discovery

Are We Free? The Lie We Live.

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A powerful short documentary film created by Spencer Cathcart and published in January this year has almost immediately become viral, spread worldwide and is subtitled to many languages already. It exposes, in a witty and critical way, the truth about our corrupt world, and raises some important questions as well.

“At this moment you could be anywhere doing anything. Instead you sit alone before a screen.

So what’s stopping us from doing what we want, being where we want to be?

Each day we wake up in the same room and follow the same path to live the same day as yesterday. Yet at one time each day was a new adventure. Along the way something changed. Before days were timeless, now our days are scheduled. Is this what it means to be grown up? To be free?

But are we really free?”

In a way, this depends on our definition of freedom, on what freedom means to us. There might be different answers, but in their core one thing is supposed to be present: the ability to become who we truly are, to fully develop our potential and by doing so, better the world we live in.

But, what is the reality we are forced into?

“We discover the world through a textbook. For years we sit and regurgitate what we’re told. Tested and graded like subjects in a lab. Raised not to make a difference in this world. Raised to be no different. Smart enough to do our job but not to question why we do it. So we work and work, left with no time to live the life we work for. Until a day comes when we are too old to do our job. It is here we’re left to die.”

Critical thinking has left our education system some time ago, and while we, as humans, claim to be superior, one has to wonder – how is this superiority manifested?

“They <corporations> gave us money, and in return we gave them the world.

We are like a plague sweeping the Earth. Tearing apart the very environment that allows us to live. We see everything as something to be sold. As an object to be owned. 

But what happens when we have polluted the last river? Poisoned the last breath of air? Have no oil for the trucks that bring us our food? When will we realize money can’t be eaten, that is has no value? 

We aren’t destroying the planet. We’re destroying all life on it. Every year thousands of species go extinct. And time is running out before we’re next.”

… and the consideration goes even further, raising some important questions…

“It’s funny to think humans once thought the Earth was the center of the universe but then again now we see ourselves as
the center of the planet. We point to our technology and say we’re the smartest. But do our computers, cars, and factories really illustrate how intelligent we are? Or do they show how lazy we’ve become?

We put this civilized mask on. 

But when you strip that away, what are we?”

Indeed, what are we?

Consumers of earthly goods? And if so, is this exceeding consumption making us happier and more satisfied? Or is it just widening the gap between who we are, and who we are meant to become?

“One day this sensation we call life will leave us. Our bodies will rot, our valuables recollected. Yesterday’s actions’s all that remain. Death constantly surrounds us. Still it seems so distant from our everyday reality.

If we all look at our innermost desire, we will see our dreams are not so different. We share a common goal. Happiness. 

We tear the world apart looking for joy, without ever looking within ourselves. 

Many of the happiest people are those who own the least. 

But are we really so happy with our iPhones, our big houses, our fancy cars? We’ve become disconnected. Idolizing people we’ve never met. We witness the extraordinary on screens, but ordinary everywhere else. We wait for someone to bring change, without ever thinking of changing ourselves.”

Nothing happens unless we make it happen.

Nothing changes unless we ignite the change.

And if we begin now, with all our efforts, maybe, just maybe, this world will become a better place.

And bear in mind, it is not for the sake of our Mother Earth – she is stronger than we might think. It is for the sake of mankind, more fragile than we dare to think.

“Stop waiting for change and be the change you want to see. 

We didn’t get to this point by sitting on our asses. The human race survived not because we are the fastest or the strongest but because we worked together. We have mastered the act of killing. Now let’s master the joy of living. This isn’t about saving the planet. The planet will be here whether we are or not. Earth has been around for billions of years. Each of us will be lucky to last eighty. We are a flash in time, but our impact is forever.

While we still can we must use our screens to bring us closer together rather than farther apart. For better or worse our generation will determine the future life on this planet.

We can either continue to serve this system of destruction until no memory of our existence remains. 

Or we can wake up. Realize we aren’t evolving upwards but rather falling down.

We just have screens in our faces so we don’t see where we’re heading. This present moment is what every step, every breath and every death has led to. 

We are the faces of all who came before us. And now it is our turn.

You can choose to carve your own path, or follow the road countless others have already taken. Life is not a movie. The script isn’t already written. 

