Sign my Petition, Join my Cult

Free thinking seems to have got itself a bad name, these days. Everywhere I go I’m assaulted by people trying to convince me to think like them. If I walk down the street I’m bombarded with bill boards trying to get me to buy something, or at the very least buy into something.

I go on Facebook and it’s the same. Join my cause. Click here to stop this or start that. Let’s see if we can get two million people to believe what we believe. If enough people click here we can change the world.

And I ask myself: why?

I’m a contrary sort of a bastard, really. If there’s any way that I can disagree with you, I probably will. If there is some “received wisdom” floating around, you can pretty much guarantee I’m going to reject it.

This is not because I want to play devil’s advocate; it’s just that I don’t believe you. It’s not personal: I just recognise that the most fundamental and unshakeable beliefs by which I define myself are not my own (even deep rooted sub-conscious beliefs are nothing but pre-programmed patterns of thought), and that my mind has been unwittingly corrupted by the unwittingly corrupted minds of all who had a hand in my formation: parents, teachers, society itself. I’m not going to buy into anybody else’s beliefs if I can help it: the last thing I need is to accumulate any more.

So I won’t be signing your petition, attending your march, joining your cult or supporting your cause. I have my own cause, and it is the negation of everything. This might sound nihilistic, but it isn’t.

You see I am the sky: not the clouds that drift across it.

I am the silence: not the noise which is heard within it.

I am the space in which everything is allowed to happen.

I just watch.