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One big nuthouse…

Rozengeur&Prikkeldraad

What we call thinking is actually neurosis.”

Real thoughts are clear, spontaneous, like bubbles that well up in a pond. They are free from fear and anxiety. They are practical, effective. When you simply are, all is natural. Frantic thoughts are impossible, as well as anxiousness, aversion or greed, but only in your natural state. In your ego state you are ignorance, there is fear and fragmentation, et cetera. There you have lost contact with totality (though that is exactly what it is).

Sometimes everything comes to a standstill. There is no forward and no backward. There is also nothing you can do.

Cool night air enters the room. It is half past five in the morning and far away you can hear the traffic swell. Because it is still early in the year there are no birds that animate the near silence with their singing. Coffee tastes like never before. It’s almost completely still, inside as well. There really aren’t any specific feelings, nor thoughts. Words appear on the screen in a flow.

Nut house. It is one big nut house. Do you realize when you go see a doctor, that he is just as crazy as everyone else, infected just as well by the paranoia everyone suffers from? That the same goes for the car mechanic, the school teacher and the lawyer? That every moment about anything can happen, while you keep thinking everyone you meet is mentally sane…?

Nuts. Everyone. To a greater or lesser extent everybody is traumatized, everybody. Life is a series of traumatic experiences, starting in the womb, and as a first highlight our birth. Nobody fully recovers from it. And after our birth we fall into the hands of the biggest traumatized nutcases ever: parents, who have also been raised by crazy people, and who flood us with their insane moods and fear based convictions.

All are blind and deaf for what is natural. Out of fear for not fitting in, out of fear for not believing the same limited, restricting ideas as everyone else, whatever once was free and natural is constricted and distorted in no time. Over time we then become tied down in our being by disturbing scenes, disappointing episodes, fights, booze and verbal, psychological and physical abuse (yeah, what’s wrong with a slap every now and then). And whatever remained free or natural is unintentionally ruined at the various schools we have to attend.

Force fed as we then are with mediocre ideas, herded with others our age, day after day, year after year, until there is no fire left, or until we become some kind of outcast because we cannot or will not participate. But then of course there are still the police or the mental health sector. Those will once again try to make us comply with the standard madness we have learned to see as normal.

Friendships and relations are a factor as well. Betrayal, lies, manipulation and abuse (mutual agreed) come standard, and thus we become ever more paralyzed, except maybe for the few who open their eyes and with consternation realize that the world is indeed one big nut house.

Awakening sounds nice, but has it occurred to you that it means you will no longer be able to close your eyes for the fact that everyone you meet is crazy? Because when you take a closer look, really feel and listen, you will find that everyone you know is bursting with weird characteristics, as much as you try to think they are OK or sane.

Most people can’t be left alone for one afternoon, without radio, computer or TV. Many smoke, drink, drug and eat their way to their death. Almost everyone is a shopaholic and tries to comply with the standard values of the herd. And almost everyone suffers from stress, relational problems (including with parents) and problems at work. Barely anyone is happy, almost no one shines.

When you take a look around, you see the walking results of repressed despair, clinging to a belief system that has never been explored. The first person was abused, the second beaten, the third has been abandoned several times, the fourth is extremely agitated, the fifth is very competitive and the sixth is very lonely. Others are afraid to commit or too shy to look you in the eye, while others punch you in the face when you look at them. Or when drunk some will tear a place up or do other stuff which later they are quick to rationalize. And spiritual folks belief in god knows what and hold on to bizarre theories because ordinary religion doesn’t suffice anymore to live this meaningless life. And all day long nothing but information, truckloads of information for our brain. And although we don’t really need it, it’s extremely suitable for keeping the fear machine running.

Everyone is captured. Everyone is seized by a false self-image. Holding on, continuing until we succumb. And every now and again something extraordinary occurs, something from another level. Which then becomes ever the more reason for us to hold on and do our best to let things stay the same, to ensure our safety, while we secretly hope for this divine ecstatic moment to come again, to lift us up, high above the boredom of everyday life. But not too high, because if we can’t play along anymore, we are out, and that would be a disaster. Because ‘out’ is bad.

Therefore all nutcases in this big institution of ours pretend to have everything under control and to be sane. But when you take a closer look, you see the desperation, the forced beliefs, the doubt, the horror. When you ask someone a few real questions, his beliefs soon fall apart and you are sure of some kind of immature reaction.

Almost nobody really believes what he or she pretends to believe. The ones that shout the loudest that they do, are the ones that fear the most. The more fanatic the believer, the more insecure he is. The most respectable and decent people often are the most anxious and secretly perform the weirdest things, which you would never expect because you are convinced everyone is mentally sane as well as honest, except for the few nut jobs who spend their days in special institutions.

You keep thinking you are dealing with full-fledged human beings, right? Well, be aware when you go see a doctor, call the plumber, meet your sister-in-law or go to the baker, that what’s inside of them reflects in everything they do: their pain, their separation from their feelings, their loneliness, perversities, frustrations, troubled relations, money problems, need for recognition, perfectionism (or lack of it). Everything reflects in everything. Strange so much is going wrong, right?

No, it is strange we keep expecting things to go right. That’s what’s really strange. It’s strange we get all wound up when once again someone didn’t do their job properly, trains are cancelled, an airplane crashes or when a bank director, CEO or politician turns out greedy or a sex-addict or whatever. It’s strange we think that’s strange, that’s what I say. People are blind when they keep thinking everything is so strange and peculiar. We live in a nut house, everyone is damaged, can’t you see?

Damaged and poisoned as well. Greed (and/or competition) is an inextricable part of our upbringing, just like competition and cleverness. Doing business is often nothing but a legit way of ripping people off. In this world it is OK to sell poisoned goods (worldwide!), to deliver a service that’s rubbish or to produce stuff that doesn’t do anything or gets broken in no time at all. Every day you are tricked, right in front of your nose, eyes open seeing nothing. And sometimes something or someone doesn’t do what it or he is supposed to do, and then you are shocked?

Open your eyes, everyone is mental. Whoever realizes this can stop being surprised all the time, or hurt, or dissapointed. Look, listen and feel! See it’s all madness and don’t expect anything better. That makes it sort of OK. For the record: people are not evil, they are just badly informed nutcases. That’s all.

So don’t worry, nothing is under control 🙂

This is a translation of a chapter of Hans Laurentius 2014 book: Rose Petals & Barbed Wire… (Rozengeur & Prikkeldraad – Samsara Books 2014) – Translated by Jan Joost Schouten.

You can download the whole book translation HERE – for free.

Ja, ik doe mee!