Once when we were free

Once when we were free

by Jon Rappoport

December 24, 2012

(To read about Jon’s mega-collection, Exit From The Matrix, click here.)

We’re so much more sensible now. We don’t live our lives as much as we arrange them and organize them. B follows A. D follows C. We take our medicine and our shots because the doctor says so.

We’re careful, because accidents happen.

We don’t say what’s on our minds a lot of the time, because other people might pass that on, and who knows? We might get into trouble.

But once upon a time, when we were young, we were free. We didn’t take any shots, and when we got sick we recovered. We were stronger than kids are now. We didn’t ask for much protection and we weren’t given much, and we survived.

There was no talk about the needs of the group. When we went to school, we weren’t told about ways we could help others. That was something we learned at home. We weren’t taught about The Planet. Instead, we learned to mind our own business, and it wasn’t considered a crime.

When we played games, adults weren’t hovering or coaching every move we made. We found places to play on our own, and we figured it all out. There were winners and losers. There were no plastic trophies. We played one game, then another. We lost, we won. We competed. Losing wasn’t a tragedy.

There were no childhood “conditions” like ADHD or Bipolar, and we certainly didn’t take any brain drugs. The idea of a kid going to a psychiatrist would have been absurd.

People were who they were. They had lives. They had personalities. They had eccentricities, and we lived with that.

There was far less whispering and gossip. There were fewer cliques. Kids didn’t display their possessions like signs of their identity. A kid who did was ignored, even shunned.

Kids never acted like little adults. They didn’t dress like adults. They didn’t want to be fake adults.

Our parents didn’t consult us about what we wanted. We weren’t part of the decision-making process. They didn’t need us for that.

We weren’t “extra-special.” We weren’t delicate.

No one asked us about our feelings. If they had, we would have been confused. Feelings? What’s that? We were alive. We knew it. We didn’t need anything else.

We could spot liars a mile away. We could spot phonies from across town. We knew who the really crazy adults were, and we stayed away from them.

We didn’t need gadgets and machines to be happy. We only needed a place to play. If you wanted a spot to be alone, you found one, and you read a book.

There was no compulsion to “share.”

School wasn’t some kind of social laboratory or baby-sitting service. We were there to learn, and if we worked hard, we did. Teachers knew how to teach. The textbooks were adequate. Whether the books were new or old didn’t matter.

Kids weren’t taught how to be little victims.

Sex was a private issue. You were taught about that at home or not at all. You certainly didn’t learn about it in school. That would have been ridiculous.

Some of us remember being young, and now, we still have that North Star. We still don’t take our shots and medicines. We still don’t take every word a doctor says as coming from God. We still know losing isn’t a crime or an occasion for tragic theater.

We still know how to be alone. We still think gossip and cliques are for morons. We still feel free. We still want to live, and we do.

We still resent intrusion on our freedom, and we speak up and draw the line. We still like winning and competing. We still like achieving on our own.

We can spot self-styled messiahs at a hundred yards.

As kids, we lived in our imaginations, and we haven’t forgotten how. It’s part of who and what we are.

We aren’t bored every twelve seconds. We can find things to do.

We don’t need reassurances every day. We don’t need people hovering over us. We don’t need to whine and complain to get attention. We don’t need endless amounts of “support.”

We don’t need politicians who lie to us constantly, who pretend we’re stupid. We don’t need ideology shoved down our throats. Our ideology is freedom. We know what it is and what it feels like, and we know no one gives it to us. It’s ours to begin with. We can throw it away, but then that’s on us.

If two candidates are running for office, and we don’t like either one, we don’t vote. We don’t need to think about that very hard. It’s obvious. Two idiots, two criminals? Forget it. Walk away.

We don’t fawn, we don’t get in other people’s way. We don’t think “children are the future.” Every generation is a new generation. It always has been. We don’t need to inject some special doctrine to pump up children. We remember what being a child is. That’s enough.

When we were kids, there was no exaggerated sense of loyalty. We were independent. Now, we see what can be accomplished in the name of obligation, group-cohesion, and loyalty: crimes; imperial wars; destruction of natural rights.

It didn’t take a village to raise a kid when we were young, and it doesn’t take one now. That’s all propaganda. It panders to people who are afraid to be what they are, who are afraid to stand up for themselves.

We don’t feel it’s our duty to cure every ill in the world. But it goes a lot further than that. We can see what that kind of indoctrination creates. It creates the perception of endless numbers of helpless victims. And once that’s firmly entrenched, then magically, the endless parade of victims appears, ready-made. When some needs have been met, that’s never enough, so other needs are born. The lowest form of hustlers sell those needs from here to the sky and beyond. They make no distinction between people who really can use help and those who are just on the make.

