"Come out from among them, and be ye separate," saith the Lord.
Easier said than done. We are a planet given over to mob rule. We know this and in order for us to believe (deceive) we have a future, we must bless ourselves as holy. Moses rightly said that is doom. But it allows us cover to go after those who are apart from the crowd - to torture, maim, and finally kill them. Jesus - and those liberals like him - suffer(ed) this fate. Anytime humans organize themselves they seek to defend that organization as a choice between life and death. Here we call it, "The American Way". Defending our way of life gives us carte blanche to betray, belittle and battle anything or anyone we see as a threat. That's a fatally bad bet.
Let's suppose we built our society on the concept the earth is flat. We build a giant fence around us to keep us safe from falling off. The obvious convention for life at that point is to stay safe within the fence. Those who are most vehement in this belief are put at the top of society as guides and guardians - priests by any other name. Adhering to this belief is mandated to "maintain order" and "preserve our way of life." As time passes the price of the lie grows greater as the desire for freedom of it grows greater.
Finally, a nihilism sets in. To stay within the fence is to die. To venture past the fence is to die. We've been dealt a losing hand, so what does anything mean? There are no saints or sinners. Just a struggle for survival until there is nothing left, dog eat dog to the bitter end. In this scenario, to whom can one appeal to for justice? As the pretense of allegiance to truth degrades, what matters exposing corruption to the corrupt? Anger, frustration, and brutality inevitably rise as the self-caged animals demand to be free while holding the key.
Preserving the greater good!
And thus we have the world today, one turned upside down. Those who step past the borders of what's acceptable, bringing messages of hope, are labeled as destroyers by the true destroyers. The destroyers define hope as hope for their lie, not hope for life. They live in helpless fear of the change they know must come. Relentless is their evangelical cause, scooping up purposeless whores, the willfully ignorant, and the decidedly wicked to their pursuit of speaking well of evil. Left to itself, this army of "civilized" doom would wipe out all life as we know it (in the name of preserving life as we know it!)
It's they who say we've achieved civilization who are the true anarchists. They fight to preserve chaos. The suffering from this will be beyond measure. Already we often hear the cry "I thought this could never happen" resulting from our festering tragedies. Be prepared to hear this more. We'll have to avert our eyes more. We'll have to harden our hearts more. We do whatever it takes to keep the lie alive. It's just really getting old - and very, very boring.
No one has anything to say. No message of life outside the fence is allowed to be spoken unless it's in apocalyptic terms. Everything is on the table as an answer except for the truth. I don't like being alone sitting outside the fence. I don't like having my words of hope twisted and attacked without reason. At times I feel like crawling back to the other side just to not be alone. Then I do evil things to the monsters: I tell them they're right. This makes them feel alone but they cannot admit it because to betray the lie is to be outcast. They declare victory and depart the field of life.
Had I the money to be immune to the madness who knows what I would be writing now. I have no idea where I'd be once free of this persistent pain. Being able to say, "I told you so," does me no good now and no good later when there's no need for it to be said. So what does any good? Learning to communicate is one. After that, Nature has to take its course. It would be nice to save Mankind - I try it all the time - but if I knew I'd be responsible for only my own poor decisions I'd leave you to yourselves and embrace the peace. I should do that anyway, of course.
"Get your hands off me!" Wendy outraged, pulling her arm away as everyone in the spa looked on. "Why are you doing this? I don't understand!"
"You asked for it, lady. Now you're going to get it."
"No, I most certainly did not ask for this! I never did that. Now let go of me!"
"I'm not going to argue about it," sighed the officer. "You're obviously nuts."
"Now you're name calling! What a poor attitude!"
Despite her vehement protests, in the end Wendy was hauled away in handcuffs, resisting reality to the end.
