The Damage is Done

I wonder what is going to happen next. I wonder if I can hold it together to get a job and move out on my own. I wonder if I can manage to hold on to that job and support myself. I wonder, because I am not really wanted where I am. The only support I can count on, the support of my family and friends, is conditional. It always has been. It has always been conditional on me finding a way to get steady on my own two feet. The irony of that always brings a smile of agony. I know what they want, and that they want it for me, for me to become independent. It is something I do want. The problem is that it leaves me alone inside a life that holds absolutely no meaning for me. This person that I pretend to be, because he means something to his friends and family, means nothing to me. He does not mean enough, to the people who employ him, to have any purpose. He can be replaced by anyone and cannot compete with the living.

He is useful to me; like a suit of armor, he has protected me from so much that is so much worse than I have suffered. He is a little dented and out of shape, the former because he has taken many blows for me, the latter because he cannot maintain himself and I do not know how to keep him from falling apart. I can barely carry his weight, and when I stumble, he falls and shatters. I keep picking up the pieces and putting them back together, but after so many falls, it has become a cascade, a walking disaster. The only way to keep him together is to pour more and more of myself into him. This is how I am dying. I cannot live this lie, but it’s the only life I have got. It is not a life. This tragic joke goes on only because my will to live is strong; stronger and more defiant with every rip and tear in my heart, for every blind piercing agony in my soul. I get knocked down and get up so fast, so often it is like the flicker between two frames in a film.

You cannot see it happen. You do not even know that the look in your eye hit me like a freight train. You do not realize that the small gestures you make without thinking, your unconscious responses to the man standing between me and you, strike me like fists. You cannot know, so I stand there and smile, screaming in agony inside my armor. When you ask me my name, the lie floats lightly off my tongue, the cost of uttering it slicing through me with the crack of a whip. I barely flinch. I dare not. My disguise will not hold up for an instant if I falter. If I raise the slightest suspicion, this interview is done; this door closes and the time and effort and expense of getting here is wasted, my resources diminished with less hope of replenishing them. But the first lie is followed by another, another fact that hides and obscures the truth. I am older now, and my long search for a way to fit in — misfit that I am — betrays me, raising doubts about my stability and reliability.

I already know you do not want him. He is stained with my blood, the undeniable evidence of my constant failure to be what people expect. You cannot see the brilliant light of my mind, the glorious beauty of my soul. You cannot see this angel walking proudly through hell, head high, perfect in her understanding of herself. I pity you as you gently turn me away. I came here to die for you, to add your labors to the burden I carry for a pittance of money I need only to pay the toll of my existence so that I am not a burden upon the people I love; people whose love for him blinds them to my very existence. They see my suffering through him, but they do not understand this tiny glimpse of me. They cannot fathom the true depths of my suffering. When I tried to show myself, they saw me as his defect. They do not realize that if I were not forced to be something I am not, I would be perfect. I realize that if I even speak of my desire to be myself, I will hurt them.

I struggle to survive because they love him. I struggle because no one else wants him. No one else needs him. He is not normal and they can sense it. My own weakness, my desperate attempts to express myself, have undermined his position. I have left proof of his flawed nature where it can be traced back to him. I compromised my own cover. I have rendered my armor useless. It is such a shame I cannot take it off. It is so sad that it is crushing me. The weight of this sorrow staggering. It makes me wonder. It keeps me up at night, my fingers dancing in the ache of words, the gentle sound of keystrokes the only tears I can shed. The tide of desperation gently eroding the sand on which I stand. I have to do this. I have no more choice in this than I have about searching for a job. I am alone and I am not wanted, but I must find someone who has some small thing for which they need someone — and someone like me will do.

If only I had time. If only you would stop taking more than I have to give. I am willing to do anything. I am utterly without shame. Just give back enough to me for me to be able to pay a world that has denied me everything and charges to let me stay. I can do so many things, but all of them take time. I know you expect me to prove myself, you keep telling me I have to earn my keep. Telling me that while you keep taking, taking everything you can take from me. That’s fine, if you want it so much take everything; I have nothing left but me. I don’t have anywhere to go. I cannot escape from what is happening to me. It kills me to go on living, but I do not know how to let go. I no longer want to keep moving. I need to stop and say no more. Oh, but who do I ask for mercy? I don’t know who you are. Even if you can hear me, why should you listen or care? It’s been ten years since I really stopped hiding and finally cried out for help. With only my soul left to bargain with, I need help with no strings attached.

