"Stream test" - excerpt from "Maps"

- Knock knock.

- Who is it?

- Messiah.

- Vacuum cleaner Messiah?

- Well… yes… And I’m bringing you a special offer, my child.

I wish it was a real Messiah. But when someone knocks repeatedly, it’s usually a salesman, wearing his salesman smile. Kindness of strangers is rare. Hence while garbage is nicely wrapped and promoted as an exclusive offer, revolutionary ideas are rarely announced on billboards. They might as well be poorly printed on creased paper.

Quality doesn’t shout. It doesn’t desperately persuade you to join in. Just as a rich man doesn’t need to expose his golden watch to impress you. He doesn’t even need to have one. It’s the poor who will ask you to admire his wrist over and over again. Showing by this very behaviour that he’s not yet where he aspires to be.

On that note, what if the message is loud in order to silence other messages? What if it’s overly extensive only to cover something that’s deep? In that case it’s up to you to inquire what exactly is not on show. What is being hidden? What has been unsaid?

Quality is not always big and shiny. It’s not always on the side of the winners. That’s why, when faced something new, it’s worth asking: was I reaching for it or was it reaching for me? When it is you who make an effort, when it is you who’s stubborn in searching, there’s a chance to get to something valuable. I call it: the stream test.

There is also the source test. You don’t want to go for spiritual advice to the notary. Nor for financial one to a hippie. Now look who’s talking. But since you were brave or reckless enough to read “Maps”, working title “Message of a loser”, let me tell you this: do look who is talking.

Pick up artists and stocks brokers are often very nice. But they will lie to you. They have to. It’s the name of the game. Is it irrelevant for you that you are surrounded by liars? Doesn’t it bother you at all?

They want you to ask questions, but not all the questions. The priest will ask you to follow Jesus, until you’d like to follow Jesus without the priest. What if you could follow Jesus without the priest? Or even against the priest. The car company will help you to feel free, until you can feel free without a car. What if you could feel free without a car?

It’s not the conspiracy, it’s ignorance. The mainstream encourages to be active, but in all the wrong things. It turns recipient’s head in the wrong direction, avoiding the depth. Consequently, it promotes staying passive in all the right things, like learning about the cosmos or building honest relationships.

But instead of learning about the cosmos, we consume new credit card offers served along with news about bombing in the Middle East. And who has time to build honest relationships? There are so many well running fake ones, aren’t they? Dived in Halloween marches, dancing in masquerades.

In the world of amusement parks and costumes parties seriousness is wiped out. It's covered with makeups and masks. Now the message is noise. It is flat and annoying. That's why it should be penetrated by rehearsing the stream test & the source test. Both carefully & insightfully.

If a prison looks like an amusement park, it doesn’t change the fact, that it’s a prison. After understanding just once, even briefly, the beauty of the depth, the nature of the depth - you know the way. The shallow stuff loses its attractiveness. It’s too vulgar, too blind.

It’s going to be easier now. you have seen the promised land. Truth to be told, it’s not given forever. It is simply cold, just like freedom. And equally worth the effort.