*****
It all started with the biggest new hip of the 21st century: total disconnect. Sure, it has been around from the beginning but word is now to take it to new extremes - if you've got what it takes! Truth is for losers and lies are for lovers (or so they say). How exciting to be part of the cutting edge of thought. Cowards will be left behind! Let the over-thinkers worry and fret about the so-called future. We positive thinkers will rule!
Like many recent college graduates, Wendy discovered that despite having done what was expected she did not get what was expected. She was supposed to be provided with a nice job and a comfortable life the rest of her days. Her biggest concern was to be the loveliness of her wedding while spending her time advancing her career and living in a world of rom-com movies. At least that was the way she'd scripted it. Instead, she was back home living with her mother as she suffered a severe case of entitlement deficiency.
From Wendy's steady diet of film and TV never once did money problems prevent a plot from moving forward. So why was her life so downtrodden? What had she done wrong but get a college education? "I'm a responsible person too!" The more she thought about it, the more she absolved herself. A TV voice blared: "Take control of your life! You are the captain of your ship! If you can't break down the wall, go around it."
Wendy called her best friend and they both agreed she was a good and responsible person, deserving of much more than she was getting. Her friend had read "The Secret" and told Wendy she'd never get what she wanted without devoting her energy to it. "You've go to focus. Disconnect from all the bullshit that's keeping you down. Stay positive at all times. People are doing it and changing their lives every day! Go get your share! Remember Enron!"
"You're right! That's exactly what I will do."
As a self-appointed saint (surely putting her among the overwhelming majority) Wendy took the spare credit card from her mother's dresser and (literally) went to town. Now her life was just like those TV people! What a gorgeous, heady feeling walking in the clouds of positivity. "Just think about what you want! I was a fool to think about anything else." Her confidence and conviction grew as she went from store to store. "I was a damn fool before!"
She brought the loot to her friend's house. Her frenemy was properly impressed. "You did it, Wendy! You found a way around the wall to get what you want. Congrats!"
"Thanks! I also booked a room at the W hotel for their weekend spa package. This is so fabulous!"
The dour sister of Wendy's friend passed by, amazed at the new purses and other finery. "I thought you didn't have a job, Wendy. Where did you get all this?"
"Positive thinking! You should try it sometime. You're always so down with that attitude of yours."
"Attitude never put money in my pocket. Everyone just yelled at me when I ran up my credit card. After that I didn't know what to do."
"That's you! This is me. Maybe if you'd had a better attitude people wouldn't yell at you so much."
The sister walked away feeling like a bigger 21st century loser than ever.
Be a Nazi winner with a happy heart!
At the hotel spa, Wendy felt better than ever. At last she was getting what she deserved and the world made sense once again. Life really is what you make it. That is until the hotel manager and a uniformed police officer enter the room announcing her charges are not authorized. Wendy was flabbergasted when told she had to leave, refusing to budge an inch.
"Get your hands off me!" she outraged, pulling her arm away as everyone in the spa looked on. "Why are you doing this? I don't understand!"
"You asked for it, lady. Now you're going to get it."
"No, I most certainly did not ask for this! I never did that. Now let go of me!"
"I'm not going to argue about it," sighed the officer. "You're obviously nuts."
"Now you're name calling! What a poor attitude!"
Wendy's mother stormed into the room. "Just what do you think you're doing, young lady?"
"Just getting what I deserve!"
"I'll give you what you deserve: jail time! I've never been so angry in my life. I already pay for all your living expenses and now you bankrupt me where I can't make the mortgage payment!"
"Gee, Mom. I don't want you to be angry."
"You expect me not to be angry! Are you completely insane?"
"What's insane about wanting a spa treatment? Sheesh, Mom, I really don't see what the big deal is. Everything's OK as long as I say I don't see a problem."
When the story of Wendy being dragged off to jail reached the sister of a certain friend of Wendy, a celebration was had. "I'm not a loser. I am dealing with reality. What an awful time this is to live in."
"You know how you can tell when you're voting against your interests?
"Anytime you're standing in a voting booth."
