Day 3 - We’re Clueless!!!

Yesterday I made mayonnaise for the first time. I’ve eaten mayonnaise my whole life. I used to be very peculiar about what foods I liked and which I didn’t and Gabriel, my brother, showed me how, if you just cut up everything in your plate, add mayonnaise and then mash it all together, it suddenly becomes a lot tastier – lol. In all those years, however, I never bothered to find out what mayonnaise is, what’s in it or how it’s made. You buy mayonnaise in the shop, you open it, you eat it – that’s what I knew about it. My grandmother used to make mayonnaise once in a while – I thought that because she’s very skilled with cooking that she can do something like that. For some reason I thought it would be very difficult to make.

So, yesterday I try out a recipe for mayonnaise. I basically had to chuck a very small amount of ingredients in a jug and then mix them together. For the most part, it consisted of egg yolk and vegetable oil. When I saw the ingredients in the jug I was like “huh, how is that ever going to turn out like mayo?'”Anyhow, I continued to follow the recipe’s instructions by first holding the blender to the bottom of the jug and mixing for 15 seconds. Already after a few seconds the ‘liquidy’ mix started turning into a more jelly-like substance. I was like WOOOOW! I had no idea that THAT’s how they made mayonnaise. It was like magic! It was suddenly just there. It took me 2 minutes to make the mayo – and it was pretty damn good too.

What I want to get to is the following: I’m part of a quick-fix generation. We buy stuff and we consume it. Firstly, we have no idea where it comes from, how it’s produced or what the hidden processes and consequences of the products are. Secondly, the idea is created that various things are very difficult to do – just because we don’t know how to do it. We don’t know how to build a house, we don’t know how to fix machines, we don’t know how to tile a floor, we don’t know how to make furniture, we don’t know how to slaughter and process chickens, hell – we don’t even know how to make fucking mayo!

We’re so used to having other people worry about that stuff for us, that we’ve become completely clueless – to the point where we think that the only way that we can eat mayo is to go and buy it in a shop. If I had known how easy and fun it is to make, I would’ve never bought mayo. Why would you choose to buy ‘Miracle Whip’ – when you can just whip up the miracle right in front of you!

And mayo is not the big deal – it’s the fact that we take everything for granted. We just accept the idea that ‘we can’t do it’ or ‘it’s too difficult’ – when it’s really not. If you go and take the time to make your hands dirty and get to know how shit gets done – you become skilled at it and you realise it’s really no biggy. All our lives we’ve been catered for and have really become lazy, oblivious and clueless little creatures. It seems silly, but when I made the mayonnaise I felt so much shame – because this thing that I had been consuming my whole life of which I thought it must take a lot of skill to make, I whipped up in a matter of minutes. It just showed me the extent in which I’ve denied myself the opportunities to be a part of this world by not allowing myself to practically participating in it.

My generation is not a generation of participation – it’s a generation of consumers. We don’t participate in the production process, we don’t participate in anything that has something to do with what makes this physical world go ‘round. Even if our job has something to do with producing particular goods – then those goods is mostly all we know about and everything else remains a big mystery. We’ve completely separated ourselves from the world we live in – limited our existence to being mere consumers of it. Even in the bible it doesn’t say that God left the Earth in the hands of man so that man can consume it – we’re supposed to take care of it, be a part of it – and we’re not.

I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to be a part of this world.

I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to participate in this world.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to limit my existence in this world to that of being a consumer of it, instead of a participant.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to deny myself the opportunity to investigate how the world works, but instead just took everything for granted and counted on others to cater for me, presenting me with everything I need so that I can just consume it.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to be brainwashed into believing that everything that I don’t know about is too hard for me to know, understand or take part in.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to completely separate myself from the world around me – only participating in that which gives me immediate satisfaction.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to see the world as a big mystery and to be content just living my life oblivious in terms of how this world works and what my actions contribute to as consequences manifested from the world.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to take the physical for granted, while the physical has been the one and only consistent thing that has always supported me and that has always supported every single being, no matter who they are, no matter what they do – unconditionally.

