My Story

Chapter 2 A Young Adult

I was a coward and I knew it. I knew that maybe with some discipline I could overcome my cowardliness. I saw the movie, "The Green Beret" with John Wayne and I wanted to be courageous as I imagined John Wayne was. I had visions of being a hero.

I also believed in my country and I believed in my leaders when they said that we needed to resist the communist movement. The domino theory made sense to me. Therefore, the week after graduating from high school I joined the army. I was looking forward to the adventure of the military and the GI Bill to put me through college.

From the moment we got off the bus at the military base the drill sergeants were on us, commanding, yelling, ordering or just plain trying to intimidate us. I had been a Boy Scout and had had a father that was in the military so I kind of was prepared for the onslaught of discipline. We were ordered around, taught to obey and conform. They would scream at us and find things "wrong" with us so that they could order us to do pushup or other physically uncomfortable task that would engrain the discipline into the very cells of our body. They wanted us to instantly respond to their orders. We were taught to fear them.

I could see that this was good discipline for me. I could not see why. Later I could see that this was very good training in overcoming our fear of words. We were not allowed the luxury of reacting emotionally to the mean words that the drill sergeants would yell at us. We had to develop emotional self mastery. But I did not realize this at the time.

For some reason, and I am not sure I remember why, I was put into an accelerated program for basic training. For the last three weeks of Basic Training I went to a leadership school. The only thing I can remember from this leadership school was a class taught by a captain in which we were subjected to his abusive discipline. For about half an hour we had to come back in and out of the classroom supposedly until we got it "right", which meant that we filed in and out of the class in the "proper" order. But no matter how we came into the classes he would find something wrong with it and would berate us and screen at our student leaders. After about a half an hour of this abuse he finally stopped and in a relaxed manor had up file in and sit down. Then he proceeded to tell us that there was nothing "wrong" with us only that he was trying to show us that we do not need to follow all the orders of our superiors if they are abusive or morally "wrong".

The captain talked about the trials of Nuremberg where the Nazis leaders of World War II were tried for the atrocities or crimes that they committed during the war at the behest of higher ups. The lessons of that trial were that leaders can be wrong and it is our duty to question their authority if we believe or feel that what they are telling us to do it morally wrong.

As children we are not taught this. In the military we are not taught this (unless we get into this special school for leader). We are not taught this in the churches or the religious institutions. And I bet there is no parent in the country that would tell their children to question their authority and stand up to them if we feel that they are wrong. Have you ever heard any authority tell you that? I know of no place in our culture where we are encouraged to question the authorities and to disobey them if we believe they are wrong.

This was a very important lesson for me and one that I wish all people could have. We should learn that we are responsible for our behavior, even if it is obeying orders of some authority. Then there would be no Holocausts, Johnstown massacres or immoral wars.

In 1972 my unit was trained to assist the police in riot control for the Democrat and Republican Party conventions that we both to be held in Miami, Florida that year. The government was pretty intimidated by the riots at the 1968 conventions and Nixon did not want to see that repeated.

While in the riot control training I started to question what I was doing. I did not join the army to fight Americans. So I mustered up the courage to tell my commanding officer that I was not willing to fight Americans. He told me that if I refused to obey a legal order that I would be court-martialed. He suggested that I go along for the ride and that there was very little chance that we would be used in Miami. He was right and I was never challenged to refuse an order to fight Americans.

I went to Ranger school where we were emotionally and physically brutalized then expected to still operate in a leadership way. Ranger school in more a mental challenge than a physical one, but it was very challenging. I learned the power of concentration and how I could overcome my exhaustion and pain to still carry on.

While in Ranger school we went through a lot of depravation. At times we were deprived of enough food to keep us sane. I remember one time I imagined that hot dogs and ice cream cones were attacking me. I knew that they were not real but I saw them as clearly as I saw the trees around me. My logical mind prevailed even though my emotional mind was creating this illusion. I realized just how much an unhealthy body and mind can deceived me. This opened a place in my mind for doubt or skepticism toward the images in my mind.

I was in the army during the Vietnam War. I had a desire to go to Vietnam and get involved in the fight. It was not a desire to kill anybody or be killed. It was a desire to test myself in combat, in the baptism of fire. I wanted to have my life on the line. I wanted to see if I had to courage in the face of death. Luckily I never made it into combat. I say luckily but I still feel some desire to find out how I would react.

