Thursday 18 December 2014

The Parable of the Elephant



The Parable of the Elephant by Omar Cherif, One Lucky Soul

 
 We are as free as much as we believe to be.
 
 
You know the mahout, or the person who handles and trains an elephant from its early years, uses a light chord attached to the young animal's hind leg to teach them that they are chained. As the elephants grow and get much larger and stronger, because they are conditioned that they aren't free, they never try to break the chains or run away, even though it wouldn't require any effort to do so. It's all a mental process.

What happens to populations which have been kept in submission for too long is quite similar. They don't even know what freedom is. So they prefer ― out of conditioning and out of fear of the unknown ― to remain as they always were...chained to their fetters.

Conversely, if we look around us, we’ll realise that those who truly appreciate freedom the most are ones who have experienced — and survived — not having it. That’s why some ex-slaves, ex-addicts, ex-convicts, ex-husbands/wives can be so full of life. This brings us to “Eleutheromania” and “Eleutherophilia”; both describe a certain mania or frantic zeal for freedom. For those who have walked through the fire of their own hell and survived it tend to leave sparks of light wherever they go.

Others who did not go through such traumatic experiences — and hence have not had the opportunity to take their inner darkness out towards the light — seem to take freedom for granted. Despite the high likelihood that they themselves may not be fully free in the ultimate sense of the word. Still, however, the everyday individual does not think about the concept much if they had never found themselves losing their very freedom, at least for a certain period of time.




“Those who do not move, do not notice their chains.”
― Rosa Luxemburg



ALSO VIEW:

The Parable of the Cow: You Are Not Your Thoughts


What Nomad Lions Can Teach Us About Growing Through Life
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