So in conclusion - what is all this Freelancing about? Is it just another way of working?
Yes it is but it can also be more. Much more. It can be how we change the world. For we know now that real change comes not from ideas but from how lives are lived. America was an idea. But when enough people moved there, it became a force that has affected the whole world.
This is what is I think is the meaning of Freelancing. If enough of us go there. If enough of us create a world where we we have control and where we are less dependent on the system, then we create a new world inside the old.
The New New World no longer demands that we cross an ocean of water but an ocean of culture.
In going to this new world, we also take on the life of adventure that the early settlers did. For any man or woman who leaves "home" has begun the "hero's journey". We commit to adventure.
The humble Hobbits leave the Shire and take on the forces of darkness. It is they, not the warrior or the magician, that wins the final battle. The young girl has faith in the the Black Horse. None of the experts agree with her. So she rides Black Beauty herself to victory. Luke looks up into the night sky at his unhappy home on a barren planet and yearns for a larger life.
Of course we know that we could never be like them!
Or could we?
There is no great struggle out there that little me can be part of surely?
When I first started Freelancing, I saw the work and myself still in the old mold of how work was when I was employed. I largely did the same work. I looked for the money as a priority. I stayed working on the same old things. I thought that I was weird but thought that the world was OK.
But as time passed, I began to find see the Dark riders on the Skyline. I started to feel that I was not the one who was mad. Instead, I started to question the sanity of the world around me. The call is out there if you listen.
Like Luke Skywalker, or like Frodo, I could sense that dark forces were becoming stronger.
Of course the dark forces represent the very culture that I had had to leave. Back in 1994, few could see this. but today many can see that our institutions are fatally flawed.
Look at what is happening to the British Parliament right now. Look at how the bailout helps Wall Street but does nothing for people. Look how no one in power will admit to the issue of Peak Oil. Look how vulnerable we are with only 3 days of food in the local system. It seems that no one in power will face the real issues that confront us because that will mean that their institutions will lose.
We have been told that only institutions can decide our fate. We can't have paid work without them. We cannot raise our kids. We cannot have a house or food. We cannot be well. We cannot be safe. We cannot be happy without them. We are told that they all exist for our good. We believe that we are helpless without them.
This was the message of the church before the reformation. That salvation and our soul could only be assured if the church intervened. Luther's response was that our souls belonged only to us and that we could work directly with God for our salvation.
What happened to the church in the 14th century has happened to our own institutions. They serve now themselves and not us.
This is indeed a time of struggle. A time when it becomes vital to reclaim our power. It is a time when the stakes are higher than ever before. For now the fate of the entire human race is at stake. If we continue as we are, we are condemned.
But breaking free from our traditional view of reality is going to be very very difficult.
For the system that controls all of this is very powerful.
Even more challenging, this is like the Matrix. For we have become so encultured that most of us cannot even consider another reality. The real enemy is us!
The block is the prevailing institutional mindset. We are so indoctrinated that we are the capos in the camp.
But now the impotence of the system is being exposed. Doubts are rising in many people.
Like the time of Luther, authentic leaders are emerging. The evidence of what is happening is more clear to more people. The web is empowering the discussions and the sharing of ideas and evidence.
Being a Freelancer, is part of this shift. For as more of us find that we can control our own time, our own money and what we chose to do, the less control that the old system has over us.
I think that we Freelancers are in a way like the early immigrants to the New World. We get up in the morning and have breakfast and so on as all others do, but in reality we inhabit a New World.
As the failures and the corruption of the old world becomes more obvious, more will come here to this new world of Freelancers who are FREE either by choice or they will have been exiled here.
I think it will be the Freelancers who will tip the system.
We will live in a low intensity and low energy way
We will depend less and less upon the old system
We will grow food in a new way.
We will offer our kids a different "education".
We will help each other be healthy.
We will work with each other to keep us all informed.
We will in effect create a new real world
When there are enough of us doing this, then the system will tip.
But of course, the Heroes journey, is not smooth nor is it safe. But with the trials comes the Fellowship, the Sisterhood, the Brotherhood and the connection at the heart that offers the Hero the support that makes it all worth while - even if we don't live to see the result.
Joseph Campbell, the man who restored our knowledge of the Mono Myth will close this short series with my favorite quote:
"....... we have not even to risk the adventure alone; for the heroes of all time have gone before us; the labyrinth is thoroughly known; we have only to follow the thread of the heropath.
And where we had thought to find an abomination, we shall find a god; where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves; where we had thought to travel outward, we shall come to the centre of our existence; where we had thought to be alone, we shall be with all the world."
