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Yesterday as I walked with the dog through an almost-empty high street, a chap parked close to one the cash machines.   I have done that many times myself.  What I haven’t done is, after getting my cash, a three-point turn to go back the wrong way along the one-way high street.  Nor had this gentleman I suspect.

Right now, there are many more “rules” than usual.  And most rules require us to obey them for the good of all.  Yet so much “for the good of all” I can choose to believe is “for the bad of me”.

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It crossed my mind as I walked home (re-running the one-way incident with my own self-righteous commentary) that we are all in our little prisons.

All the rule-keepers … the rule breakers … the extroverts and introverts … the employed and now not-employed … the rich and poor … the famous and anonymous …

We are all the same!  We are all prisoners of our own beliefs.

And yet, because those beliefs keep changing, we choose to think we are free (unlike those who believe differently from us).  Yet if we are as free as we like to think we are – why the huge emotional turmoil on the rise right now … the groundswell of concern for “mental well-being” … ?

We mostly hate routine (allegedly), we mostly hate being in a rut (allegedly), mostly hate the 9-5 drudgery (ditto) … resent how the weekends fly-by …  point (invisibly) at the arrogant-shits amongst us … moan at all the “mindless-sheep” getting in my way …

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And yet – take away routine … the rut … the 9-5 … and I think we are ALL in a bubble of our own beliefs.   I am beginning to think we always are and always have been.  I wonder if we choose our prison of beliefs – our own little belief bubbles – that we cannot live without them.  Because I look around and see few living “freely” as we like to think we live.

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Just see how “in-person worship” (which is hard evidence of how truly “in and of this world” we ALL are) has been replaced by internet-virtual-streaming-services-that-are-new-but-exactly-the-same-as-before to satisfy the belief rule need to “worship”.  I wonder how different are those who “need” to break the driving-rule from those who “need” to keep the worship rule – how different are those saved from those not.  Maybe we all love rules – it’s just that we break some to keep others (of our own or a higher power).

And – perhaps – because right now there are so many “new rules” we all need to find the ones we can break (or keep) in order to believe we are still free.  Like “removing obstacles”.

The phrase came from a young starlet being interviewed.

She talked of how fame impacts on one unfamiliar with fame.   How fame removes the obstacles we know as “normal living”.  How “the team” around the person of fame is paid to remove “obstacles”.  Obstacles that we un-famous people know as that word “no”.  Obstacles (the word “no”) that the team make into the word “yes” – make the obstacle of “you can’t” into the “reality” of you can – make “that’s a problem” into not a problem at all!  And all without any awareness in the person of fame.  Hello, the belief bubble of fame.  A bubble that becomes its own belief bubble prison like any other belief bubble.

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We don’t thrive as human beings without “obstacles” to overcome.

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Or the community to overcome them

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What this new normal is teaching me is that we all weave belief bubbles around ourselves and call it freedom.  That we DO have so much more in common than we have difference.  But more than anything, this new normal is teaching me …

LOVE is the greatest of these.

Love is beyond rules and law.  Rules and law are the result of “love” made transactional and conditional.  Love we (saved and non-saved alike) dismiss.  Dismiss “Love God, neighbour, self” even as we worship the words OR think them just another dry, dusty, religious rule.

Love allows whereas beliefs disallow.

Love isn’t about belief.

And if you come within six feet to disagree with me – then what does that say about you?  😊

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