Turned Into Dirt

I write this piece to inspire and give hope, I hope.

I get tired of the things I feel from across the ocean, I feel a country very sick and dirty. I see a place full of fear and pain and ideas of hell, all created by them. I'm tired of folks believing that their fears are just there naturally, not created by the environment they live in. That fear should be medicated, never dealt with. Fear is okay, not dealing with it is what is traumatic.

I'm a believer in collective knowledge, that the thoughts we put out create our surroundings, manifest our existences. However, never believe a word I say until you want to or choose to believe it. I talk a ton of shit, some may be true, some may not, you figure that out for yourself, don't depend on me to give you your answers. That's what I tell people about myself, you decide how to use the shit I talk about.

I talk to things that have been ignored for ages, I go deep into my mind and heart and have conversations with my mortality. I sit down with the death inside of me, the decay, and I have a cup of tea. Even death gets lonely, actually, more lonely that most things. Many people run from death only to end up running into it faster. I'd just rather make death my friend and chill out. You'd be amazed at how much death knows and how much death likes to have fun and party. My inner voices are what keep me thriving, and none of them are ever too scary for me. Everyone is welcome in my world, unless you're just being an asshole to be an asshole. Then we let you sit outside for a bit to cool down before we let you try again.

Life is great, life can be happy, but I embrace the entirety of it all. I see a society from far away that medicates its inhabitants when they feel, when sadness creeps in, they don't allow them to live the sadness. Insincere questions of "are you alright," or "are you okay" fill the lives of those in this society. A fake smile and then more apathy continue unchecked as many reply, "yes, I'm fine." Every emotion is defined as intense, every emotion is considered a roller coaster of chaos that must be dealt with through counseling, social ostracization, or drugs. Everyone always talks about achieving balance, but nobody can ever agree nor figure out what this nirvanic "balance" is. I have my suspicions that the balance is the so called chaos, we're just the ones who choose how we enjoy the ride. A good life as defined by you is better than a perfect life as defined by others.

More folks than not are considered to have some sort of mental problem, this is the norm and many don't think anything constructive needs to be done about it. Medicate them and forget about them is the plan. Additionally, it is also easier to find a scapegoat and attack that. One side attacks religion, the other attacks science, the other attacks them both, the other attacks the politicians, the other attacks the education system, the other attacks doctors, the other attacks the DMV, the other attacks drunks, the other attacks teachers, and the other attacks the unattainable other. In a society so psychopathically obsessed with labels and artificial order, I often forget who the other actually is. Sometimes I realize that the other is just a made up concept to keep folks pitted against each other. There is a ton of profit in indecisiveness after all, especially when you're the one who sells the cure.

I see a mass amount of people that get high off of a false sense of unending euphoria. Tons of seminars, tools, books, CDs, self help everything all used to make money and make the masses believe that they are genuinely unhappy and need saving through these profit making mechanisms. Tell the masses that if they are not so nauseatingly bubbly on the outside but also manic depressive on the inside then they just aren't doing anything right. After all, the self help market thrives on making people believe that the insecurities they possess can never be effectively dealt with without some product, list, or presentation. In this land it is believed to a great extent that books and seminars are more powerful than genuine friends and a good laugh.

Counseling and love has been largely delineated to a person between four walls with degrees, charts, and numbers. They are the ones who are considered the truth tellers. In this land, there is such a thing as good versus evil, it's been created because people believe it. The formula is easy, those without are evil becaue they choose to be evil, therefore deserve the without. Those with, are good, because they chose to be born with more resources around them and were genuinely smarter than the evil people at getting things done. The narrative is told along the lines of, "Success is obviously due to the fact that one person (always you, the person being told this) simply tried harder than the rest. Because of this, you have the right to collective resources, and you have more ownership over the lives of others. You are, after all, the savior in this land of poor oafs." It's a good thing that those who believe this narrative are there to save us all from our own blindness and stupidity. What ever would we do if we could think for ourselves? That would be disasterous. Good thing we have expensive education institutions to sit around and talk about all the things we could do rather than actually do them. It's a good thing too that we have so much data and opaque information that the general public always has a hard time grasping the jargon. How else would they be manipulated to believe in our excessively consumeristic truths so blindly? We can't empower individuals because then we, the guardians, will lose the power. "Nobody can handle chaos like the professionals," is a common thought in this land.

I see a mindframe that does not celebrate death, yet runs from it, while simultaneously using the fear of death to create massive amounts of abusive profit. Many of these people do not wish to follow the flow of the blind cattle, but when you're fenced in with a billion others, escape is almost futile. It's the ones who are the most vulnerable that get shoved for the meat making line first. Women, children, and elderly to the choppers first please. Don't forget the gays, they have special more violent choppers over there.