So, what kind of hope am I made of? I know better than to hope for such help. I know that I’ll just be called lazy and probably even crazy. Even the people that love him have thrown that one at me. The truth is that I have tried everything, done everything asked of me. I am lost and alone and exhausted. There is nothing left of me but my dreams, broken and bleeding as me. I’ve tried to make something of them, but it was never the right time. More and more my thoughts return to them, because it feels like I am running out of time. I just want to sit down and write them, but the opportunity dried away. What once was my one hope of salvation is now just another broken dream. It does not matter if I have something worth giving. Not if it is not in my hand. If I do not have time to produce it, well, isn’t that just too bad? I do not belong here. I wonder why I try?

The Paradox of Death

There is more to this, to existing, than meets the eye. Is there existence merely because existing has a way of affirming and asserting itself? Is there anything that is not existing that is itself valid? Is there anything precursive or external to existing? If existence is all there is, does it make any sense for our existence to be virtual and illusive. If existence itself is just an illusion, is there anything that is otherwise real?

The idea of appreciating what you have and not wasting it or throwing it away for what you do not have has been used to prevent people from striving to take control of their lives, but does the advice apply to existing—cherishing this state and striving not to trade it away for something that is not existence? Or is it all just words, and we are really missing the point?

I have tried to find a way to seize the means to master my own existence; choosing this as the most worthy endeavor. I already understand the spice of life, and the paradox. I have yet to conceive of a wider arena in which to grow and participate; an alternative to existing. I do not limit myself or my interests in the world as I have encountered it, but have sought to reach into the more extraordinary concourses and viaducts of being.

Indeed, if just basic survival in such a taxing world as this were not so antagonistic to personal development, I would have opened doors only dreamed of in our lives. There is too much holding on to really be able to let go and embrace the possibilities.

I have entertained doubt. Out of respect to the idea that I may not be the clearest sighted or the surest minded. With the limited experience at my command I have achieved answers to questions that, in spite of doubt, confirm the intuition I have always had about the possibilities of existing. In my pursuit of these answers, I have staked my assets on accuracy of thought and action. I have had to blaze new areas of information, and have refined the information I have found. I have tended to find my own answers before finding them echoed by the world.

If what I am learning is to be invested in, then existence is shaped by the available information and it is the integrity of this information that creates the integrity of existence. Existence can be altered and upgraded simply by positing new, more accurate and applicable models. Existence is not an absolute, but more of a very coherent dream. We are the dreamers and the dream. Or as I like to think, the artists and the art.

There are many ways to pose this same idea; the thinker and the thought, has a special ring that should strike chords in anyone, simply because it is accurate, and may well be true. Ideas like these do not ask for fear, but that people consider very carefully what dreams, art and thoughts are—with such influence upon existence.

We are like children, making the rules to our own games, and measuring ourselves by how well we adapt and function under these rules. But, what I think is that the rules are only a tool; a way to place context and consequence on our actions. It suggests an odd idea. Existence is not bound by rules, but experience is. Existing is making one’s own rules for one’s own reasons. In fact, rules don’t even seem like the right concept; designs, ideas, patterns, all serve, since the point of existence deals with seeking definition.

There are so many paradoxical aspects to the basic perspective of being. Is this all the creation of something from nothing? Is this actually the distinction of something from everything? Is this the recognition of things that were always there, just unrecognized and overlooked? Is this just self, and the expression of self? Is information just there, or is it created for the use and then discarded?

Where is the true initiative in existence; which things are side effects and which things are primary causes? Are we decisive creatures or reactive creatures? Meaning, do we initiate, or are we initiated? Or are we self initiating? Have we perhaps gotten ourselves too tangled in our rules (our game), and been forced to stop and decide if we value our rules (our game) more than we value ourselves? Or have we suddenly realized that the rules were so twisted that we were supposed to realize that they were just ideas and that we could outgrow them and live by our own?

Whatever the question, it all boils down to making a choice. In that case, perhaps we should try to make it an informed choice. Since we cannot count on reliable authorities for information on the mystery of existence, we will simply have to put it together ourselves as best we can. Thinking the most daring and integral thoughts, always striving for the most accuracy, there will still be paradoxes to thwart us.

Each paradox is an indication that there is more than just an idea to consider, but a condition, aspect or quality of existence. Since the best definition of a thing is the thing itself, it is important to be able to recognize something when we encounter it or refer to it. Since there is always more than one way to look at something, we have to look at each thing from a number of perspectives; generally the perspectives indicated by the matter in question.