We are the writers.

This is your story.

Their story.

Our story.”

 

Powerful in its entirety, ‘The Lie We Live‘ will open your eyes and inspire you to reconsider yourself, your life and your impact on this world.

Enjoy the full documentary, and remember to share.

 

 

Because Life.

Because Love.

Love Gina Wings

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The Secret of Happiness – Quantum Physic’s Perspective

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Someone once said, and could not have been more right: We are all the same. We are all looking for happiness.

What might differ, though, is every individual’s idea on what happiness actually is. Ephemeral as it is, musing on true nature of happiness is an unlimited source of inspiration and – hopefully – discovery.

Perhaps quantum physics, similarly unreal yet proven existing, might help us find the answer to this ultimate question.

In his inspiring and insightful interview, quantum physicist Amit Goswani, Ph.D, provides a key to understanding happiness, and, hopefully, once we understand it, we are on the right path of achieving it.

If physical reality indeed is, as Dr. Goswani claims, constituted of four bodies: physical world, mind, feelings and intuition, all embodied in wholeness which is the fifth body, to be content in it it is imperative that the unity of all four bodies in the fifth be present.

Any separation takes us away from desired state of happiness.

To further understand the concept we might ponder Amit’s words:

“We have to take a long-term view. Nothing much can be done in short-term.

The negative emotional brain circuits are real, they are built into us and therefore there’s a tendency to be competitive, there’s a tendency to be jealous, there’s a tendency to protect yourself in survival of yourself. Considering that as the major purpose of life – there is that tendency.

But, how to rise above this tendency? So, we have to make this balancing act: life is a balancing act, of balancing these negative emotions with positive, noble emotions.

So, we love, and we love in action. When we love in action brain circuits of love are created. If we become good to our neighbors in action, not just talking about it, then the brain circuit is created; and then, when I’m feeling competitive one of these brain circuits will come to my rescue and lift me up.

So, building these brain circuits is most important, and recognizing that quantum physics is really saying that the world consists of possibilities. With creativity we can create the world that just suits us perfectly: for our growth, for our growth from separateness to wholeness.”

According to Dr. Goswani, love is the easiest way to achieve the described, but, importantly, it is not the only way. Our journey from separateness to wholeness can also be achieved through beauty, justice and goodness, and it is up to us the chose the channel that suits us, our character and temperament best. There is no right way or wrong way, only our way to reach wholeness – and the key is to get into it. Dr. Goswani names this method ‘Do-Be-Do-Be-Do’, emphasizing that getting into right way of thinking is just one step towards realization, and we need to do is act upon it as well.

“Talking is just the result of getting into right thinking, and you have to compliment the right thinking with right living, and then you have to compliment that further, that to create right livelihood for everyone so that right thinking and right living is possible.”

To reach this state we have to engage in activities in the quantum way, which simply means performing actions which make us relax into unconsciousness.

“Engaging in the activity in the quantum way is purifying for the mind, is purifying for ourselves, it enables us to grow.”

Or, simply put – pure magic!

 

The interview with Amit Goswani, Ph.D. conducted by Lilou Mace is enriching in its entirety. It will alter your perception of reality and our role in it. Be sure to watch it!

 

 

Love Gina Wings

What Albert Einstein Can Teach Us about Time

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Time is
Too Slow for those who Wait,
Too Swift for those who Fear,
Too Long for those who Grieve,
Too Short for those who Rejoice;
But for those who Love,
Time is not.

Henry van Dyke. Music and Other Poems

 

In an inspirational episode, Does Time Exist, first aired on June 22, 2011, and a part of the great Through the Wormhole series, we are guided on an exciting journey exploring the entity of time. We all tend to take time for granted, but after careful consideration it becomes crystal clear how difficult it is to answer a deceptively simple question: What is time?

Could it be possible that time does not really exist?

Do past, present and future exist side by side?

Is time a real thing built into Universe? Or is it just an abstraction: something we humans created to keep our civilizations running?

There are different views on the concept of time, from the one that time is what keeps everything from happening all at once, that part of the world that orders events so they happen sequentially: from beginning to end; to the notion that time is something everyone of us is actively constructing in the brain.