I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to learn about and learn from the physical to see how I’m able to improve myself – but instead entertain myself with fleeting thoughts, emotions, feelings, memories, sensations in my mind, looking for interesting experiences, where I reduce myself to but a fleeting moment, a fleeting thought, a fleeting emotion, a fleeting feeling, a fleeting memory or a fleeting sensation – instead of supporting myself to become substantial, consistent, supportive.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to enslave the physical to the mental realm of the mind – utilising what the physical unconditionally provides for the purpose of satisfying my mental desires and wants for the sake of interesting and momentarily satisfying experiences.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to reduce myself to becoming a clueless, oblivious creature.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to limit myself through accepting the belief that I should only investigate how things work when it directly affects my current experience.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to be directed and controlled by experiences and the desire and want for interesting experiences.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to see myself as inferior to the world – thinking and believing that I am but a tiny spec of dust in the big scheme of things and therefore, there is no way that I can ever stand equal and one to the world, there is no way that I can ever understand the world and there is no way that I can ever fully participate in the world.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing comfort to override practical common sense – where I rather buy something that is already made for me – instead of producing the good myself, where I then learn about how the good is produced, what points are involved, where I am completely aware of what the good consists of, where it comes from and where I can ensure that the good is of the best quality possible.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to buy into the claim that capitalism ensures the best quality of goods for the least amount of resources due to competition, instead of realising that profit is the sole goal for agents in capitalism and that a client or consumer’s well-being is of no concern to them.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to enslave myself to the capitalist system, merely through accepting the one belief that “I can’t do it myself”.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to chronically underestimate myself.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to accept the belief that “I can’t do it myself” before even trying or investigating what is involved.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to support slavery and inequality through accepting and allowing the thought and idea that “others can and are willing to make their hands dirty for me – why should I then bother with it?”

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to support the elite in this world through accepting and allowing the attitude within myself that someone else will do things for me and that I must just worry about making myself comfortable.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to immediately go into an anxious reaction whenever I am challenged to do something knew – due to immediately accepting the belief that “I can’t do it'” and “I will fail at it”.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to use the statement “I can’t do it” and “It’s too difficult” as an excuse to not try new things for myself, out of fear of failing.

I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to apply the common sense that I cannot know the outcome of an attempt before having actually attempted it.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear failing and failure.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that someone in the dark is keeping score of my achievements and failures – and that they will determine who I am and where I end up – whether in this life or the next.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear the consequence of getting bad grades.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing the education system to brainwash me into believing that grades and scores determine who I am, what I am capable of and what type of life I will lead.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to – when I try to do my best – to do it out of fear of being judged on something like ‘judgment day’ or ‘karma’ – an invisible authority that will determine my fate – instead of realising that it is common sense to do something to the best of my ability, otherwise I’m just wasting my own time.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to subjugate myself to fear in a moment of being challenged to do something new, wherein I immediately give in to resistance – instead of taking on the challenge as a way to expand and perfect myself.

When and as I see myself feeling intimidated by something unknown – I stop, I breathe – I realise that the experience of intimidation stems from the mere belief that everything that is unknown is somehow bigger than me. Instead – I direct myself to stand equal and one to the point in the unknown, so that it becomes known, so that it is here as me – and from there I move as it, equal and one, a real participant in the world.

When and as I see myself being lazy and thinking that someone else can do it for me – I stop, I breathe – I realise that I am diminishing myself in that moment as well as supporting the entire construct of elite versus slaves in the world. Instead, I move myself to address the issue at hand myself – moving myself to participate and take responsibility for the point that presented itself in that moment.

When and as I see myself taking things for granted – I stop, I breathe – I realise that, through taking it for granted, I have separated myself from it. Instead, I move myself to investigate the particular point and in a way incorporate it into myself, as myself and I allow myself to be grateful for what is here as unconditional support form the physical, as well as seeing how I can apply in and for myself what the physical is doing automatically.