The skills I gained in Ranger school helped me overcome some of my cowardliness. I no longer felt intimidated by people who pushed at me physically. Nor did I have any desire to bully people. I just felt confident in a physical way. Also, several times I had questioned my commanders and the way things were. I did not always prevail but I did gain the confidence to question authorities.

The army taught me self discipline; the self discipline of not reacting to everything people say and the self discipline of not reacting to my own inner thoughts of weakness. I no longer felt like a coward. Discipline had given me the inner strength to confront my fears and move through them.

After discovering discipline I discovered that I could change myself. The more I changed myself the more I could improve the quality of my life experience. I had no idea how much I could change myself only that self improvement was possible. I could raise above my limitations.

After the army I worked for the forest service on a fire crew. I quickly noticed that I did not get along well with my crew mates. I had started with a clean slate for nobody knew me. I was just being me, but I was an asshole.

One day when I was walking through town I saw a magazine at a news stand. The cover of the magazine (Psychology Today) had a picture of an angry young man and the title of the cover article was "The Abrasive Personality." I immediately recognized myself in that picture and title.

I realized I was my own worst enemy.

College was another step in that process of changing myself. I was the first person in my family to go to and graduate from college. It was not part of my personal family culture to improve myself with education. Most of the people I met in college came from families where there were at least encouraged to go to college to improve themselves and their lot in life. I received none of that at home. I wanted more than what my parents had been.

I wanted to raise above my class or caste. I wanted to raise above my culture and breeding. I wanted to transcend the limitation that the rest of my family and society were trapped by. I wanted to transcend my identification with my culture and its perceptions. I was a product of my family, breeding and culture so I wanted to transcend myself. I did not know this then but I can see how the seeds of change were with me a long time ago.

While in college I took many courses in psychology, mostly just trying to understand myself. Psychology helped me realize that I was not that unique and I wondered is somebody had studied people like me and knew how to 'fix' me. A glimmer of hope arose.

I found that psychology help me a lot. Yet, after I graduated from college I still found myself troubled with life. I still needed some answers to some deep questions about life. I still did not feel I was prepared for what life offered me. Again, I felt my education was lacking.

College only prepared me for the business world of making money. It did not prepare me to emotionally handle that world. There was no emotional self mastery training in college. My mind was a little sharper and I was not as gullible as I had been in high school, but I was still susceptible to emotional con games.

One of the most valuable class I had in all my college experience was one in the business school on Organizational Behavior. We learned how to deal with people in the organizations that we would eventually work in. We learned how personalities and politics can effect not just the bottom line but the quality of our experience their.

In another extremely valuable class called Group Dynamics we watched our own behavior, meaning we watched how we reacted with one another in the class as we were presented with various challenging situations or topics to discuss.

I particularly remember the discussion about Power in the class. It was near the end of the term. The class was so big that we had to divide into two discussion groups. We worked with this group the whole class time. When the topic of power came up we were asked to stand up and put ourselves in a row with the most powerful ones at one end and the least powerful at the other end. Each of us could move ourselves or others around until we all came to consensus on the order. In this process there was no argument or discussion on who was most powerful: I was.

For a long time I tried to understand why I was perceived as the most powerful. What was power? Obviously the only power I had was the power of words, but what words did I have or use that caused me to have power? Or what manor of speaking did I have that was perceived as powerful? And if I was so powerful then why did I not have more friends? I did not get these answers for many years.

At twenty three, while still in college, I decided to force myself to overcome my fear of people by running for political office. I had met a woman younger than I who was elected to the city council in her town, so I was inspired to run.

I had felt a strong pull to the political world ever since the army and my experience with the political conventions in Florida. I wanted to get involved. I started to attend the local city council meetings and started to get to know those involved.

Campaigning was VERY scary for me. I did not like getting up in front of groups of people at all. I was ok with reaching out the individuals and giving them a printed card about me, but I was not interested in going to meetings and talking about the issues.

Of the eleven of us that ran for the six seats available I was seventh, by 242 votes. The guy who beat me spent thousands of dollars on his race and I only spent about one hundred and fifty.

Later I was downright glad that I lost for I was free to continue with my education. And I was also happy with myself for making the effort to go out and do something that terrified me.

I was a television addict. As a kid I watched it all the time. I used it as a substitute for the life that I wanted to live but was too lazy or cowardly to go out and find it. When I was in the army one of the first things I bought was a television, with a remote control so that I did not have to get up to change the channel. I was lazy.

I was twenty two before I went on my first date because I was to cowardly to reach out to anyone, to afraid of the rejection that it offered. So I would retreat to my room and my television. In my heart I hated television but was very attached to it.