From my appearance on "Defeat The Press"
"Mr. Homeless! You're known as having the greatest political mind of the 21st century. To what do you attribute this?"
"Sheer disinterest."
"But you must take an interest! The future of our country depends on it!"
"If the future of the country depends on my interest then you must bring me Maria Sharapova at all costs. Tell her it's for the good of the nation!"
"Everyone pretends to disdain politics but we all must be responsible in the end."
"I quite agree. Responsibility will end interest in political machinations."
"But what about the protest movement of Donald Trump! Oh, the humanity!"
"What about those legs on Miss Sharapova! Oh, the curves!"
"This is so defeating..."
"You defeat yourself."
"Are you seriously going to say you have no interest in who becomes President? It's one of our most sacred duties as a citizen. It shapes our fate."
"Some people say if we change our laws it will change our hearts - or worse, dis-obligate the need for a good heart. But we know the truth is law follows the heart, not the other way around. How can I vote someone to have a good heart?"
"Then vote for the best heart!"
"Then I vote for Maria!"
"You better start being serious or I'll throw a tantrum!"
"A tantrum out of civic conviction or feeling threatened on having to earn an honest living outside inane conversation?"
"Reporters pay rent too."
"There's no law that limits one only to the artificial."
"We've set you up as a pundit, dammit! Be quotable!"
"OK, America is like a great ship floating on a river of greed. We all know rivers of greed lead to a fatal waterfall of doom. This is why we live in fear. It's not because we're afraid of what others might do to us. We're afraid because of what we do."
"Oh, Christ. I just felt our ratings drop 50%."
"How about a handicapping of the contestants, then?"
"Oh, please, please! We must have debates and disagreements!"
"OK, Bernie is called a socialist but really he's the only capitalist running as we live in an upside down world. He's the only one believing in making the system work. See, Americans fear socialism as a great transfer of wealth but what we've had here since 1980 is the greatest transfer of wealth in human history - all the while proclaiming we're followers of capitalism! Greedy fucks that we are, if a nickel is transferred to a poor person we scream death and anarchy, but if a trillion is transferred to the rich we're mum as church mice. Only Bernie wants to end that transfer."
"Then you must vote for him! Gotcha, bitch!"
"One may slow down a ship on the river of greed, but not change its fate."
"But what if we put mommy in charge this time?? Unprecedented! Game changer! It proves our merits as human beings!"
"Yes. In the end everyone votes himself as Jesus. But Shrillary is Lady Macbeth incarnate. Let your anger pin your hopes on that!"
"So Trump and Cruz must save us then!"
"Yes! Just as Caligula and Nero (respectively) saved Rome to "make it great again." Every empire in decline grasps onto false prophets to keep the lies alive. Sounds like a plan."
"Gawd, you're depressing. You make it sound like we're all wasting our time ignoring our personal lives in order to busy ourselves on the lives of others."
"Well, look at it this way. Would you give a flying fuck about your so-called civic duty if you could choose between voting or Maria Sharapova? Live first, ask questions later."
Their children hate them for the things they're not;
"Corporations are nothing but legalized pimping!" Joey's father was ranting again. Looking back, he'd wonder if in these modern times his father would be some random, unread internet blogger raving to the world, his voice lost among the drowning cacophony that is a dying planet. "Why do you think there's all this pretense? 'Wear your suit, wear your Sunday finest.' Because the greater the crime, the greater the need to cover up!"
His father was a victim. How much exactly he was self-victimized, Joey could never know. What he did know was the unstable, shoestring existence he had as a kid. In the suburban bubble of many, the world is disguised, its true face hidden behind commercials of self-promotion exposed only by the rotting edges of the lie as encroaching reality can no longer be hidden. Those outside the bubble have no delusions of a world rejecting a future.
This does not guarantee a facing of the truth, though.
