I was at a city park with a friend a long time ago. Her son, about six-years-old, climbed to the top of a steep fountain with a stepped waterfall coming from the top. He shouted to his mom to watch him slide down the front of that fountain, which was clearly not going to end well.
I watched, alarmed, assuming my friend would yell and run toward her son to stop him.
But she didn't.
She simply looked at him and said very plainly and without judgment or alarm, "Think about it."
Her son looked around from his high perch and looked down the steep fountain in front of him. Then he nodded to himself and found another way down.
I never forgot that lesson in parenting, for one thing, but it was a lesson in trust, faith, and empowerment most of all.
I'm glad I was there that day.
So, free speech... it's not about freedom
Freedom aside, and I don't say that lightly, the issue with free speech is much deeper.
Simply put, I don't think we should go anywhere near outlawing this or that kind of speech: "misinformation," "hate speech," garden variety stupid shit, things we just don't like someone saying... none of it.
We say we believe in free speech, but then we turn around and say: NOPE! Gotta put a stop to that! People can’t just say whatever they want! We can't have this!
Yeah, we want people to be nice to each other and all, but we can't govern this behavior.
And yeah, we're just trying to keep the place nice—we don't want the world to turn into a dump, but nice on the outside doesn't equal nice on the inside.
Control is a band-aid, not a cure
It's merely force, not lasting change. Controlling the words people say won't solve the problems we're trying to solve.
Yes, words have power. But the real power is in changing hearts, not words. Sustainable change is impossible by way of force.
On a big picture scale, force doesn’t improve energy—we just end up committing all that much more to energy we don’t even like.
And remember, shiny Reader, energy is everything, and everything is energy.
But here's the real problem with control and force
The biggest problem with control as a solution is that it reveals a lack of faith. We need faith—it's not just a religious word. Without faith, what are we even doing all day long... and all-life-long?
This lack of faith comes from fear. Not just fear of bad things happening, but the kind of fear that reveals deep insecurity; deep mistrust of anything at all, let alone someone's words.
If we want to correct the course of something we see going awry, force will only last so long. Then we have to fix the problems that caused. It's an endless pile-up of band-aid solutions, which is largely what we're experiencing in the world now.
But when we have a sense of faith, we can do a whole lot more. When we have a sense of trust and security in something more than our brain's ideas, we can get to the world we really want.
It works like this: outer peace comes from inner peace
When we're ready to walk our talk as peace-seeking, peace-creating humans who aren't just going through the outer motions, we'll fix ourselves from the inside out. We'll begin to wrap up the endless band-aid fixes for good.
We'll teach—and treat—each other differently.
Faith is rooted in love, and love makes the world go around, corny as it sounds. Love isn't just word art and romance. It's the very energy that creates worlds, including the one we're hanging out in.
We choose every day with our every action and attitude what kind of world we want: a world based in fear, or a world based in love.
Force and control are one way—and that’s what we’re trying on for size right now. It's a whole lot of fear.
And love (which requires faith and trust) is another.
As individuals, we can try love out every day when we:
trust our intuition
trust others to run their own life
have faith that the world is not our enemy, but is a our partner in creation.
What we do individually is what we do collectively
This is how we embody the change we want to see in the world.
What we do individually is what we do collectively.
It's an entire change in paradigm. And it's cooperative, not combative or competitive.
And it's how human consciousness is awakening—and we're right here in the thick of it every single day.
Thanks very much for being on the other side of the screen today—
As always, I appreciate you.
Stay shiny, my friend,
Coco
P.S.GO HERE to get a copy of Reclaim Your Mental Property—Guidance for Weary Brain Owners.
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