We didn’t grow up that way. We don’t fall for the con now.

When we were kids, the number of friends we had didn’t matter. We didn’t keep score. Nobody kept track of the count. That would have been recognized in a second as a form of insanity.

As kids, we didn’t admire people simply because other people admired them. That was an unknown standard.

We were alive. That was enough. We were free. That was enough.

It still is.


exit from the matrix


When we were young, we had incredible dreams. We imagined the dreams and imagined accomplishing them. Some of us still do. Some of us still work in that direction. We haven’t given up the ghost just because the world is mad.

The world needs to learn what we know. We don’t need to learn what the world has been brainwashed into believing.

Jon Rappoport

The author of three explosive collections, THE MATRIX REVEALED, EXIT FROM THE MATRIX, and POWER OUTSIDE THE MATRIX, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29th District of California. He maintains a consulting practice for private clients, the purpose of which is the expansion of personal creative power. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his free NoMoreFakeNews emails here or his free OutsideTheRealityMachine emails here.

15 comments on “Once when we were free

  1. George Dowd says:

    Jon,
    I remember freedom and have never lost it. I served my country as a combat infantryman during the Vietnam era and am proud I did. I went to public school, took my licks, and came away better for it. After the Army I became a registered nurse and served many more years in the EDs, ICU’s and ORs of several hospitals in CA. I’m CA born and bred, had a loving Father and still think America is the greatest country on this earth. I’m 62 yrs old and still hope solutions can be found for the insanity in Washington and Wall Street. PC be dammed.
    Merry Christmas and Happy New Year
    To you and yours.
    Another American Patriot,
    George Dowd

  2. Lesley Anderson says:

    I like this. I feel light and free after reading it. thanks.

  3. Charlie Picco says:

    Excellent , Excellent !

  4. alabaster says:

    It was never about anything else but playing. Playing is everything.

  5. Olivera Radisic says:

    Thank you for the pleasure of reading your wisdom today and every other day. Merry Christmas!

  6. Paul Ormesher says:

    Merry Christmas Jon, and to all.

  7. Merry Christmas, Jon.

    This is very relevant when pitched against my latest Ozzie Thinker “tough love” seasonal message:

    https://ozziethinker.wordpress.com/2015/12/25/christmas-cash/

    Best
    OT

  8. middleway says:

    It is not difficult to comprehend the hell our humanity has suffered at the hands of those self-illumined piss-ant gods whose sole objective has been the creation of their own exclusive utopia. Through creative imagination via infinite intelligence, you may venture through the valley of death and fully comprehend you are passing your life on a Hollywood stage set, entirely surrounded by false facades. Creative imagination allows the option of overriding the entire grand deception.

    Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you George Dowd.

  9. Jack says:

    It was only just last night I decided to read the first chapter of Ray Bradbury’s “Dandelion Wine”. Then I read this article. The effect is … well, inspiration like this does not come along often enough.

  10. Bill says:

    Jon is the best writer on the planet right now. Much respect.

  11. Reblogged this on John Barleycorn and commented:
    Very good.

  12. Roger Fuller says:

    I just wanted to correct one statement Jon made.

    “There were no childhood conditions’ like ADHD or Bipolar, and we certainly didn’t take any brain drugs. The idea of a kid going to a psychiatrist would have been absurd.”

    This statement was true for the vast majority kids in the 1950’s, but not all. Some kids were taken by the “mental health system”, but not willingly. They were taken by brute force by the Police to State Mental Hospitals, mostly for minor crimes. Ever since the marketing of Thorazine to State Mental Hospitals in 1954; that kicked off the whole second generation of Psychiatric Drugs, wave after wave of them came on the market to this day. This kicked off the largest drug epidemic the World has ever known. The gradual expansion of the Psychiatric Police State was the worst part of the 1950’s, even though the majority of the USA population lived very well. But I saw with my own eyes that the bigger this Psychiatric-Police-“mental health” state grew, the worse our country got. The economy got worse, State Hospitals closed down and state prisons became the new “mental hospitals” and the prison-industrial complex grew to huge proportions.

    The other big force that took away our freedom in the USA, the once freest country in the World, was world wide human overpopulation.

  13. @Roger
    “The other big force that took away our freedom in the USA, the once freest country in the World, was world wide human overpopulation.”

    …yeah ok Roger, try not actually think to hard., you might hurt yourself.
    Maybe Global warming took your freedom away also…

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