Recently I stumbled upon a strange view on Twitter. At the time I really couldn´t remember why I was checking for the latest posts of the pope. I supposed it was because I had a small argument with a benedictine monk, who influenced me a lot when I was young.
What I saw on the popes Twitter account was an amazing number of nearly 10 million followers and that he was following only 8 persons... all himself. Here is the Screenshot:
I thougt about it and was able to fathom, that this probably is done to have an overview over the different languages and to post each statement in all the important languages. Like this it is easy to follow up if everything was rightly "distributed". But all this is of no real importance.
I thought about it sometime longer and tried to make a connection between my argument with the priest and general human behaviour. I came to some conclusions that I want to share with you:
I follow this monk on Facebook, because I know him for more than 20 years and he was an inspiration of behaviour to me in many ways. He was funny, he was kind, he told us kids, what he was thinking about right and wrong. He was there for us, when we needed help.
My believes about religion and god changed a lot in the last years. Although I see myself as an anarchist, I still believe in god, even if this is not a rational thing. But I don´t believe in the church as an institution, which makes me an anti-clerical. Non the less this priest is someone I would call a "good person".
In the last days, I saw him more and more posting political (leftist) propaganda. And most recently he posted a video about how bad, filthy and unethical a new political party in Germany is, using exactly the same kind of fear mongering that was pointed out in this propaganda video. I don´t care too much about what new trends there are in politics, for they all are in my eyes greedy bastards hungry for more power. But what I really despise are biased and wrong accusations.
Somehow I felt the urge to reply something and I pointed out, why I consider myself still as beeing a Christian. I said, that following Christ means not to use (initiating or any) force to reach their goals. The only way "allowed" by the Bible is to convince people by the word, by doing and by giving good example. I asked him how this fact is consistent with his political engagement, which means nothing less than forcing people to act like you think is right. I never got an answer from him since, but I hope he is thinking about my words.
I then was in a very bad mood. I felt miserable somehow. Today I am sure, that I passed on the popes Twitter account because he too, is very political. In fact he is the most political pope since a hundred years. And he is one to support officially a "one-world-government", one even may say, he is a communist. I wanted to "check" what "leftist propaganda" he was posting lately. Then I saw that he is only following himself.
Well... thats exactly what I do! I am only following myself, my beliefs, my ethics, my convictions. And that is exactly what the monk is doing, too. I then understood one thing: It is great to follow yourself.
It is of no real importance if I convince the monk of my beliefs (or the pope, or any politician, or anyone at all), it´s only important that I live by my beliefs:
Don´t initiate force, don´t do anything that is not based on voluntary principles.
Explain what and why you are doing this and that could be enough for your own wellbeing.
Now I was able not to be angry anymore with the priest and his political promotions, with myself and with the whole situation. It is very strange for me that a person in one of the most power-centered position reminded me of such a basic fact.
Now, I am much more happy again and I wanted to share this with you!
If you still don´t want to only follow yourself, Iwould be happy,
if I was one of those you want to follow: @pollux.one