When I left Bend, Oregon to go to Oregon State University in Corvallis I knew that I had to get rid of that mind numbing box. So I gave it to my brother. I should have destroyed it.

I could not believe the freedom that not having a television offered me. All of the sudden I had a life. I would go out and explore the world around me instead of just allowing a small part of it in my room.

Entertainment is an exchange for inner attainment, for inner accomplishment. I did not grow with entertainment but I have grown with inner attainment. The more time I spent on myself the greater the opportunity I had to fulfill my hearts desires. I wanted to develop my personality so that I could have friends and lovers.

I find that people who are stuck, like I was, usually have some form of entertainment to distract them from growing where they want to go. People living in poverty tend to always have a television even if they do not have food. Television is a big part of stuck people's lives.

I had, like most people, believed that I was separate from everybody else. My experience of me or my experience of sensation ended at the end of my body. I could not feel beyond my body so that was the end of who I was. That 'belief' was challenged one day while working for the City Parks Department creating a new park.

I had been working on building this park for many months. We had planted new seed for the lawn and were nurturing it along with regular watering and keeping people off it. We had lots of signs up to say keep off the lawn. I had just this day put in a new jungle gym set for the kids to pay on and the neighborhood kids had already discovered it. They were thoroughly enjoying it and since I was on my lunch break I was thoroughly enjoying the kids enjoyment.

Then, all of a sudden, I felt this tremendous pain (or something) and instantly turned around to see a man walking across the new grass (that was just sprouting up). He was about one hundred and fifty feet from me so there is no way that I could have heard him walking back there. I FELT the pain of the grass that I had planted and nurtured for so long. I can not explain what happened in any other way.

This did not make sense to me because my belief was that I ended at my skin. How could I feel something that was beyond my skin? But I HAD experienced something beyond my belief of what was physically possible.

This created doubt in my beliefs. I started by questioning the authority of my own beliefs. After this I started to question my emotions.

On a couple of occasions I practiced various emotions that had little or nothing to do with the situation outside of me. I remember practicing frustration one day and really getting into it until a co-worker came up, recognizing something was 'wrong' and broke my 'spell'. I was only getting into the feeling of this emotion, I was not frustrated. Another time I practiced feeling anger with no particular object or reason for the anger. It was interesting to see that I did not need a reason to experience these pure emotions without any intellectual or mental motivations for them. (It did not even occur to me to practice or experiment with positive emotions. That thought never came into my mind.)

This made me question the pain I was causing to the grass that I would sit on. I actually asked the grass if I was hurting it. Of course, it did not speak up and answer me. But I did get an answer in the form of an image. I saw how I enjoyed having a child sitting on my knee. As long as the child was not going to say there for a long time or do any harm to me then I actually enjoyed the experience. I could see that the lawn could handle me sitting on it for short periods of time. I sensed it even enjoy me presents.

I also once asked a carrot how it felt about me eating it. I got the impression that it was willing to sacrifice itself for something greater than itself, something like a soldier willing to die for his country.

There was something else that the carrot communicated to me that I did not get. I guess I was too stupid, arrogant, self-centered or too unbelieving of what I was experiencing to get or understand this. There was this sense of appreciation for me acknowledging the sacrifice the carrot had made.

Later, I do not know when, I remember thinking about being taught to say grace before a meal. We were taught to be grateful for the food that we have. I could see how other people had felt the same thing or possibly something like it. But at the time I was too stupid to grasp these kinds of things. I had to put them out of my head. These type of thoughts were too far out and too extreme for me to even think. I never would have talked about this with anyone because they would have thought me crazy (as many probably reading this will). But this book is about being honest with myself and with the world so …

Much later, I remembered reading where Jesus demonstrated some level of communication with plants when he cursed the fig tree. But Jesus only demonstrated hateful communication. (Matthew 21:19)

In college one day I came across a car that had a bumper sticker that simply read, Question Authority. (The period at the end was exaggeratedly large.) The owner of the vehicle and I eventually became best of friends.

I was into questioning authority, PERIOD. I could see that ultimately ALL authority is corruption. For authority is the power to extract obedience or command behavior from others. I do not want anyone to have that kind of power over me. If I are insecure I would allow it for fear that I will not be able to take care of myself. But it is not my deepest desire to be controlled by anyone.

My deepest desire is to be free.

I started questioning all authority after that. I would ask why I should believe these authorities, why should I follow then instructions, why should I react to their words, their instructions or what-have-you.

