Tag: writer

Listening to a podcast last week I found self affirmation in the statement that, “the opposite of courage is conformity.”

I have always been fiercely individualistic but at the same time community minded as a shepherd with a flock. I never played team sports like football and if the music is playing I’ll dance alone. It only takes one jump to break the ice and when one person is enjoying the water they soon get joined by another. Then pretty quickly every one wants a part of the action.

Most people face the elevator doors, either as it’s “the done thing” and this is conformity. Enter the full elevator, face the back, smile and look everyone in the eye. By the time you get out of the elevator everyone will be smiling. My point is that in general, we are a global society of conformists following arbitrary rules, laws and social norms without even questioning the origin of the “norm”

I had a cat called “Norm.” I never wanted a cat but my friend died and I reluctantly took Norm and fed him the best food that I could afford, kangaroo meat and fish. Norm was fiercely individualistic but Norm was also everyone’s friend and would comfort many of my friends from overseas and all around the world during parties around fires. Norm would rub against their legs and they pat and scratch his chin. Norm would sit on their laps and keep my friends warm and Norm would comfort them in their loneliness.

There is confort in what we get used to and there is comfort to be found in the norm. However there is one constant in the universe and that constant is “change” and it takes courage to be a nonconformist and to embrace change. It’s through change that we grow, drop old habits that don’t serve us and in the process become better people.

Over the past 10 years some of the no serving habit that I have dropped include, smoking tobacco 9 years ago, drinking alcohol 6 years ago, and in the past months I have stopped eating meat and replaced it with nuts, seeds and mushrooms for a source of protein. However the one thing that I have stopped, I was not physically addicted to, I had developed a repeative pattern of behavioral cannabis smoking and for 35 years had smoked cannabis, eaten it and even rubbed cannabis oil on my skin. I had developed an extreme tolerance to the THC in cannabis and no matter how much I smoked, I didn’t get high and I could fully function in society. It’s now 10 weeks that I haven’t consumed any cannabis and I now get “high” from my daily breathwork, yoga and exercise regime which releases endorphins like oxytocin and human growth hormone, metabolites T3 and T4. I feel strong , fit, fast and most importantly I feel that I am a positive role model for my three sons and my community.

I just got off the bus and thanked the driver Scott. He said, “I didn’t recognize you without the hair.”

I’ve just recently cut my dreadlocks and beard off after seven years of growth, I replied, “most people haven’t.”

He said half joking and half serious, “You look smarter without it”.

My point is that conformity is so pervasive that some people find it difficult to accept anyone that’s different to the norms of society so they wear the latest fashion, get married, stay in abusive relationships, go to school, “get a haircut and get a real JOB”, put their fork in the let hand and knife in the right and all the time they are compromising their ideals and all the while they can’t even clean their bedroom and make their bed in the morning, metaphorically speaking.

In 2014, I took a Nazarite Vow from the book of Numbers, chapter 6. Many people passed judgement and made assumptions about me because of how I looked with long dreadlocks and an uncut beard. The Nazarite Vow is a vow of separating oneself unto “the Lord.” It was taken by Samson, Samuel, John the Baptist, James the Brother of Jesus and Jesus Himself. This Nazarite Vow say that my knowledge of the Spirit inside all of Us is strong, unwavering and true. It’s the spirit of no judgement and not eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

After I first took the Nazarite Vow, broke it by drinking wine, eating grapes, sultanas and by approaching a dead body of a friend who had died in the street in an attempt to resuscitate him. His Spirit/Soul had left and I failed my test but I let my hair grow due to my vanity. In my meditations I came to the realization that I had broken my Vow and seven days after on the morning of the full moon before Easter, I took of my hair, burnt it and reaffirmed my Nazarite Vow.

I am not my hair, nor am I my wardrobe. I am a biochemical quantum physics meat antennae full bacteria and I am a vibrating community of living organisms absorbing and emitting light through my DNA. Most of all, I am that I am, and I am a Soul, a Spirit, a tiny piece of the All Pervasive Energy of Source and You are too and when you open to your Higher Self, you can become anything you dream. Please enjoy my accompanying poetry.

You don’t have to be a poet to enjoy poetry
You don’t have to be a bird to love sitting in a tree
You don’t have to be famous to wear fancy pants
Or Young beautiful and sexy to enjoy a dance

You don’t have to be young to listen to hip hop
Who’s business is it if you only eat the muffin top
And abundance or not, it’s fine for you to share
Some of the best people that I’ve met never brushed their hair

You don’t have to be young to enjoy a Doof or rave
It’s nobody’s business whether or not you shave
You can enjoy your life with no husband or wife
The inportant thing is that you live your own life

You can’t be a bully and be a gentle man
Immerse yourself in love and you’ll be the best you can
Every cat can become friends with a dog
And enjoy the sunset sitting on a log

When there is no fear nobody feels forced
You don’t have to whip a horse running round a race course
Every one know that you are what you eat
Mushrooms and nuts are protein and we don’t need meat

You can get a tan by sitting in the sunlight
Not only sunscreen companies sell products by fright
In a darkened room you make no vitamin Dee
When you do your research this is what you’ll see

Pharmaceutical companies manipulate your fear
You can go to a pub and drink water, not beer
When you are uncomfortable you can change your position
Processed and fried food have very little nutrition

You don’t have to be a genius to question marketing
Coke doesn’t “add life” and is not “the real thing”
To be well change your diet to alkaline from acid
Lack of sleep makes your balls small and dick flacid

If you want to grow your hair take B17
You can still be fit and strong after you’re a teen
And if you decide you can live 200 years
When a loved one dies you don’t have to shed tears

Every one can shine and every one can be a poet
By making your words rhyme and rhythm flow it
You don’t have to love football just to be a man
If you do what you love you’ll become the best you can

If you have wind, it’s ok to fart
Cancer can be cured, so can a broken heart
Anyone can learn to dance, anyone can sing
When you chase your dreams you can become anything.