Is total freedom and happiness possible? - Well, maybe if there is a person (me) writing an article on Steemit about this very subject.
Where to start? - Let's try to start at the very beginning. Maybe we can agree that humans, animals and even plants react most strongly to fear and hunger on the negative scale and on reward and admiration on the positive scale. And of course, these basics can be expressed in millions of different sentiments or mind constructs that we were conditioned to since childhood. Depending on our parents, our teachers, our peers, the country we were born in, race, religion in etc., each one of us developed a different system of likes and dislikes both of which, of course, are not always agreeable to the people who want to govern and exploit us.
Bear in mind that I'm an observer now of the "two camps", I have no stake in the outcome anymore and I don't care about the outcome either.
Maybe we can also agree that throughout history the majority of humans were and still are more of the passive sort that just want to get on with their lives which, of course, makes them vulnerable to the people who want to aggressively oppress the passive population. And sure enough, those aggressive oppressors soon found and keep finding ways to divide us, to oppress us, to enslave us, to confuse us, to exploit us. Meanwhile they seem to be very skilled in what they are doing and sometimes it seems that there is no way out for us. Not so and I can prove it.
As long as we subscribe to this "divide and conquer" idea and people participate in it, I don't think we have a chance as a group. Only the individual who takes responsibility for his/her life is still mostly "allowed to escape" as long as we do it quietly. As long as you don't want to be the leader of a "new movement" that might undermine our oppressors. Those leaders of the new movements might have had honourable intentions, but they also liked to be "right", they liked admiration and money and applause which is, indeed, a nice reward for putting oneself on the line. And history is full of those leaders and they were murdered. Period.
Finally, the expression "taking the red pill" has reached main stream and now you see all those newly informed and misinformed self-righteous citizens around the world writing books and blogs, screaming: "Here! I know something that is the ultimate truth! It's so valuable! It will make your life better! Give me money for it!" But strangely enough, they all have their own truth and they want to flog their confusing facts and truths which only contribute again and again into the "divide and conquer" ideology of the oppressors. Why else do you think you are allowed to write all those books and websites and blogs about your truths??? None of it is the truth, it is only your opinion based on your rather limited research/hearsay. We have to UNITE, not let others divide and conquer us with confusing facts and confusing truths.
So now, take a step back with me and let's observe. What do we really need?
Government
People who don't want to take responsibility for their lives, yes, they need their elected government and if they go and vote for one or the other government, then they have to do what the government says. Can we reject living "under" a government? Absolutely. Every intelligent, self-respecting, peaceful anarchist does it. No problem.
Religion
As the observer who has no stake in the outcome, this religion business puzzled me since I was 14 years old. Why would anybody believe? I mean, believe in incoherent stories that really have no actual value for our life on earth. The 10 commandments as a moral cage for the timid? Every one of those commandments is broken every second around the globe, yet, there are people who believe in them. Believe. More or less those commandments appear in any religion, so I have to assume that it suits the oppressors that people at least "believe" in what religion tells them although those commandments like most laws are totally against human nature and people ignore them as best as they can.
Or maybe religion of any sort fills an empty corner in the human mind, some sort of spiritual deficit that needs filling with enlightenment, bliss, rules, exercises? Or maybe it's just the belief that we need an answer for what we don't understand?
And do I observe that the most hideous crimes are committed by religious people? I do observe that. Yes. And do I not observe that in my part of the world, our Christian neighbours are the most obnoxious, self-righteous narrow minded people who one can't have ANY conversation with even if one tried? Yes, I do observe this, too.
Would you understand where I'm coming from if I tell you, that I don't subscribe to any religion, don't need any religion and which is why maybe, just maybe I lived a very happy life without any major problems (problems that the so-called God sends to all those religious people as a "test", oh really?). What if I say that EVERYTHING that happened in my life was actually CAUSED by ME!
You see, I'm completely happy and at peace with myself in THIS life. It is a nice life with very few challenges and no ill health, no major emotional dramas or financial problems. It just seems to me that religion is the source of a lot of deep seated problems and since I don't need those, I don't need religion.
What about my life after death? - Well, I'll donate my healthy body to the soil and what ever else there is will go back and do exactly the same as it was doing in my pre-life, before I was born. No problem, no belief necessary.
Society - Money - Commerce
Yes, I was also born into a booming consumer society and into a media and advertising dominated existence. I can today only vaguely remember that around the age of 18 I realized the stupidity of it all and rejected it. Of course, I had some short spells of watching television, listening to radio, reading newspapers and magazines, even a few mind-numbing novels but each and every time I had this "empty" feeling in my stomach. I hadn't learned anything. It wasn't satisfying. It was all negative. Letting go of it all - no problem.
There was a time at the height of my career when I did have a lot of money to spend and I did. Again, it was not satisfying. It felt empty and stupid to buy all those things. Things. And when I said good-bye to this consumer society, I felt so happy. Happy and free! There was a sort of pressure, I do remember. The "Jones's", the things advertising said we must have. Gone.
And I also remember: Money is neither good nor bad. It is only a means of exchange. So if the new method of exchange is Bitcoin or other crypto currencies and if that has a lot of advantages over fiat currency or gold, fine! Let's use it! There is no need to get sentimental over it either!
