We have all been misguided, of that I have not a shred of doubt anymore. Our culture, our history, our news, our entertainment, our religions, our future, have been fabricated and falsified and manipulated in such horrific ways as most folks can hardly fathom.
And it’s going to get worse. This is not some apocalyptic vision of mine, there are plenty of those going around, and for a very long time. Forever, even. I’m a tiny fraction of a grain of sand in that vast hourglass.
“. . . A clown-like, grinning mockery of the victim(s) as a show of power and macabre arrogance. When this is performed in a veiled manner, accompanied by certain occult signs and symbolic words and elicits no meaningful response of opposition or resistance from the target(s), it is one of the most efficacious techniques of psychological warfare and mind-rape.” —Michael Hoffman, Secret Societies and Psychological Warfare
We can lay blame, and I often do, on our own selves, as well as others. I didn’t invent society, I can’t change the shit-show I was born into, that was fate, or something. You can complain your shit-show was worse, or better, and I won’t argue. I imagine most folks around the world had it much worse, or better, for whatever that means.
When faced with this truth, the truth that we’ve all bought a pack of lies, we don’t have a lot of choice on how we react—anger, resentment, bitterness, confusion, frustration, apathy, hope, forgiveness, fear—the list goes on. I know all these reactions have value, I take them seriously, I dismiss none of them as of more or less value than another.
But when they are not a transitory state, but where one then chooses to reside, we’ve allowed the reaction to dissolve action. We must make great effort to move from the reaction to the response.
Our response, not our reaction, is what defines our humanity. Every animal will react in fight, flight, fawn, freeze, in order to save their own skin, unless they are impaired.
Human nature has a higher calling. You stand for, you stand against, it doesn’t matter, you’ve got to take a stand. Once you’ve taken a stand, you know you fall, you know what falling feels like. That is the wisdom of the gods.
A boxer once told me, while I was cringing, trying to be polite in delicately couching the fact that I hate his so-called sport — “Boxers don’t train to fight. We train to get back up.”
I was flabbergasted at the wisdom in that simple statement, which I’d never considered before, and with which he was able to so tactically and efficaciously respond to my reaction.
I think of this now, because, as much as I never liked sports, or games, still I’m somehow wired to think strategy. I was born into a game I don’t understand, which no one gave me the tools or teachings to navigate, but to which I was expected to adapt nonetheless. At some point I chose, and still choose, to not simply adapt.
I’m weakening, physically, but my mind and tongue are still sharp enough to benefit where age and injury weigh me down. I think that’s a sign of one’s wisdom years, now beckoning me to return to the studies that will find new meaning in re-engagement, with now decades of life experience to inform on their deeper meanings and interpretations.
I feel blessed for this time and space and luxury to reconsider.
Kensho Homestead 