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My name is Mauri. I come from Helsinki.
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For me everything started when I saw Zeitgeist Addendum online and
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the same evening I went to the global forum.
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I was surprised to see that in Finland there were other people who had seen it
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so I thought: should we start doing something?
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Then I discussed for a while in the forum until there was enough people for a meeting.
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We met and decided to start a chapter in Finland.
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Yeah, we agreed on the global forum to have a meeting
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and I remember how we finally met
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on the railway station and walked together to
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a restaurant to have something to eat.
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In the beginning we glared at each other for an hour or so, clearly thinking what kind of
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people these other folks are, that are they completely sane or something
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and I guess we decided that we need a website and our own discussion forum
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and that we need to organize something for the first Z-day.
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We managed to organize an Addendum screening in a movie theatre.
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What people have probably liked the most,
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of what we have done here in Finland,
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are the kind of real-life happenings.
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One example was when we went to the Kamppi mall and
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organized a "Public Freeze" where everyone stood still at the same time
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for exactly five minutes and in the end
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we opened our palms and dropped huge amounts of five-cent coins on the floor
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that bounced and tinkled on the floor while someone from the upper floor threw a load of fake ten-euro notes
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that had www.zeitgeist.fi written on them.
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Afterwards people were super excited and said
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"Yeah, more of this kind of action"
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"just send me a message and I'll be there!"
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In my opinion these have been the best actions we've done in the Finnish Zeitgeist movement
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this kind of small real-life stunts.
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Apart from those we've had national meetings where we've had
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a good amount of participants.
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I had just returned to Finland from a trip in Asia
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where I had shot with a tiny camera
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how a buffalo takes a shit and other witty material
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and I realized how nice it was to edit it together.
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Since I still had the camera
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I thought I really need to shoot and edit something.
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We were just in a Zeitgeist meeting and I saw how
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the young guns spoke with great conviction:
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"let's make this world a better place" while the comments from outside
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the movement were always that these people are some freaks and conspiracy theorists
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socialists, communists
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so I was pissed off and thinking
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if only you'd see their faces and hear what they have to say
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so the trolling in internet would stop immediately.
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In the beginning our vision was just to have Henkka in front of camera to tell about
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The Zeitgeist Movement, coupled with Yrjö Kallinen videos...
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[he makes a mistake and the shot is re-done]
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...
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Originally the idea was just that
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we'll shoot Henkka speaking and
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color it with Yrjö Kallinen material
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and maybe some nice music and stuff.
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We had no idea of making a full-length film.
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Then we gathered a core group of people
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and suddenly the whole project started to inflate,
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so many people to interview, that we had to prioritize
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that we just can't take on such a massive production
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because none of us had ever done a documentary film
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but we didn't let it slow us down.
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A huge inspiration for this film
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at least for me personally
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was the fact that I found out about Yrjö Kallinen
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a man who used to live
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long ago before me
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and how he so succintly discussed
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exactly the same topics that The Zeitgeist Movement deals with.
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It was a kind of call to action, that
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yes, even in Finland these matters have been touched upon, and
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now it's up to our generation to bring up the same topics.
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In the beginning we were like "I wonder if we could ask someone to be interviewed in our film?"
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and I was like "I don't know if anyone would be willing".
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But then we just started putting names on paper
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and we noted down some ten names in a day
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and we just started calling them and sending e-mails
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probing for interest.
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To our surprise pretty much everyone agreed
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and wanted to be interviewed.
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Apparently it showed
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that we are genuinely trying to do something good
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and we are not just adhering to some ideology: "buy this and it's a solution to everything"
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but instead: young people are trying their best
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to bring out some light at the end of the tunnel.
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So, the question was
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"well, what do we need?"
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and I was there with my four-hundred-euro camera.
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I thought I have to have a better camera so I bought one.
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Suddenly Vesa comes along
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with his professional equipment and know-how
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and whatever we needed it
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just appeared as if from out of the blue,
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almost like ordered.
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- Whatever it was we needed
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human resources, help in something,
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money, professional knowledge...
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"The Spirit of the Times" became the name
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it wasn't really decided at all
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it was just that we needed something
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I had come up with a home-made trailer
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and we had no idea what the film would be
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but we thought "it needs to have a name".
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So then, of course, I was mulling over "Zeitgeist"
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"Yes, Spirit of the Times, that's good"
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"People will get this."
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We really had no money
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to make the film.
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Nor we had money to spread out
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huge posters everywhere
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advertising an upcoming film
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so we had one guy from The Zeitgeist Movement who
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came up with an ingenious strategy to be implemented in Facebook:
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let's create a group that tells
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the name of the film
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and ask people to invite all their friends in the group.
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Just because we had no money for advertising, yet
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we felt that the content is important.
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What did we get...
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I remember we started the group in the evening,
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and next morning there were 20 000 invited people in it.
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I don't even know how many tens or hundreds of thousands it finally achieved
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but because of this the film was seen by some
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40.000 people during the first day
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which totally caught us all unawares.
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So far media has not taken interest in the topic.
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I've approached some reporters just for the kicks
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and mentioned that
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"Hey, this is potentially the most-viewed Finnish documentary film in history"
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"so, I was thinking, would you like to write about it?"
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They've been pretty positive about it.
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They just haven't been aware that something like this has been done
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and then they've wanted to cover it.
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It was mostly the Zeitgeist folks who
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kind of promoted the film
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and knew that it's in the works.
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They encouraged and helped a lot.
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Without the Zeitgeist network this film would have never been made.
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Pretty much anything we needed we would just ask from the email list
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or Facebook or somewhere
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and said we needed help
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asking who'd know this and that
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and exactly because of this Zeitgeist network
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we found the right people to help.
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What has been the most important factor in The Zeitgeist Movement
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are indeed the people
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who have the same basis and understanding of the current society,
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and drive, a definite drive, to do something.
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I've gained a lot of good friends
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from The Zeitgeist Movement.
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Whatever I wish to do in the future
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to make this world a better place
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and whatever projects I might want to take part in
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I know that the network from
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The Zeitgeist Movement is still there
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and from there I will find excited help
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if I have anything reasonable to do.
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Now I've personally wanted to focus more on
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this Occupy Movement.
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It feels like immediate action,
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not mere theorizing,
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mulling over theories and discussing
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common themes that are not obvious to everyone.
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This is at least something practical to do.
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What's going on in the world is a very strong process of change.
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Above all, it's a process.
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We don't know where it leads,
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what will we have after that,
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will there be the next character of authority,
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perhaps we learned nothing in our day and age
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and we'll need some masculine character to save us once again?
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But the process is running
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and we can all be part of it,
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share with others what we've learned
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regarding this life and about us humans.
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I'm sure that as long as we cooperate with one another
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we will reach a future worth living in.
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The biggest challenge from moving away
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from this current state-of-mind and system
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apart from the solutions from the authority
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- see, we can be given solutions -
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The largest obstacle to our development is of course
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this certain dream state in which we are living in.
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The authority tells us something -
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- in some school some great person teaches us -
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- and we start repeating it as a truth.
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Then we repeat it over and over again
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and view the world, demanding:
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"Give me proof that what I'm repeating is true".
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Like that we feign ourselves and make believe
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that the dream state is real.
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People need some personal experience,
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for instance something that shatters their world view,
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to see that what you've taken for granted is now, for the first time
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nothing but an illusion.
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It might be, for instance, a close encounter with death
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- your own or someone close to you -
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that awakens the basic questions of life:
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"Who am I?"
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"What is my relationship to others?"
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"What is my relationship with this planet?"
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Never stop dreaming!