Joey found it unusual - anachronistic even - to hear his father speak of peace. Peace was a foreign concept in their house. Who can know peace without security? If love truly were enough there might be a chance, Joey suspected. The only flickers of hope he had were when they bonded together as a family. He could feel a future in that - but not live one. But he took to his grave what his father proclaimed: "Communication is the lifeblood of peace."
Joey asked himself if he communicated and like most people was disappointed by the reply. He feared his father, his constant anger whose source he did not understand (because there was poor communication!), and the fact peril was never far away for a man who kept changing jobs, chasing schemes, and harboring dreams of finding the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Joey needed something to which he could hold on.
At first, it was painting. Inheriting his father's creative streak and relishing his mother's appreciation of his creations, Joey came alive in the world of his art. The more horrible the "real" world became, the more he wished to recede into his own. But as a teenager he hit a crossroads. What had once been an occasional distraction was turning into a serious hobby. That cost money (and time). When it was explained to him those were commodities not always to be had, Joey revealed his father's penchant for moralizing.
"Don't you see? This is the right thing for me to do. If I don't do this I'll die. What good is it if I die? How can you call that moral?"
His father was seized silent by the words, unable to speak, like a closed volcano. His mother explained best as she understood. "Morality requires funding."
Outraged, Joey fired back. "Then I'll get funding!"
That's when his journey began. In his bedroom he had an easel holding a blank canvas. His oils were too few to start. He didn't feel free to paint as he wished: he could run through all the paint before he was done! Art requires complete freedom. Otherwise, there was no point even beginning.
Forty years later, the canvass was still blank.
Joseph - as he was now called (pretense to cover up the crime!) - surveyed his kingdom from the top of the office tower he'd bought as his latest conquest. In fact, if one had to name his occupation over the past decade, conqueror would be most apt. The world that had so dearly screwed him as a child without mercy or soul must be made to pay and made to bend to the higher purpose of his art.
As a teenager he worked every job he could to gather up money, saving thousands. As an office building janitor, he listened to the investors on how to get ahead. Joey was the latest disciple to the cult of money, a rising star, and his fellow members eagerly pushed him along as his fire burned brightest of all. For him, it was more than greed at stake, it was his art, his life. But whenever his mother asked when he was going to start painting Joey would reply, "Not yet. It's not time. I don't feel free."
With 2.5 billion to his name, he still wasn't free. The same canvass, the same easel, stood in a prized corner of his office. Now, on the heels of his third divorce, the canvass screamed louder then ever. Slumped in his twelve thousand dollar chair, that's when Joey realized his money was not his own. It owned him. He never communicated that to any wife, fearing that would end his marriages.
The only money that could ever be his would be that which came from his art. What guarantee did he have he'd ever make money? He had enough money now to buy oils for a thousand years of paintings. Still not enough. The answer was never "yes" when asked if his life was his own. Devastated, it dawned on Joey his true marriage had been to his anger, keeping blindness alive. An entirety of life wasted.
Would he have to give up his worldly wealth to begin again? The idea of it lifted a huge weight off his shoulders. Joey saw he was a servant to his wealth, not its master. He was a peasant carrying boulders on his back in useless labors that served no one. All in the name of serving his art. The enormity of the betrayal prevented him from letting even one tear loose.
Billionaire Joseph Rockford sold everything. He donated the bulk to art scholarships to schools "in a world mad to reward math and science." He kept enough to provide a comfortable income, living in the artists' section of town. In these things he felt a great relief. Into his studio he moved the original canvass of his youth. But it was silent now.
Unable to bear the ache of swallowing emptiness, Joey took his thickest brush and painted in bold, black letters the only thing that came to him.
THE WORLD MUST DIE
He slowly faded in the rising sadness, a stillborn artist. He did still feel at times that flicker of hope, same as he did as an innocent child, that somehow somewhere his story was heard and his injustice known in a communal place where all things are blessedly communicated.
Later, he sold the canvass for a hundred bucks to a friend who thought the sentiment amusing. Joey said it was the most money he'd ever had in his life.