To study ourselves, we have to look at ourselves from our perspective as well as that of science, philosophy, psychology, belief, and so on. There is bound to be some perspective that has more bearing. Now, each of these perspectives also has its way of imposing its rules, and any of these designs will be valid. The task is to decide which of these really goes anywhere viable.

If an option leads to stagnation and entropy, it obviously is not a very good option. Since the worst that could happen would be for our choice to be wrong—though there is no right or wrong—it really has more to do with application. So, the worst that could happen is for us to think that we will choose the best, but choosing the worst out of habit or indecisiveness.

One of the things that has always bothered us is the fact that when we begin our lives there is no handbook explaining what we are and what we are supposed to be doing. We grow up being told what other people have decided and being asked to accept other people’s opinions on what this all means. Most often, we are conditioned to accept that the rules of the game are more important than the players.

However, any child will tell us that a game is meaningless if no one wants to play it. Add to that the fact that any game that has pointless or insufferable rules will quickly loose the interest and support of the players, if not the players themselves. Our game is rather interesting. The rules really suck and one of them is that we have to play or we will be denied the option of playing any game at all.

We begin the game by learning that everybody loses in the end, and the only alternative to losing the game is to lose it even quicker. Even the best players ultimately lose. And the very worst thing we can do is to try to change the game, its rules, or ourselves outside of what the rules allow. The only nice aspect of this game is that we are allowed to have our own little games within it, so long as these games do not conflict with or contradict the main game itself.

But, that is just another opinion, and should be registered as such. Regardless of what game we are playing with our existence, our existence itself is there just the same. That is what is important. Some of us are not really playing games. Some of us are aware that existence asks more of us than any game.

Until thinking is outlawed in this game, we have a right to be concerned with our existence and where we are going with it. Thinking, if it ever is made against the rules, will become the sole asset of those who are forced to oppose the game; which would put those obsessed with playing games at a great disadvantage in keeping their game alive.

Even from within a situation as disadvantageous to our existence, our evolution, as such a game, there are things to learn that still apply to our evolution. Perhaps because it is in our nature that we tend to see what we are forced to confront better than what we are not, one of the things we see in our world is pattern decay.

A living pattern that is growing is very self-maintaining. It can still become distorted, but for the most part, it doesn’t fall apart as easily as a non-living pattern. In any structure built to house life, a certain amount of debris begins to collect as part of life that has to be confronted and dealt with constantly or it soon overwhelms the edifice and begins to choke the life out of it.

When the inhabitants of the establishment are determined and responsible to the edifice, they maintain the patterns, and it remains close to the original expression. If the maintenance is slack, then chaos inevitable takes over. In the mystery of existence, this is found even in the decay of transmitted signals; they have to be boosted and reinforced to carry further. Mountains crumble, deserts spread, and rivers grow clogged with silt or pollution. Stars grow dim or explode. Words, ideas, games lose their meaning.

Memory fades.

Anything which once exists in a deliberate form eventually becomes random and hazy. This is why the new replaces the old. Because the old stops being really alive. We see entropy; degeneration of the patterns that we worked so hard to establish. Do we want this to happen to us? To humanity? It doesn’t matter how hard we try to hold on to something; if we don’t use it, we lose it. Ourselves included. It is impossible to hold on, but it is not impossible to go on.

To stay alive, we have to keep moving. We have to keep recreating ourselves; renewing each gesture and affectation. The best way to keep life is to keep living life. The best way to keep living life is to keep growing. Not literally in an organic mass; but as a constant refinement and exploration. The organism is growing to achieve a temporary design of adulthood.

In doing so it rushes past the marvelous condition of childhood. As much as adulthood has the purpose of reproduction to renew the race, there are no provisions to renew the individual. But individuals are the heart of existence. To survive, the race has to keep replacing its heart.

An individual comes so close to really being alive. An individual holds all of the experience gained from a life, and an individual takes it all with him or her when the flesh decays. Which is a shame. Granted experience is in the past, but that passing experience is the seed of greater and more refined experiences to come. Why does all our sophistication have to die? Especially when sophistication is what our world needs to really grow; what our race needs to grow.

Death has a place in the design, along with destruction and decay. These are all expressions of change, and existence needs change. The problem is, death is a meaningless end. It is illogical for existence to end in death. I shouldn’t have to convince anyone. The answers, and the questions, are all there. It’s my life. It’s your life. I have to live mine, and you have to live yours. Some day we will have a world worth living in, if we have to create it from scratch.

