappiness they are peddling!
Day Seven
The End