Sir Isaac Newton had tried to describe time as a steady beep pounding behind the scenes on the Universe, as a giant clock set into motion by God, and as such, time was absolute. Albert Einstein opposed this with a simple explanation that we do not detect absolute time, but rather time in relation. To him, time is created by the relationships of the changes that happen in the Universe, and as such time is relational. This had become the basis of his general theory of relativity.

This was not a new idea, actually: some 2500 years before Einstein, philosopher Phormidities, applying his wit a utilizing simple philosophical deduction, had proven that motion is impossible, and hence time is an illusion. Although logical, back then no one knew what to make of this time denial, so the claim had remained in its original form.

When we ponder deeply, we realize that all space is here… so can it be that all time is here as well, and it is us who only experience it sequentially, one moment after the other? If this is true, time becomes the most stubborn psychological filter.

In this respect it is interesting to consider the thought of Julian Barbour who claims that Universe does not need time at all. Time is deduced from things and exists in slices of space. When we add here the amazing Wheeler–DeWitt equation that by pure functional differentiation gets rid of time as a constant, we cannot but conclude how there is no unique history at the deepest level of reality.

So, is time just a creation in order we remain sane, and is, as David Eagleman claims, schizophrenia nothing but a disorder in time perception?

When we spiral down this path, we have to ask

Why is there time?

Where did it come from?

And after all this pondering, I remain in awe after considering entropy, the level of chaos, which, in a way, does give time the direction. So, is there time, or is it just an integral part of space-time? And if so, is it eternal, lasting and everpresent, or it does not exist at all?

What is true is that we are here for a finite amount of time. We perceive time passing through change: seasons, aging, movement. So, to expand our limited time here, we must incite as much change in our lives as possible. It is as simple as that.

To make progress in physics, we have to keep asking What if? – even if it leads us nowhere… to solve the mystery we have to do the detective work. And that is the real beauty of science.

Reflections on time are simply astoundingly beautiful mathematics in its purest form. And, alas! – it is not a question whether everything occurs the way it does, but whether we are able to accept and comprehend it without ending mind-blown.

Narrated by Morgan Freeman, not only the story on existence of time, but the entire Through the Wormhole series will take you to the most amazing and breathtaking places and leave you standing in awe.

Love Gina Wings

Aleister Crowley and the Real Distinction Between the Artist and the Bourgeois

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Halloween is all about horror, mystery and sin – and who better depicts these qualities than a famous black magician and occultist Aleister Crowley?

With his compulsion for sin and blasphemy, Aleister Crowley, through his message of freedom has become an icon of rebellion. Apparently way ahead of his times, by prophesying liberty he had inspired great names of British popular culture, such as the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, David Bowie and Ozzie Osbourne – among many.

Regardless personal opinions one might have on him, he was, without a doubt, a fascinating man who lived an amazing life. By his last day, December 1, 1947, he was a prolific writer and poet, a world traveler, mountaineer, chess master, artist, yogi, social provocateur, drug addict and sexual libertine. The press loved to demonize him by coining an alias “The wickedest man in the world.”

How he felt about this is clearly depicted in his saying:

“I want none of your faint approval or faint dispraise to held with Christianity, rationalism, Buddhism; I want blasphemy, murder, rape, revolution, anything bad or good, but strong.“

Indeed, was he a wickedest man in the world; or was he just a revolutionary, sharing ideas the world was not ready for yet? Some twenty years after his death, the world has changed dramatically, with love & peace, flower power and exploring consciousness, as if the new generation peacefully accepted Thelema and started practicing the new ethical code: “Do what thou wilt“. The future came faster than he thought when saying:

“A thousand years from now the world will be sitting in a sunset of crowleyanity.”