I got more involved in the political world. I found the Republican Party seemed to have a similar dislike of government and its potential for oppressing people. So I got involved with several political campaigns.

I guess you could say that I was pretty conservative. I was afraid of government, afraid of authority, afraid of women, afraid of people different than myself and afraid of life in general. That fear made me want to hold back, to take the conservative route. When I looked at my country or where I saw humanity going I saw everything as very dark. I was very pessimistic.

In 1976 I worked on Ronald Reagan's primary campaign. I traveled around the state with him on his visit to Oregon and listened to him speak to several groups. I became dismayed with his lack of idealism when I heard him tell each group different and usually contrary things. He was lying to win votes from gullible people. I had believed so strongly in him. I guess I had been gullible and shallow too.

I was idealistic. I wanted a leader to believe in. America had just lost the Vietnam war (or should I say, we had finally realized we were wrong in that war.) I had believed in my country and the ideals that it stood for. But I was beginning to see that the ideals were not as important as the pragmatism that was running the country. Politics is pragmatism. To get elected to office you have to tell people what they want to hear, not what you believe or feel is true. I realized I needed to look deeper than the 30 second sound bites I got from the campaign or from the news. I could see that all Reagan wanted was power and that he was willing to do anything to get it.

I started to question all the political world with the same new skepticism. I found politics and government very dishonest, manipulative, oppressive and abusive. This created a fear and hatred in me of government, further contracting me down and creating another box or cage for me to live in.

I had a lot of animosity and hatred for government or politics. This hatred was eating my up inside. It was killing me. My world was in my head of ideals, concepts and beliefs. Being an idealist, anything that did not fit within the confines of my rigid ideals was evil, bad or wrong so I hated it. Hatred hurts, but I was numb to what it was doing to me.

I was just so angry at the political situation in America and the rest of the world that I wanted to fight and kill somebody. I was headed for an early grave and I finally came to realize it.

I decided to let go of politics. I let go of reading the newspapers and listen to the radio news. I let go of any political connections I had. I stopped voting. I stopped getting involved in political discussions. I dropped out of the political world. I realized I had to go deeper than my political awareness. I had to go deeper than blaming the world for my woes.

I wanted to change society. But I started to see that was we needed to change ourselves first before our society could change. AND, I realized that meant I must start with myself.

I wanted to go to college and get an education even through nobody in my family had graduated from college. I also recognized that I needed to develop myself emotionally. I was, after all, a coward. I had had a pretty sheltered life so was not prepared for variety, the spice of life. I needed to be emotionally disciplined and challenged.

I had learned that we develop ourselves intellectually through education's challenging and stimulating environment. We develop ourselves emotionally through exposure to differences and nonconformity. When we are in challenging situations we have to get a grip on our emotional response to the situation. We develop ourselves physically through exercise. Once we develop ourselves physically, emotionally and intellectually then we are ready to develop ourselves spiritually by developing our ability to appreciate, enjoy and love what life is offering. This spiritual development requires that we have some emotional and intellectual development or we will be easily intimated and confused.

The Army had offered me some physical and emotional development. It challenged me to overcome some of my physical fears and that gave me to courage to challenge myself to overcome other fears.

After college I realized that I had to go further than the basic intellectual and emotional development. This is why I started to go to different groups or individuals just to listen to their different perspectives. I also started to read things outside of my normal domain of influence. That is why I started to read spiritual books.

I can not say were I got the idea of self development. I do not understand what motivated to think outside the boxes of my family and culture and develop myself. I do not understand why some people do seek self development and some do not. I just came to recognize that if I wanted to improve my lot in life I had to improve myself. I did not want to accept mediocrity. I craved difference. I craved adventure. I want more.

When I was in college I took a class on listening. I think that maybe the class was about counseling but all I remember about the class was the skills of active listening. However, I needed practice with the skills.

I realized that I was carrying around lots of animosity towards people. And, I realized that I would have to confront my habitual ways of thinking or reacting to the thoughts of these people or institutions. So I would go at them; meaning I would put myself in their presents and practice not reacting to them. For me that meant attending meeting of groups like the John Birch Society (and extremely right wing communist hating group), the Communist Party meetings and fundamentalist Christian churches to try and understand these people. I knew how to get passionate and angry at this kind of nonsense but I did not know how to appreciate their efforts to understand or deal with reality.

