The authentic rebellion

The authentic rebellion/ Shlomo Giyora

What is the meaning of liberating our selves? Of being authentic? No more living by the decree of what is called "the common other". Through all our lives we have been doing what our teachers wanted us to do, what the ones rotating us, our friends and our supervisors demanded us to do. For us they are all "the common other" whom we may not notice with our vision, but they command us our actions at all times. "The common other", By internalizing him into our way of thinking we are the ones who give him his strength, we are the ones that let him into our personality.

While doing something automatically, subconsciously we inquire our selves if these actions that we do go together with our "common other" 's demand. We gaze around us to confirm that the choice we made isn't digressing the narrow boundaries of the norm. The fear of breaking the limits paralyzes us and doesn't acknowledge free will and free human beings.

Overcoming the fear, the paralysis, is the first step in the process of freeing ourselves. The second step is freeing ourselves from the impulse, from the pressure of competitiveness, from the assiduous mouse race causing us the chase after certain goals, while the process itself seems to become a minor concern.

By analyzing our actions we'll notice that every phase in our life is a hall leading to the next one. In elementary school we believe that receiving the report card is accomplishing are main goal. Afterwards, in high school, the goal is to pass the matriculation tests. In the university- to acquire a degree. But retrospectively, what's left of all these report card? Dusted documents?
Is this how we'd like to live our lives?

I claim that if one persists on the goals, his or her time is not authentic. If we look at the future as an ambition, as soon as it's here it slips away and becomes the past. And so the present becomes meaningless. In this situation the process becomes secondary; we do not experience it because the main thing is reaching goals.
This is how our time diminishes, we never live in the present but only in the future, this is the meaning of the un-authentic time, this is the meaning of the un-authentic life.

The ability of living an authentic life is accomplished by a rebellion. And what is the rebellion? First of all it is an act of free will, a free act in a oppressing structure, a structure leaded by external factors.
But most important- the decision to engage in rebellion and to undermine the burdens of "the common other" must revive side by side with a creation process. This is not a predatorily or a brutal rebellion; it is a rebellion that creates a society, that creates a new way of life.

This text is adapted from the book "Creation and revelation" published by "the broadcasted university", ministry of defense publishing , Israel.