Yet beneath his seemingly cruel surface, there was a real artist within him. Indeed, he understood the society well, on a great part due to living with no financial worries whatsoever. Hence the interesting, everlasting meditation:

“Am I right in suggesting that ordinary life is a mean between these extremes, that the noble man devotes his material wealth to lofty ends, the advancement of science, or art, or some such true ideal; and that the base man does the opposite by concentrating all his abilities on the amassing of wealth?’Exactly; that is the real distinction between the artist and the bourgeois, or, if you prefer it, between the gentleman and the cad. Money, and the things money can buy, have no value, for there is no question of creation, but only of exchange. Houses, lands, gold, jewels, even existing works of art, may be tossed about from one hand to another; they are so, constantly. But neither you nor I can write a sonnet; and what we have, our appreciation of art, we did not buy. We inherited the germ of it, and we developed it by the sweat of our brows. The possession of money helped us, but only by giving us time and opportunity and the means of travel. Anyhow, the principle is clear; one must sacrifice the lower to the higher, and, as the Greeks did with their oxen, one must fatten and bedeck the lower, so that it may be the worthier offering.“
It comes  to no surprise that a man of such understanding was deep within a poet, his poems passing on his message.
The Poet
Bury me in a nameless grave!
I come from god the world to save.
I brought them wisdom from above:
Worship, and Liberty, and Love.
They slew me for I did disparage
Therefore Religion, Law and Marriage.
So be my grave without a name
That earth may swallow up my shame!
And a real gem – Halloween edition:
Love Gina Wings

 

Virginia Woolf on Craftsmanship & The Shady Reputation of Lady English

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“…Words, English words, are full of echoes, of memories, of associations. They have been out and about, on people’s lips, in their houses, in the streets, in the fields, for so many centuries. And that is one of the chief difficulties in writing them today – that they are stored with other meanings, with other memories, and they have contracted so many famous marriages in the past.”

With these words Virginia Woolf begins the interview in a BBC radio broadcast in April 29, 1937. The interview is a reminiscence of the essay ‘Craftsmanship’ published in ‘The death of the Moth and other Essays’ in 1942. by Leonard Woolf.

In his editorial note note he states:

“If she had lived, there is no doubt that she would have made large alterations and revisions in nearly all these essays before allowing them to appear in volume form. Knowing this, one naturally hesitates to publish them as they were left. I have decided to do so, first because they seem to me worth republishing, and second because at any rate those which have already appeared in journals have in fact been written and revised with immense care.”

We can only thank Mr. Woolf for enriching us with Virginia’s another amazing work which inspires us to consider our words even more seriously – if for nothing else, than for the simple fact…

“Now we know little that is certain about words, but this we do know — words never make anything that is useful; and words are the only things that tell the truth and nothing but the truth.”

Not only it is important to handle words with care from author’s but also from the reader’s perspective, because…

“… one sentence of the simplest kind rouses the imagination, the memory, the eye and the ear — all combine in reading it.

But they combine — they combine unconsciously together. The moment we single out and emphasize the suggestions as we have done here they become unreal; and we, too, become unreal — specialists, word mongers, phrase finders, not readers. In reading we have to allow the sunken meanings to remain sunken, suggested, not stated; lapsing and flowing into each other like reeds on the bed of a river.”

It is both interesting and valuable to consider her own viewpoint at the time of creation and, although not identical, the two works miraculously intertwine. So Virginia ponders in the interview

“… the very obvious yet always mysterious fact that a word is not a single and separate entity, but part of other words. Indeed it is not a word until it is part of a sentence. Words belong to each other, (…)

How can we combine the old words in new orders so that they survive, so that they create beauty, so that they tell the truth? That is the question.

And the person who could answer that question would deserve whatever crown of glory the world has to offer.”

And she further continues, describing the art and craftsmanship of writing, and breathing life into words…

“It is only a question of finding the right words and putting them in the right order. But we cannot do it because they do not live in dictionaries; they live in the mind. And how do they live in the mind? Variously and strangely, much as human beings live, ranging hither and thither, falling in love, and mating together. It is true that they are much less bound by ceremony and convention than we are. Royal words mate with commoners. 

Indeed, the less we enquire into the past of our dear Mother English the better it will be for that lady’s reputation. For she has gone a-roving, a-roving fair maid.”