I could see how I was like these people. I make the environment, survival of humanity or whatever important. Then I see things that I think could destroy what I make important and I start to fear and hate that. That fear and hate begins to fill and that is what I bring to the world.

I can now see how silly this attitude was. Back then I was deadly serious about this. This was very important to me. but now I can see how narrow minded I was back then.

I was tired of the ugly experiences that the animosity gave me. Life is made up of all the experiences I have. The more I see things as ugly, bad, wrong or evil the more ugliness, badness or evil I have as part of my life experience.

At first I would only be able to listen for a little while before I would get caught up in my emotional reactions to the thoughts and ideas being presented. But eventually I was able to relax and even meditate in the meetings or church. I would see that these people were not evil, they were just maybe lacking in some awareness. They were doing the best they could. I noticed that I no longer had anger or animosity, but instead had more compassion for them. I looked to find the goodness or beauty in them, in the way they were and where they were struggling or striving to improve.

This practice did not mean I was willing to give up on trying to improve the beliefs that create the limited awareness that these people have. I actually felt more inclined toward finding the truth that would set these people free their beliefs that trapped them in their fear and hatred. The peace I gained from this practice allowed me to have no inner struggle distracting me from looking for solutions to the fear that motives these people.

Somebody gave me a book on fanaticism and suggested that I was a fanatic. According to the dictionary a fanatic is someone who is marked by excessive enthusiasm and often intense uncritical devotion. Ok, I would agree that at times I had excessive enthusiasm but I was not sure about the intense uncritical devotion.

Now I am sure of the intense devotion, but it is a devotion to being critical or discerning between what is real and what is not real. Another way I like to put it, I am intensely devoted to being honest, devoted to the truth.

So yes, I am a fanatic. I noticed that the etymology of the word fanatic shows it comes from the Latin fanaticus meaning inspired by a deity. Humm. Deities have to do with religion and I am not at all interested in religion. What does inspired by a deity mean anyway.

Could it not be said that Christ and Buddha were fanatics? They seemed to me to be fanatics.

I am an intense person. Why, I did not know.

I needed to know more…

With the college education I could get a job and support myself but I did not feel I had the emotional skills to really enjoy what life offered. My exposure in college to psychology lead to Carl Jung and that lead to my investigation of spirituality. I kept reading and seeking to find someone who I felt did have their "stuff" together.

I quickly discovered that most of the language used was pretty ambiguous or vague. I discovered that because most of the spiritual writing used ancient language whose meaning had become obscure. Dictionaries with the etymology would help me get at the ancient meaning of the word.

The insight that this gave me did help on many of the words. Throughout my journey I would constantly refer to the etymology of words that were used or that I am using here. And by using the thesaurus I could more modern words or language that better described what I want to say than the ancient (and sometimes primitive) words.

I learned a lot about the intent (spirit) behind the words when I understood the ancient meanings.

I realize now that my whole journey, including the present, has a strong desire to understand things. I was not and am not satisfied with just feeling good within myself. I want more than the experience of goodness for myself. I wanted and want to make my understanding part of the culture so that those in the future can also come to understanding and get free.

I had long felt that my birth name was not my name. It was only the name that I would use until I discovered who I was. At birth I was given the name Ronald Wilfred Newman. Wilfred was my father's middle name. I hated it.

I wanted to be me and not my father and mother's son. Our parents have ideas of what we are to become. The culture within which we are born and raised also structures who and what we are to be. By changing my name, my place of residents, my culture, my beliefs and my ways of thinking I could become my own person, not a reflection of my beginning.

When I graduated from college I started using the name Jim Freedom and a year later I legally changed it to Jean Michael Freedom. While typing the name change form I did not think that Jim Freedom looked official enough. I glanced around the room and saw one of my albums by Jean Michelle Jarre and liked Jean-Michael so I used that instead of Jim. I did not like James or Jimmy so I preferred Jean-Michael. The hyphen was eventually dropped.

I could see that people reacted differently to me after I started calling myself Jim Freedom. I could see that the name a person goes by really does effect who they are perceived of in the world. Our names are only our placeholders in the minds of other people but they influence how those people think and act toward us. This in turn influences how we think and act toward ourselves.

So my name change had a lot to do with who I am today. It is different to go around in society with the last name of Freedom as opposed to Newman.

If I had to do it over again I would use the name of James Thomas Freedom.

I have met many people who had a guru pick a name for them. I feel this is as unconscious as living our lives with our parents name. I feel that we really become who we are to be when we pick our own names. I have heard of cultures that have this tradition and I wish this culture was one.