Transcript of Craig Conway’s video on why he
started the WTM North East England Centre

 

(To learn more about Craig, see www.wtmnortheastengland.com)

 

 

Hi, my name’s Craig Conway and I’m an actor and a creative. I work within the creative arts and the creative industry, and have done for almost 30 years, mainly as an actor, sometimes writing, directing, producing, but telling stories, trying to question and understand more about human beings—why we operate, why we are the way we are, what we do, and what our purpose and point, perhaps, may be. During my time, I’ve always had this, what [legendary choreographer] Martha Graham described as ‘divine dissatisfaction’, this uneasiness, this kind of feeling that nothing is quite what it should be and that somehow I haven’t quite gotten to where it is I wanted to, or I haven’t communicated what I want, or I haven’t been able to connect the way I truly feel we can connect, even through my art or as a human being. And it wasn’t until I discovered this book FREEDOM: The End Of The Human Condition by Jeremy Griffith that I was able to begin to understand what we are capable of and what is possible. I’ve read many, many books in psychology, philosophy, spirituality. I’ve tried many various ways of doing things and looking into all sorts [of therapies] to try to enhance or try to help my life to be able to feel more purposeful. And even as a kid, I always remember having this feeling that something wasn’t quite right, that I wasn’t engaging in the world the way I should be. And again it wasn’t until I read this book that suddenly there was an enlightenment into that.

I do believe that there is a divineness within our existence, within our human existence, and Jeremy manages to bring a lot of comfort and joy to being a human being again. When we look around at the moment, there is so much going on that is dividing us, that is competitive, that is full of anxiety and angst, and the social construct that we’ve come to know and believe is our reality is very clearly only a virtual reality. And there is a hell of a lot more we can do and can achieve that is harmonious and that can be done together rather than this separation and this need for selfishness. We can actually start becoming selfless and see our part in the whole picture rather than just the small individual side of things where we tend to always be in this conflict, in this argumentative state, in this state of upset.

I’ve always found life very difficult at times. And a lot of people go on about, at the moment especially as well, the mental health issues, and I’ve always believed that nearly everybody is suffering from it. And now I don’t doubt that, I think we are all in a very deep psychosis and we’re all in a very big state of denial when it comes to who we are and what we are—and that’s a terrifying place to be. But this book enables us to understand that this is very normal and it can be changed and it can be a joy and a great pleasure to be a part of this world and to do what we do.

When I first began to read the book, Jeremy describes a thing called the ‘deaf effect’, which is this idea that we close off to what is being spoken to us through this book and through Jeremy’s words. [The ‘deaf effect’ is explained in Video/​Freedom Essay 1.] And it’s true that I had a very strong reaction to it, I didn’t want to ‘go there’, I didn’t want to look into that dark cave that Plato describes that we live in. I didn’t want to step out into the sunlight; I wanted to stay really in the dark—I wanted to even build a bigger cave and a deeper cave somewhere, somewhere further down. But as I persevered with the book and allowed myself to sit with the words, the thoughts, the understanding, the education within the pages of FREEDOM, I found myself feeling really comforted and very excited and also just truly enlightened as to what could be possible. And what could be possible is that the world and everybody in it could at last be saved and we could go forward and use everything we now know, all of our knowledge, all of our technology, to live, enhance, provide and support our race, our species and ourselves, together in a harmonious, loving and nurturing way. And that is what our true instincts are, that is what we’ve been missing for so long and that is what is dividing us, this lack of understanding and Jeremy has brought this gift to all of us to share and to understand. And I hope that anybody out there who is feeling at all uneasy or hard-done-to in some way, or feeling like they just don’t fit in or they just don’t belong, or having one of these existentialist crisis moments, that you pick up this book or get online, it’s completely free as well—unless you want to get hardback or a paperback, it’s completely free. Get this book, download it, read it, keep reading it, read it again and again and again, make your notes, ask the questions, get online, talk to the groups and follow the links and connect to FREEDOM, connect to Jeremy and all of the team all over the world now who are supporting this. So here and literally everywhere over the world people are reading this book and getting together and realising that there is possibility and a time for change that we can all do if we embrace what we truly are rather than what we think we are.

Yeah, it’s a wonderful, wonderful guide to being free and you won’t regret it. It’s very true. You will not regret it in any way. This is, and could be, and will be, the book that saves the world, and the joy of that is you will be part of it, bringing back what we know is our natural instinct—reacting the way that we should be and understanding what our 2 million years of evolution has brought us to. I think we’re pretty much adolescent at the moment, but we have a chance to move from adolescence into adulthood as human beings and take our place in the world at the right level, at the right pace, and use everything we have to enhance our lives and our purpose for being here. Thank you!