Fear, Part 2

(This article originally appeared on my site in September 2013.  It has been slightly updated for re-publication.)

Don’t be afraid.

Don’t be afraid to see where this is going.

Don’t be afraid to follow the trail to the end.  It’ll be worth it.

As long as I have memories, I’ve had a “problem” with wearing my heart on my sleeve.  I think that’s a universal metaphor, but in case anyone’s not familiar with it:  that is to say I don’t hide what I think and feel.  I’m very straightforward, blunt.

You might notice that I put that word problem in quotes, in the first paragraph above.  Not because it’s a euphemism, but because I have never, ever understood – and never will – why so very many people are so embarrassed to be human in public.  Why is “this is how I feel” ever a “problem?”

One of the reasons I think I developed this behavior – and if you think it’s something that only exists on Facebook you definitely haven’t been paying attention – is a simple matter of social self-defense:  Why would I want to hang out with or be friends with or really want anything to do with someone who doesn’t care what I think or how I feel?

Part of it is also this:  the most effective solution to evil and ignorance is to drag it out into the light and call it what it is.  I “put myself out there.”  And when someone turns their back, I know they weren’t really my kind of people in the first place.

When someone decides it’s “entertaining” that I’m angry or hurt or feeling in need of external validation or broke?  To ridicule someone else’s difficulty or pain?  That’s a giant red flag, to anyone:  this person sucks.  This person, the way this person thinks and acts, how this person treats other people when they believe there are no consequences…it is a Bad Thing.

But it’s not just a bad thing, It is the Bad Thing.  Absolutely everything that is twisted up and broken in this world can be described by the same words, phrases, and concepts.  From the schoolyard bully to the world’s most brutal dictators, there are unifying elements:

• lack of empathy
• lack of reason
• high degree of self-absorption; not “I think about myself a lot,” but “I think the world around me is mine, and if what I do has consequences in anybody else’s life, too bad for them.”
• low self-esteem expressed as a driving need to control every aspect of the world around them.
• absolute intolerance of criticism.

I’m sure there are others, but I’m writing off the top of my head.  Whether it’s the neighborhood frotteur or the guy pushing the big red buttons, they all share those real  “problems.”

So the problem is, right now the world is defined on those people’s terms – and make no mistake, those people are just as many “liberals” as “conservatives” as “independents” as “libertarians” as whatever.  Your favorite social group is not exempt.

When you allow yourself to absorb the output of those people, you start to become like them.  It spreads.

And it’s killing us.

In a trillion tiny cuts and a billion gaping wounds, it’s killing us off.

They have defined the rules of the game, those rules are designed to give them an exponentially increasing advantage in the game, and they have taught you that the only way to be happy and fulfilled in life is to play the game their way…knowing that you can never possibly win.

People wonder why I’m so adamant about not doing things like swiping other people’s original content, pretending to be a news site when you’re really a glorified RSS feed, being certain that when you present yourself as an information source you are an information source.  Not a PR campaign for a political ideology or a ring toss on the back fairway of the political carnival for your own amusement and profit.

Because you see, it’s all the same thing.  It’s all the same lack of empathy, the same lack of reason, the same self-centeredness, the same low core self-image, the same refusal to ever admit outwardly that they might be wrong about something; they might even be jerks.

They might be exactly the kind of jerks a lot of people reading them think they’re fighting against.

And they don’t care, and they make the rules.

And they’re wrong.

Those of you who read my Facebook page or blog regularly, or have for a while, know that I’ve had intermittent problems with various kinds of harassment from these sorts of people.  My regular FB page readers will know what I mean – the “get a job,” “get a haircut,” post multi-terabyte screed examining my life crowd, the little group of trolls and the folks who run the BS “news” sites.

Those people control a big chunk of left-wing, progressive, and liberal conversation on Facebook, and by extension throughout the world.  Millions of readers, millions of shares.

And they are no different from [insert your favorite “bad news” source here], no different from [pick a conspiracy theory about world domination you really like], no different from [your go-to example of an obviously bought and paid for politician].

They’re all the same, you see.  Because it’s all the same behavior.  Consistently.  Every time.

They tell you what to think, they tell you why you should be angry or happy or sad.  They tell you what constitutes success in life, and they ridicule you for failing to achieve it even as they do everything in their power to stop you.  If you have something they want, they will take it.  If they cannot take it they will destroy it.  And if you don’t like it?  Too bad.

They are in control of not just the US, but increasingly the rest of the world as well.  To the point that many of the world’s most developed nations have taken undeniable, unquestionable turns back toward the tyranny and oppression that their very existence was dedicated to wiping off the face of this planet.

It’s all the same, you see.

And those of us whose eyes are open, those of us who have been those things and realized how wrong they were, understand the key method by which they hold their power:

They prevent you from communicating effectively.

To the very point of redefining truth so that only their version of reality is allowed.  See, for instance, the Texas Board of Education attempting to teach mythology as science.  See, for instance, the entire mentality that has led us to the point where facts themselves are no longer accepted as facts because we can no longer agree on what a fact is due to the deliberate erosion of our critical thinking skills over a period of generations.

To the extent that they not only teach us to be afraid to speak, but they teach us to make others afraid to speak.

Used to be politicians would blow smoke up our collective asses as a matter of routine, and we knew they didn’t believe their own lies and they knew they didn’t believe their own lies and the one that had enough things we liked (often lies, sometimes not) got to play Big Man In Charge.  Sometimes, a politician could convince a lot of people to believe his or her lies, and they would gather more power and increasing ability to convince more people of their lies.