I see a society that has made a huge debauchery of many ancient traditions and ways of life. These traditions have been relegated to "art" or "something else" that is to be sold to the highest bidder. They have been transformed from a way of life, to a way to make profit and further abuse those who have been abused for so long. Those who still practice these traditions are then deemed "exotic," "mysterious," or more times than not "insane." Selling ancient cures takes away their power, and these cures are always limited or even ineffective when done for money and not simply because of love. We are all healers, healing is not something that should be bought or sold, ever.

There's something so interesting about a culture to deem so many of its own inhabitants insane. There's a pill for every ailment, but there is no time to talk to folks about love, no time to build meaningful relationships, no time to connect with the earth, and no time for laughter, the best medicine of all. When they all pretend to be so damn busy and don't notice the splendor of the life all around them, disease comes quick, and no pill can cure the diseased mind and heart. But they sure will try and sell you one, and many people eat this shit up, pouring out money thinking that monetary wealth is the answer to everything. "Got a problem? Throw money at it," is the philosophy of the land. The green paper that comes from the trees will fix everything, never mind that nobody asked the trees permission to cut them down. Plants get angry too you know. They are also collectively stronger than a few rabid dogs.

I see a place where so many good hearts and souls get trampled on daily, their willingness to give makes them perfect prey for those willing to take and hoard. They not only take, they drag, abuse, step on, spit on, and then tell those willing to give that they are insane for wanting to give so much. The hoarders collect (thesaurus of assbaggery synonym for collect: "steal") the resources of the giving to tell them that the hoarders (synonym: thieves) are now the true owners of the resources because the masses are too stupid to distribute anything properly and always need interventions from outside parties, especially if those parties have more green paper bills. In a land where everyone takes before what they have gets taken first, giving is not a quality that is admired, respected, or thought possible. It's a dog eat dog world they say, but they forgot that they are not the world, and that animals much fiercer than dogs exist. Dogs are only one creature in the animal world after all. Rabid, blood hungry dogs are fewer yet.

I see a mass of children, whose dreams just aren't allowed to flourish completely. They are told from day one that there is such a thing as childish ideas and that imagination isn't something that creates possible useful things. They try and transform these kiddos into robots, making them the ultimate drones for society. Pump them full of medication, poor diets, shitty recreation activities, and then tell them it's all their fault and they chose this lifestyle. Better yet, make them really believe and internalize this, so that when they are prosperous, they too will not help those in need. "It is a dog eat dog world after all," they will rationalize in their heads. The ideologies of this society have to keep going after all if large scale manipulation is to continue.

I am aware that in this society, there is medication for overactive imaginations, and to deny this medication to your children because you can see the mental abuse in the institutions you live in automatically makes you an outsider, a bad parent, and further inhibits your movement up the imaginary totem pole (not a real, culturally significant totem pole) created by this society. Not everyone has the luxury of running away. There is even medication for adults who "think too much," creative energy is not a useful concept in a society that needs many monotone people. You must keep the masses believing that they are only good at one thing, and that disciplines can never mix and are not compatible. Mathematicians can never be artists, artists can never be scientists, philosophers can never be astronomers, and not everyone can be a genius in their own right. Be sure to praise only the things folks are good at to make sure they follow their neat little socially defined boxes their whole lives, wouldn't want them to branch out and figure out they are talented at many things. Don't challenge them, or else they might learn something useful. Remember, chaos is a bad thing in a society where control creates profit for those who march to only one song.

"Always make nature a secondary source of information" they say in this society. The natural world can not help you as efficiently as the artificial world created for profit can. Tell and make people believe that their intuition, emotions, and gut feelings are never right, should be questioned ad absurdum until people believe that what they feel is unquestionably wrong, and that the words of many professionals uninterested or unaware of your personal life are always better at knowing who you are (especially if you bought their book). They are the guardians who with their limited knowledge of you as a person are there to give you sound advice, pills, and of course, collect your money for their imaginary healing powers. Don't forget to buy their best selling book either. If you don't give in to them, then you are quite a bad person who does not know what you are doing in your life and should be institutionalized, medicated, or at least leave elsewhere or face being incredibly ostracized. What else do you have to talk about besides money and how everyone screws everyone over in this land anyway? Might as well give in sooner than later. It's a well known fact here that robots don't function for profit as well when they are reprogrammed to act independently while also being able to consider others before they act.

All hope isn't lost, and so I write this for that purpose. Dreams never die, try as others may quash them. Collective dreams of love and harmony are a million times stronger than those of profit and abuse. Pedestals fall, and they fall hard. Those who are used to living in the dirt simply move on and use the dirt to grow the riches of the earth to keep on living and laughing, loving and sharing. Those who aren't used to this, well, they become dirt eventually and then they too become part of the beauty of giving life. Be strong and love each other.