AlittleBetter.net

There was once a tiger Bo who had lived his whole life in a zoo in africa. He was safe, well fed, and sometimes the trainers would even let him in to different areas. This kept him content. One day the zoo keepers brought in a new tiger named Zatch, but this tiger wasn’t like the other tigers. Zatch had come from a zoo called the wild.

Nothing that the zoo keepers did would make the new tiger happy. When it was feeding time he was upset about being fed. Zatch didn’t like his cage, and refused to say how nice of a home it was. Even the nice other cages that all the other tigers were happy to wait in while their home was cleaned did not please him.

One day Bo asked Zatch why he was always so upset when everything was handed to him. So Zatch looked back to Bo and told him that he would rather catch the meat himself, because it was what he was made to do. He told him, that he would rather find his own shelter because than he chose it himself, but the thing that got to him the most was the cage. Zatch remembered a whole jungle that was his home, and if he didn’t like it, he could move. He also remembered poachers, but he would rather face them alone than be somebody’s pet.

All of this confused Bo, he couldn’t understand why anybody would miss so much work and risk. Bo had never been outside of his cage, and from the sounds of things he didn’t want to. But Zatch on the other hand understood, that facing the dangers himself gave him a right to freedom. Zatch was accustom to the more dangerous world that comes with owning ones self.

Bo had known only a cage, and had no desire to learn another way of life. He would rather be owned than have to take care of himself. Zatch however knew that freedom, work, and risk were inseparable. Bo would never know freedom, and eventually Zatch would find his way out of the zoo, and back to his dangerous wild freedom.

For those of us living in a “modern society” with a “free trade market” advertisers have all of our lives used our basic human desires to manipulate us. They brand their products so that the products themselves will try to meet our basic phsychological needs. This practice, originally called propaganda, was first institutionalized by Edward Bernays. Bernays was Sigmeund Freud’s nephew who drew heavily on his uncle’s ideas about the human race being naturally driven by sex and violence, and decided to exploit these desires to cause mass amounts of people to chase after ideas, products, and even politicians. In the BBC documentary “Century of the Self” you can see a sharp contrast in how modern societies once advertised compared to now, where subtle techniques are used by every major corporation that touches our lives in order that we will become reliant on their products for our own self identity. The result of this rather than enhancing the actual lives of people enslaves society through their desires. When I look at this I can see no wonder as to why Prince Siddartha aka Buddah decided that desires were the roots of all suffering and that if one could eliminate all selfish desires that one could achieve enlightenment. Now I am no buddah, and I respect the man greatly as one of my heroes for the simplistic life he sought, but I came to a conclusion closer to Ayn Rand’s. (Ayn Rand was the founder of objectivism which is the belief that man is at his best when he is in full pursuit of his desires)

All throughout buddah’s life of soul searching you can see a common theme in the belief that understanding will bring freedom. I would like to apply this same method to desires. I think that desires themselves are not evil, in fact that they are crafted by the almighty (call it God, Tao, a quantum frequency, the only reality, they all work for me) Having said this, it would follow that their is a purpose behind all such desires. Most of the time however we tend to misunderstand our own desires. This misunderstanding is further perpetuated and manipulated by modern marketing, and controlled media, so that the masses of people in these countries will act in such a way as to benefit the few elite that have the funding available to spread this propaganda on a mass scale. By perpetuating misunderstanding our society also perpetuates what I think is the root of most suffering; self deception. We buy unnecessarily big houses and cars to satisfy a craving for the social status that such things represent, but why do we kill ourselves to please society? Do we really want our society to hold us higher, or do we do this so that we can hold ourselves higher? Are these the things we really desired, or have we been bamboozled by the supposed american dream into thinking that this is what it means to have it made? Why should we buy into the idea that happiness can only come from total reliance on the publics every thought and a life style which forces us to become reliant on consumerism, and the oil industry? Who does this benefit? Are you really happy sacrificing money that represents time of your life spent at a job you don’t like while whatever is left of your life rots away out of existence?

Please! Ask yourself what really makes you happy, and on what you really need. Do not count on tomorrow, even the rest of today is not guaranteed to you. Analyze each desire to the fullest, and try to identify what you really want, and what you really need to be happy. So far my own list includes food, water, shelter, something soft to lay on, security, community (not to be confused with people who only value you because of your rolex or hummer), and opportunity. We have made ourselves reliant on others by giving all these things to corporations that benefit more if we spend more. I’m aware that spending more is the current recommendation for keeping the economy alive, but again; ask yourself? How do we measure a successful economy? Is it based on how much we spend, or is it based on how well our needs for health and happiness are actually met?

I plee to you, to seek out that which will make you happy over that which will make others approve. If your happiness is reliant on anyone else’s opinion, than you are chained to that person. I would not say go to the extremes of libertine in which there is no wrong deed, heed your own conscience and don’t mess around with something that sincerely bugs you, but find your own voice. I hope you will learn to identify the reasons behind your desires, so that you can come to see what your desires really are. It has been my experience that most of the time, desires really are much more simple than we make them up to be. Live life purposefully, and do not be afraid to follow your own desires, just make sure you know what those really are first.