But now…they believe their own lies.  There are really people on this planet, people who consider themselves intelligent and well-informed, people in leadership and decision-making roles that affect all our lives every minute of every day, who believe that deregulating business will empower individual liberty.  There are people who believe a magical all-knowing and eternal creature imbues the zygote of human beings with a special quality that makes them separate and distinct from all other creatures the moment sperm meets egg.  There are people who don’t believe global climate change is happening.  There are people who believe the cure for diseases is to not be tested for them.  One of those people is currently the President of the United States.  There are people who believe that religious freedom means the freedom to force everyone else to respect and be indoctrinated by their religion.  And these people will brook no dissent.

They’re all the same, where it counts.

The only way to stop them is to speak.  Don’t be afraid to be wrong, and don’t be afraid to admit it.  Don’t be afraid to admit you’ve made mistakes, to yourself or anyone else.  Don’t be afraid to correct them.  Don’t be afraid to let anyone else know you’ve been wrong or made a mistake.  Don’t be afraid to need help, and don’t be afraid to ask for it.  Don’t be afraid to not be good at everything or know everything, and don’t be afraid to seek knowledge and expertise wherever and whenever you can in whatever subject matter or pursuit interests you.  Stop letting them make you afraid to be who you are.

But Speak.

Stand up and speak.

Get informed, but most importantly get real.

Get real.

Be who you are.

Stand up to those who tell you that because who you are isn’t a big money-maker, you’re a failure as a person and what you have to say or do in this world is unimportant.  Stop thinking that because your job isn’t glamorous or cool, it’s not worth having even if you enjoy it.

Stop being a “what” and start being a “who.”

Don’t be a Democrat or Republican or liberal or conservative or libertarian.  Stop worrying about whether you’re a Christian or a Jew or a Muslim or a Taoist or a Buddhist or an atheist or agnostic or Jainist or Satanist or any other kind of –ist.  Stop worrying about which direction you lean in, and which direction other people lean in.

Just be a decent human being.

There’s no excuse for looking at hungry people and going “well, do they deserve to eat?  Did they earn their food according to the rules we set forth?”

There’s no excuse for a nation with 18 million empty homes to have three million homeless people. (And say, how’s the math work on that anyway?  How do they figure those homes are going to be filled?)

There’s no excuse to ridicule people for having self-doubt or being misinformed (although one might fairly poke those who choose to be misinformed, one must also consider that most of us live every day of our lives being filled with misinformation).

Those aren’t decent things to do and every single person on this planet knows that in their heart.  It’s not something I need to prove or support with argumentation and reason; you know it and I know it, and that’s just the truth.  You might pretend you don’t know it.  You might even have yourself allllllmost completely convinced.  It’s not only self-evident, it’s reinforced consistently by every single important work of philosophy and religion in human history.  It’s not just a nice thing to do; it is fundamental to the survival of our race.  And we just love to tell ourselves that we are already doing everything right, it’s just the other people.  The people who aren’t my -ism and don’t lean my direction.

But deep down, you know the way we treat each other sucks ass from top to bottom about 95% of the time, and you know that to some degree, that almost certainly includes you.  It has certainly included me, although I like to think I’ve managed to get it down to maybe 60%.  I’ve met people who got it down to maybe 20% or even 10.

But it’s always there, and it’s taking us over and dragging us back to the middle ages.  If it continues, it’s a near-certainty that it will drag some parts of this planet back to pre-humanity while leaving the rest in prehistoric conditions supplemented by the junk our current attempt at evolution leaves behind.

The only way to change that is to stand up and speak out, and that includes within our own minds, to the bully inside ourselves.  For many of us, from what I see when I look around this world, that’s got to be where it starts.  That’s certainly where it had to start with me, and as the aphorism goes “we all fall short of the glory…”  Pobody’s nerfect; not me, not you, not this religious figure or that deity or the other world leader.  We must all, individually, cultivate the ability to accept that and not let it stop us from always seeking to improve our own treatment of others in thought and deed…but by no means can that be where it stops.

You must stand up, and you must speak.

Speak against the bullies, the liars, the tyrants.

Correct the misinformation and demand that those who propagate it stop doing so.

Admit your mistakes and share the lessons you’ve learned from them.

Stand up and speak out.

Don’t be afraid of being “infiltrated.”

Listen to your heart.  I don’t care what religions you do or don’t belong to; I simply believe that each and every human being alive on this planet has a heart, and I believe those hearts tell us the same things.  Call it instinct, call it learned behavior, call it whatever you want to call it; I’m a creative artsy-fartsy mofo and I choose to call it having a heart.

Listen to your heart and speak.

Stand up and refuse to be misled.

Stop hating, you know it’s a waste of time.

Stop getting wrapped up in ego-feeding internet arguments, you know it doesn’t solve anything.

Reject those who refuse to stop hating and stop fighting, and focus on how to retrain ourselves and, over time, make these things just as instinctive as procreation, and eventually those who refuse to stop hating and stop fighting will die off and we can get on with the business of evolving.

Focus on how to deprogram ourselves from the big lies we’ve been told throughout our recorded history.

That is how to “beat the one percent.”  That is how to break the monopolies that exist on our information.  That is how to turn back the rising tide of stupidity and distraction and misinformation.  Start inside yourself.  Get real.  Stand up.  Speak out.  Be who you are.  Do not submit to fear.  That is the only freedom.

That’s the only way to bring humanity to a sane, sustainable condition.

If those of us who reject the tactics and confused mentality of the bullies and tyrants of the world just do that…they can’t win.  It’s the only way they can’t win, because when it’s all said and done?

Well, when it’s all said and done…

You cannot be controlled if your mind is free.

Mighty little force is needed to control a man whose mind has been hoodwinked; contrariwise, no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything—you cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him.” – Robert Heinlein, “If This Goes On –“