The Impact of Social Stratification

We’re all human. None of us have a say in what circumstances we are born. Pretty much any other characteristic by which people can be defined produces some form of social stratification. Thinking about it boggles the mind. I’ve grown up with the ideas of caste and class, and tried to understand how anyone can willingly accept being “put in their place” by the people around them. In the end, I think it all comes down to the perception of power, the ways in which circumstances can be used to dominate society.

It is fair to say that society, like reality itself, is created and sustained by our participation. Society is an unspoken contract, and one that is sort of worked out on the fly and passed down in its present, imperfect form through each generation. We pride ourselves on the progress we have made, but honestly it seems that whatever progress we have made has been in spite of ourselves. But, how can we address it critically and sensibly?

It is so easy to point the finger of blame, or to rationalize human behavior, but I’m still asking myself, “Why does anyone put up with this?” There are certain things, things we have created, that make us desperately unequal. Consider the tendency of formal organizations to create authority, or formal systems to create wealth, or formal status or merit to create prestige.

These are useful things, but they need to be paired with responsibility, integrity, and humility. Look at the way that groups are formed on the basis of common identity or purpose, but create trends of positive and negative discrimination, and the guidelines for institutionalizing them as caste or class. Think of the many ways that individuals who have gained a privileged place in society have acted to protect their privilege by limiting opportunities, controlling resources, creating surplus labor forced to compete for reduced wages.

The fact is that any system or organization can be leveraged to create power, in one of many forms. Money is economic power. Prestige is social power. Authority is political power. This is power we all have, but depending on where we are in the system, that power is either channeled away from us, or right into our hands, and it happens because we allow it to happen. The problem is that social stratification dramatically shifts the balance and flow of power. The more concentrated the power structure becomes, the more severe the inequalities of society.

The ultimate danger is not revolution, however. The more extreme the imbalance is, the more coercive the power structure becomes, the more controlling it becomes. The real danger is not that people will fight the system. The real danger is that they will simply abandon it. They will try to escape their miserable lives through drugs and debauchery, they will turn to crime and simply take what they require, or they will quietly, desperately, take their own lives.

Take a Moment to Reflect

Even with the best intentions no one has the right to impose a system of thought or action on anyone against their will. Ironically, that is exactly what has happened to all of us as we were born into this world. It is in some ways no different than being born into slavery, in the sense that we come into the world having no say in the system that will govern our lives, and we spend our most vulnerable years being programmed to become obedient citizens and uphold the status quo.

As children we learn that the double-standard is pretty much the rule in virtually all situations, and while there seem to be thousands of problems in the world, the one thing all problems have in common is apathy and indifference. The older generation has already been through the school of hard knocks and become bitter, skeptical, intolerant, or what have you — the end result being that most people have given up on trying to make the world a better place and turned their attention to finding a better place in the world. While most people are busy pushing and shoving each other aside trying to “get their share” no one is taking responsibility for the world we share.

Now, I understand that self interest is important for people’s well-being, but our selfishness as a species has become blinding. It isn’t enough that we’re consuming the world’s renewable resources faster than the world can cope with, or that we’re depleting the world’s limited resources as fast as we can dig them up, but we also pile up mountains of debt for our children to conduct wars with nations we’ve given up trying to be friends with. People need to wake up and realize that no one is going to fix the world for them.

The people who have seized control of our world are abusing the authority they’ve been given, ignoring the responsibilities we’ve entrusted them with. I’m not just talking about our presidents and prime ministers, here; I am talking about the people who are given authority in all walks of life that are exploiting the system for their own benefit. I’m even talking about the customers who abuse the courtesy of employees to get special attention or service. Every single abuse of the public trust is passed on to another human being, and while people are complaining about how they are being mistreated, each person who uses their misfortune as an excuse to abuse the public trust is helping to destroy the world we live in.

Not all at once, not today, but almost every day, somewhere, for someone, it manifests as robbery, assault, rape, murder. That is how it works. The end of the world comes one person at a time. Every time a person dies, the world loses something irreplaceable.

There have always been those who believe that the world would be a better place without some people in it, and there have always been people willing to kill anyone who gets in their way. We have all been one of those people, at some point in our lives, for some part of our lives. The worst possible human being exists within all of us, as does the best. We can choose to understand this, and we can choose what sort of human being we will allow ourselves to be. We can choose to be weak, we can choose to be insignificant, or we can choose to be powerful and extraordinary.

Those choices are ours, and we make them by doing what those choices call for. But, no one is going to make the right choice if no one cares. The only thing that people need, really, is something that most people have — or can get access to — and the only thing they need to do is stop taking it for granted. It’s called a mirror. Take a good look, because that is who is going to change the world — or not — and that is who you have to fight to succeed.