Re: Liber Al again

Date: 11 May 2003 18:37:41 GMT
Newsgroups: alt.magick
Size: 3,893 bytes

>From: David Cantu email-address-deleted
>feel free
Funny you should say that. Just the other day I was talking with some guy
named Scott in another group about stuff like feeling free and what not. His
comments are quoted below:
"FREEDOM is what it's all about, baby!"
Not to necessarily disagree with you there, Scott, but, well ...
You see, it's like this: The fact of the matter is that I'm one of the very few
people I know of who has ever actually been free before, although I'm certainly
not free now, and I'm here to tell you, frankly, that being free is really not
all that, if you know what I mean, and I wouldn't go back to being free if you
paid me.
...
Of course, if you paid me, then this wouldn't be free either, would it?
...
Freedom, which is basically nothing, is what you use when you can't use the
word that freedom is just another word for, because it's apparently protected
by copyright or something in a song somewhere.
"Interesting. I won't even ask why you feel that you aren't free."
It's difficult to know exactly how to respond to someone who "won't even ask"
for clarification of a point that would appear to be integral to mutual
understanding and the advancement of discussion, nevertheless:
"The lyric you're thinking of is 'Freedom's just another word for nothin'
left to lose.' Kris wrote it, Janis made a hit out of it (albeit posthumously),
but I don't necessarily agree with that philosophy."
You seem to have a very firm grasp of the obvious, Scott, which is more than I
can say for most people. ;-}
Actually, in point of fact, that is not the lyric I was thing of. It is,
however, the lyric I was specifically referencing. In this instance, there is
a difference. This is the lyric I was thinking of:
0 - portrayed as empty, a simpleton in suspended reality
is the co-conspiring victim of synchronicity;
impulsively directed by spontaneity
(like janice joplin sang about in 'me and bobby magee');
so foolishly prospecting for possibility,
while trusting in the mystery of providential divinity.
"It's a state of Mind and Being that is taken too much for granted these days."
It's a stupid little verse I wrote a long lime ago.
"The only people I know of who have 'nothing left to lose' are in Caskets,
Urns or are sprinkled or scattered somewhere."
Yeah, that's kind of what I meant. I died for a moment once a long time ago on
a roadside somewhere. Of course I know that sounds absolutely absurd, and I
certainly never made it to a Casket or an Urn or anything like that, like I
said it was just for a moment, but it happened, and for better or worse it
irrevocably altered my perception of what it means to be free.
I know I'll be free, which is to say dead, again someday. That's just a fact
of life. Until then, it's payday.
"Hmmmmmm, I wonder if ghosts have anything to lose?"
In brief answer, yes. I know a ghost who has a smell to lose. It's like BO,
only without the B.
"Thank you for sharing your point of view with me."
Well, you're welcome of course, but heck, you ain't even heard the half of it
yet.
"(Eyebrows going up) Okay, I've become intrigued enough to ask the
question I didn't ask in my first repsonce to you. Why is that you feel that
you aren't free? Speculating from what you wrote, I can hazard a guess (and
please excuse my typos). Is it because you came back to life and thus returned
to the 'bonds of earthly confinement'?"
I don't know about the "bonds of earthly confinement", but if you mean to ask
whether or not I have worldly obligations, the answer is most resoundingly in
the affirmative. My son starts college next term. My insurance premium is due
by Monday. That's just the short list.
"Regarding your verse, I don't consider it stupid at all. It reminds me
of Shakespeare. To wit: Hamlet Act 3. Scene 1"
Yeah, I think I've heard of that one before.
Thanks.
-hi-