self-mastering

Recently someone said to me 'In order to be a true slave you have to be a master of yourself....' [more >>]. Fundamental truth or common place? Is this simply a cleverly worded maxim in the trail of such statements as "you must love yourself before you can love someone else" or is there a hidden truth behind it.

The problem i have with statements such as this one is that they hint to a black and white reality where there is a way that is right and one that is wrong. There are true slaves (who do the right thing) and fake slaves (who don't do the right thing). i have no idea what a "true slave" is. i'm not really trying to learn to be something that i'm not and the slave definition seems to fit me not because i try to become it but because it seems to be right for me.

i admit that my need to be owned is strictly linked with my seeking something that is not within me. There is a need for me to be taken over by somebody else because i don't want to do it myself and for the "master of myself" to be someone other than me. Frankly i fail to see why, if i was master of myself, i would be seeking to stop being it, in order to pass that role on to someone else.

Clearly, the need for me to be owned stems from a manifest instability that characterises me in the absence of a master. As an unowned slave i feel void, empty, unfulfilled. I truly rejoice in the service of another man and i'm coming to terms with it being my nature without feeling that i must force myself to be any different.

i realise it's a condition that makes me vulnerable and non autonomous but, quite frankly, i'm not even sure i fully understand what it means to be master of yourself. How do you know that you've mastered yourself, that you've got to that stage. It seems to me that a lot of people who are not as vulnerable are often shielding themselves behind a fantasy, a facade, an image of themselves that could, upon deeper analysis, come crumbling down taking with it this perception of being masters of themselves.

We all need something and we all usually reach out to find that something that we miss. That's what makes us sociable animals: we thrive in the interaction, not the isolation. So, maybe, the fact that i can't be self-sufficient doesn't make me a good or a bad slave. It just makes me a slave.