#OccupyYourSelf: The Pedagogy of Freedom

The biggest challenge to total freedom? The fear of what humans will do with it. You gotta wonder, if doG got it backwards.

Paulo Freire had an idea that freedom is found in the fact that existence is unfinished. #OccupyWallStreet is happening physically and metaphysically, folks! Justice and politics are intrinsically embedded together in an intangible reality called the future. What happens here-and-now isn’t all-there-is-to-know. That’s why the 99% has hope on our side…

To #OccupyYourSelf is to reflect on how life is about redemption, not perfection. When a human is liberated from the burden of perfection, the Self is given grace to make mistakes and be wrong without damnation. Humans can radically accept past, present, and future– and this in defiance of the fear of the unknown. Redemption is the freedom to learn from mistakes, the mercy to forgive transgressions rather than allow them to create a permanent whirlpool of despair.

Redemption is comfort in knowing that existence isn’t over and that “right” is not the same as “ideal” and “wrong” is not the same as “worthless”. Sometimes in life, the least ideal choice might be the right one to make, and the most worthy thing to do might not work out so well.

If you have never had to face a tough call like that, then you might have missed redemption call out, “Hey, 99%, life doesn’t have to be perfect, the future is still open-ended; civility is a bit of an experiment.”

The most notable posterchild for redemption in history is Jesus of Nazareth, and he would put it this way, “I am making all things new…” Think of it as like seizing the zen moment of Now and looking at it from a third-person perspective. All of the sudden, new thoughts are created.

And the rose-colored glasses are definitely off, in case any humans are rolling their eyes. No PollyAnna would realize that it is precisely when all has gone wrong that the greatest hope exists. This is when the rift, or fissure, between the real and the ideal is the greatest.

This Robin Moth caterpillar knows that there's gotta be something more to life... and he is right.

The more the reason for hope, the more the space there is for hope to open up. New ground, like the earth’s crust, is formed in the chasm between the continent of What Is and the continent of What Can Be. The new earth can be occupied by the agents of hope or occupied the agents of fear, of hegemony, of the 1%.

You choose. We all choose. There’s gotta be something more.

You know the Switchfoot song, right? Chase the logic to its conclusion, and you might wind-up wanting to turn around and run back with your tail between your legs. Why? Because if the future is unwritten, then humans can have not just hope, but also can have an influence on the future in terms of their past, present, and current experiences.

So, where are you today? Awake? Is there something more? Or are you struggling in a neoliberal and postmodern paralysis “where moth and rust corrupt and thieves break in and steal”? Is there Hope for something Deeper, something Future, or is the Tangible and the Now holding you back from what’s going to be New tomorrow?

Will the rift inside you– that gut feeling that there is something more– be occupied by hope or fear?