I Am First

Freedom creates the opportunity for each person to develop their own thoughts and ideas. For me, I am first an American. I believe in freedom, responsibility, and faith. This has a purpose. 

The freedom of living in a society where I can think and learn as I choose. Of my mind open to thoughts and ideas, yet learning and understanding the responsibility, limits of living within the parameters of what is good and true, creates the learning needed in becoming and being my own person, of accomplishing life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.       

We can, and sometimes without much effort, disrupt this choice of learning. I did, and did it subconsciously. Which made it worse, of being without an awareness of my mistake. I knew something was wrong. An occurrence of failures and unhappy drinking experiences began.     

Looking at it now, the love from within was one part of me that seemed missing. I could have just said love. But love from within also involves how a person feels about themselves, a little more complicated than just saying love.    

Correcting the problem then took an effort to understand and resolve. The effort created some good thinking and stories.      

Being unhappy and drinking would suggest professional assistance. I tried, for years. The psychiatrist and psychoanalysis was a failure.      

I started then, thinking and writing in an effort to develop an understanding of myself. This became a thought process of creative thinking where my learning came from the writing of my subconscious thoughts.    

The process began with ideas of the thinking of the mind. How it works, the interaction of thinking between the conscious and subconscious. Next came a development of problems.     

In one problem, I committed a crime to avoid committing a far greater crime. In another was blaming. Blaming contributes to failures. How could I become my own while blaming another for what I am? The problems created a need for thought.

Thinking and writing created learning and development. The effort affected the problems. The creative thinking, the writing and learning changed the problems from subconscious to conscious. I learned and resolved. Thinking and writing then, became what I chose to think and become.        

The free and effective thinking of becoming one's own, means first of a person being responsible for all they are. There is always someone contributing to our problems, especially ourselves.  

Of importance was that learning and development contributed to more effective thinking, which was better than the alternative. When I made the mistake in my development, my thinking could have become as a victim.      

People can blame others and never grow beyond their self- created limit. They choose and become victims of an injustice of themselves. Their fear of the unknown. Their own thinking. Then there are people that choose to learn.    

In my late forties, I learned Judaism was part of my heritage. That it had been repressed because of a fear of anti-Semitism existing within society.          

I thought, why is it that some people seem to equate social ignorance with fear rather than thinking and learning? Preference and prejudice depends upon the individual, not the group. 

Consider too, there was my own experience with anti-Semitism. An experience that was unique, and that I didn't understand. I needed to learn.                      

When presented with an opportunity, a course at a Synagogue, I registered. I enjoyed the experience. I registered for more courses.       

People began to believe I was converting. I said, “No. I am learning.” People kept asking. I grew tired of it. Finally I said, “Look, I don’t have to convert. I am a natural Jew.” This really got the questioneers. They asked, “What do you mean?” and insisted on learning. I said, “I was born circumcised.” My answer was more than their desired information. The questions stopped.       

Their questions were because I no longer was what they wanted me to be. I had become more. They had to rethink their perception.    

In our interaction with others, we like to define. This person is this. They are that. Our perceptions can vary from preference to prejudice depending on our intellectual and emotional development. A development that always exists in some form or another. 

Preference and prejudice, like love and hate, are natural thoughts. We choose what we think and learn. For example, self-acceptance, which involves liking oneself, and which simultaneously begins an acceptance of others, of liking them too, is of choice and development of self.    

People choose the freedom of becoming their own, someone that thinks, and love from within, as the basic freedoms of being an American.                                 

© Ernest G Jackson 2022 All Rights Reserved. | words 774.