But don't be fooled! Observe! I had traded my new found freedom for loneliness. Loneliness is a terrible thing, especially when you are an outgoing, happy go lucky person who finds it easy to make friends and is happy to be the center of any party. That's me. But now I was feeling lonely! Because I could not talk to anybody about my new found freedom, about how I got there. Oh, how much I wanted to share my freedom and happiness. But I was ridiculed. Nobody wanted to listen, nobody cared.
Except one person. And he is my husband now. The quiet man, the deep and deliberate thinker. We are so different, but it seems for the last 22 years, we could share our thoughts and we are not lonely anymore. We could agree to live OUR life the way WE want it and good-bye to everybody and everything that wants to stand in our way, wants to engulf us, what ever ...
Health
Health is wealth. Observe: Are sick people wealthy? Not after spending their savings for hospital treatment. Are they healthy after the hospital treatment? - No. Are doctors and health care professionals happy? Maybe, I just haven't met any yet.
Keep observing: Does the current medical system produce mentally and physically strong, healthy people or more and more weak, sick people? Are people who have health insurance happy and healthy people? Does the billion dollar pharmaceutical and vitamin/mineral/supplement industry produce happy and healthy people?
Your answers here: .......................................................
So how did WE get out of all this? (It might be a very different journey for you, though!)
Learning - Trying things out
A few paragraphs above I wrote: We live OUR life the way WE want it.
Observe: How did other people do it. How did they "get out". Look at Louise Hay, Tony Robbins, and our friend here on Steemit and YouTube, 
Observe: WHAT did they do? They read books, they researched into EVERY subject that seemed of interest to them in THEIR lives. And we did the same. We studied and researched and you should see us when we come across something that bugs us. See the books and papers flying, the websites hurrying across the laptop screen, somewhere we WILL find what we are looking for. But finding it is not enough.
The next step is trying "it" out. What ever "it" may be. Of course, there are books and websites and stupid YouTube videos, trolls and all sorts of convincing sounding people, and yes, confusing information is out there, too, and the only way to see if it is valid for us is TRYING IT OUT!
And here's the good news: After a while you develop a certain ability to judge faster and you can see what is right for you almost immediately. So it's not as tedious as it sounds.
In the end it always boiled down to the same issue: Will this new information - if we implement it - lessen our "fear" or "hunger" as mentioned above? If yes, we adopt it, if no, we don't adopt it. No sense in doing something that doesn't bring us more "reward" and "health" and "wealth".
Of course, this is a process over the years. But observe: What if every small and big step makes you less fearful, less hungry and "rewards" more and gives you more and more "health" and "wealth"? Well, I call that a nice life, indeed!
Self-Sufficiency
First let me define the word "hunger" in my view. I personally was never hungry in my life and I am grateful for that. Very grateful. Hunger is the number one weapon oppressors have against people. The pattern is always the same: First they let the economy crash, then there is a lot of hunger, then they can justify wars, more oppressive laws, more money into their pockets.
Then there is a different sort of hunger. We have plenty of food, but we hunger for nutrients. ALL commercially produced food is pure unsatisfying junk and no amount of diet will help overweight people, because they are not void of willpower, in fact, their bodies tell them correctly to eat MORE to GET all the nutrients.
Hunger in third world countries. This is real hunger, they have NO food. Why? To oppress them. There is enough food in this world to give everybody 3 square meals per day. But the powers that be plus their accomplices - the charities and religions - do not allow this and there is nothing you or I can do about. Nothing except going out and teaching the hungry people to become informed and self-sufficient.
And the same goes for us. If we become self-sufficient while we have the opportunity, then we will have no fear and if the economy crashes, no oppressor can make us do anything against our will like fighting a war on their behalf, for example.
Make no mistake: Any serious prepper out there can tell you that real self-sufficiency does not mean having a few tins of water, some emergency food, a bag of heritage seeds and a shotgun for hunting and self-defence.
Bad economic times can have many faces. Shortages of food, medication, clothes, housing, warmth, energy, money, what ever. Self-sufficiency is not about having just a little veggie garden. That's a start, but it's definitely not enough! You need experience, too! And don't forget! You need to make money! Selling or bartering, just a way to get an income independently, not a job with income tax deducted at source. Erm, no!
So that's exactly what we did. We learned and lived self-sufficiency. Turns out that this is a total WIN-WIN deal! Almost leisurely we allowed ourselves to learn about every aspect of self-sufficiency as long as the economy was going fairly well, as long as shops and supermarkets were open when we had an epic fail in our endeavour. These epic fails still happen at times and I'm grateful that the supermarkets were and are still open!
The other advantage, of course, is that on the way we found out what is and what is not healthy for us. Health depends 80% on eating nutritious fresh food, full of vitamins, minerals and trace minerals and what ever our scientists haven't discovered yet that we need. I think it's the "live" aspect of really fresh food that we need as well. This sort of food cannot be mass produced ever, we have to produce it ourselves.
This is part of our self-sufficiency garden:
And that's our WIN-WIN-WIN deal. We freed ourselves from the powers that may be, we eat healthy food and the producing of it gives us enough exercise. We earn our own money. We are not in debt, have no insurance and we don't use doctors, dentists, vets, hospitals, pharmacies. We have taken all powers back!
Fear and hunger are not tools oppressors can use against us anymore.
Love to all!