Perhaps the most striking point is the revolutionary meditation on words which will shed a new light on every work of literature ever written – and how do they survive tests of time…

“… all we can say about them is that they seem to like people to think before they use them, and to feel before they use them, but to think and feel not about them, but about something different. They are highly sensitive, easily made self-conscious. They do not like to have their purity or their impurity discussed. If you start a Society for Pure English, they will show their resentment by starting another for impure English – hence the unnatural violence of much modern speech; it is a protest against the puritans. They are highly democratic, too; they believe that one word is as good as another; uneducated words are as good as educated words, uncultivated words as good as cultivated words, there are no ranks or titles in their society. Nor do they like being lifted out on the point of a pen and examined separately. They hang together, in sentences, paragraphs, sometimes for whole pages at a time. They hate being useful; they hate making money; they hate being lectured about in public. In short, they hate anything that stamps them with one meaning or confines them to one attitude, for it is their nature to change.

Perhaps that is their most striking peculiarity – their need of change. It is because the truth they try to catch is many-sided, and they convey it by being many-sided, flashing first this way, then that. Thus they mean one thing to one person, another thing to another person; they are unintelligible to one generation, plain as a pikestaff to the next. And it is because of this complexity, this power to mean different things to different people, that they survive.”

 

Maybe we are just slaves to words, and maybe that is not the curse, but rather otherwise.

Do not miss this valuable recording.

 

Love Gina Wings

Other Writers

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We read, we reflect, we write.

Writing is a form of a prayer, as if, once written, the world lasts forever, lives after us and stays a proof of our existence. We write, not only to leave our footprint, but to be read, in hope we will, maybe, be understood.

But, most of all, we write for writings’ sake only. When we write, it does not matter whether our carefully selected words will be read, contemplated upon, or understood… we write to take the thought off our chest, the thought that is within us and is yearning to be set free. This is what connects us with the genius, if such thing exists at all.

There is no comparison in writing, or in any art form, for that matter.

Yet, we all create the unlimited artwork of connected ideas, similar dreams and almost identical motivations. We are moved by creation, by our yearn to be heard – not necessarily understood – but listened to and heard. It is our goal to share ideas in attempt to make this world, the only one we have, a better place.

We are chroniclers of the times of rapid change, trying to establish values – a category easily forgotten in the world of instant solutions and quick remedies. We know self growth is a constant process and a never ending work in progress, and are trying to keep that awareness alive. We are readers first, for we know all was already said and done, it is up to us to accept this wisdom and adapt it to contemporary life. It is this wisdom and awareness that distinguishes us from the crowd, and is making us lonely at the same time.

The stream of consciousness I am creating is a result of essays I examined being very close to mine. I am overwhelmed with the fact how similar motivations and ideas we, female x gen writers have, albeit being born in and raised in so many different parts of the world.

There is a power stronger that geography and lifestyle limits, the power being our mindset, our views, our consciousness. Once upon a time we have left the World affect us in a way specific to that particular moment in time, we, baby boomers’ descendants, brought to this Earth to capture the moral values before they become extinct. This is why our voice need to be heard and understood.

Words are our swords, and it is the words we hold in our defense.

Love Gina Wings

Good morning, Starshine

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… the Earth says ‘Hello!’

It is a beautiful day and we are alive while the Universe has conspired to serve us the best Life there is…

This is how I wish you felt, and maybe this can help…

 

I wish to live simply. I wish to enjoy the moment, the Present, because Present is all there is.

We can be easily misguided to think how easy it was some fifty years ago to enjoy the moment while high on acid, but the world has changed.

It has. And it has not.

For all of you who have not seen the movie Hair – I strongly suggest you do – the folks in the video are in the emotional turmoil facing everyday fear of being drafted. And that is just a part of their problems. Yet, they are happy.

Not because they do not have problems, but because they are not trying to change things they cannot affect.

We have achieved so much. We have everything: not only can we buy fancy cars and beautiful houses, we are buying health, ordering beauty and are putting ourselves on happiness wait list.

Why is it then, that anxiety and depression are on the increase? Have we learned nothing?

Not so long ago, we wanted things. We used to wait for them. We had to put effort into obtaining them.

No wonder we felt great happiness and joy once our wishes came true.

Today, everything seems attainable, instantly. No wonder we are failing at experiencing true joy and happiness.

Just think of it: how happy would you feel if you had to work (and wait) a whole month to be able to purchase that fancy gadget?

Make yourself wait for things you want…

Try, and see what happens.

Love Gina Wings