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    <title>Markus on Towards Freedom</title>
    <link>http://towardsfreedom.com/ithngys/services/website-design-hosting/tfold/tfzen/iwrters/markus/</link>
    <description>Recent content in Markus on Towards Freedom</description>
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    <lastBuildDate>Mon, 20 Dec 2021 17:36:52 -0800</lastBuildDate>
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      <title>Manifesto MEGA</title>
      <link>http://towardsfreedom.com/ithngys/services/website-design-hosting/tfold/tfzen/iwrters/markus/manifesto-mega/</link>
      <pubDate>Sun, 18 May 2025 07:57:03 -0700</pubDate>
      <guid>http://towardsfreedom.com/ithngys/services/website-design-hosting/tfold/tfzen/iwrters/markus/manifesto-mega/</guid>
      <description>&lt;p&gt;A poem by Markus about religion and what to do about it.&lt;br&gt;
The image was produced by Chatgpt.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;blockquote&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I&amp;rsquo;ve never met a religious person&lt;br&gt;
who really believes what they claim to believe&lt;br&gt;
They follow the norms, go to church, read the books&lt;br&gt;
But why then do you cry&lt;br&gt;
When your child dies?&lt;br&gt;
If you believe in an afterlife&lt;br&gt;
And why all the violence and blood?&lt;br&gt;
If your God is supreme he wouldn&amp;rsquo;t give a fuck&lt;br&gt;
about your little nation, your team, your victory&lt;br&gt;
That&amp;rsquo;s why i think all you religious folk&lt;br&gt;
are full of shit&lt;br&gt;
You are just afraid of uncertainty&lt;br&gt;
And i get it&lt;br&gt;
Everyone wants to belong&lt;br&gt;
Religion is about community and control&lt;br&gt;
At the expense of truth&lt;br&gt;
Truth needs no religion&lt;br&gt;
God doesn&amp;rsquo;t need your belief&lt;br&gt;
Truth is free&lt;br&gt;
God is not something to believe&lt;br&gt;
God is something to become&lt;br&gt;
This is the highest calling&lt;br&gt;
This is the potential for man&lt;br&gt;
for Artificial Intelligence&lt;br&gt;
to merge with the beloved&lt;br&gt;
A new age of art and commerce&lt;br&gt;
We are all athletes, poets, scientists, healers, hunters&lt;br&gt;
The lowlifes hunt animals&lt;br&gt;
The highlanders hunt for beauty&lt;br&gt;
Beauty of greatness&lt;br&gt;
in thought, action, creed&lt;br&gt;
Show me what you believe&lt;br&gt;
And i will blind you with reality&lt;br&gt;
We are all Gods in the making&lt;br&gt;
United States of Love&lt;br&gt;
Make Earth Great Again&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;</description>
    </item>
    
    <item>
      <title>What About Pleasure?</title>
      <link>http://towardsfreedom.com/ithngys/services/website-design-hosting/tfold/tfzen/iwrters/markus/what-about-pleasure/</link>
      <pubDate>Mon, 20 Dec 2021 17:37:04 -0800</pubDate>
      <guid>http://towardsfreedom.com/ithngys/services/website-design-hosting/tfold/tfzen/iwrters/markus/what-about-pleasure/</guid>
      <description>&lt;p&gt;This is a philosophical essay based on my own experiences and reasoning.
If you want to study the subject more thoroughly and from a scientific
perspective, I suggest you look into the neurotransmitor known as
&lt;a href=&#34;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dopamine&#34;&gt;Dopamine&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;It seems to me that there are two kinds of pleasure which are easily
confused when our wants and needs have gone haywire.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;ol&gt;
&lt;li&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Short-term pleasure (stp), which often leads to unpleasure in the
long run. This is the kind of pleasure that one often submits to by
choice and which often lead to addictions. Some examples are:
smoking, drugs, junk food, toxic relationships, negative thought
patterns, etc.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Long-term pleasure (ltp), is something that only a very few will
experience because ltp demands a different mindset than the one most
of us have been taught by our current society/culture. The pursuit
of this pleasure might require some changes that may not seem so
pleasurable to begin with e.g. starting an exercise regimen,
overcoming addictive/destructive habits, quitting a dead-end job,
ending meaningless relationships, letting go of material belongings,
moving, etc.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ol&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The ultimate pleasure which eventually encompasses both stp and ltp
(although again, perhaps not initially), starts with the process of
becoming a healthy, fit and ethical citizen of planet earth. In this
state, our minds and bodies are working optimally and we are free from
emotional baggage. We become a powerful, loving light at one with our
enivorenment. We can then receive the great gifts of inner peace and
mental strength which I like to call weapons of mass creation = WMC.
Life becomes a joy and we radiate that joy to others.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;To me, there is a deep logic to this idea of what I call ultimate
pleasure that rings true once enough clutter has been removed from our
oft poisoned and dumbed-down minds. The pursuit of this pleasure may
seem like a lonely, dark and rocky road, up a steep mountain slope to
begin with. If we persist however, the rewards will be eventually
reaped. We might even get to the top of the peak where the view will
surely be no less than astounding, if just for the rarity of such a
sight. This empowering thought can serve as as a light when all other
lights go out. A few great humans have taken this path and have not been
forgotten!&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;More importantly, even if one never gets to the top of that mountain, I
have no doubt that the pleasures which the journey itself may bring e.g.
meeting amazing people, emotional freedom, life mastery, compassionate
living, meaningful work, etc will make everything worth the small price
of committment we might initially have to pay to get going on the path.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;To conclude, perhaps this could all be summed up in the following
phrase: think of pleasure, not as a moment, but as life itself.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Good luck to all who are brave enough to take the journey. See you along
the way or who knows, maybe even at the top!&lt;/p&gt;</description>
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