Curiousities and Perambulations of a Drifter's Brain

It's a curious thing to me how most of us allow the world around us and the people moving around us, to define us... and write the story of who we are.

It's true. We talk about who we are. We make claims... but when the rubber meets the road... Most of us... do what we're told, rather than reaching for what that whispering in our souls urges us to chase...

We seek their affirmation... rather than the affirmation found in the peace that exists within ourselves and knowing we reached for our dreams.

I fully understand why that is... If you resist "their" assigned definition of you, refusing all but your own definition ~ of what you are and hope to be ~ you are then labeled; arrogant, selfish, anti-social and all sorts of other insults and vilifications... simply for living your life and not theirs; For upholding Your own values and not subordinating them to the values of those grasping for control of your life.

We wish to have peace and so we circle around the confrontations... but once you've been diverted from your proper path... finding it again can be a misery.

It's done with insidious and difficult to combat methods. There are things that are taught and inculcated into you since birth. These things are drilled into you as attributes (which they are) But then they are turned against a person as the very weapons that enforce their submission and obedience.

1. Work Ethic. Be a productive and useful person. Sounds pretty... but productive of what? and "useful" for who?
2. Good Citizenship. translation; be a good, quiet, obedient member of the herd.
3. Be Responsible. To who? For what? ... this is one of the Good things that gets twisted and perverted the worst.
4. Stop being selfish. Share. Think of someone other than yourself. (only THIS is driven to extreme)
5.  Compromise... except for the reality that no such thing exists. "You have to learn Baby Sister, you can't always have things your own way." (know where that quote came from?) Demands are made on you. To be a Good and unselfish citizen, with a decent work ethic you are emotionally beaten to the negotiating table. They only bring their demands on YOU... you bring only You. In the end, the "Compromise" is that they reduce their demands on you by half... and you surrender that half... of course... they are back next year with fresh demands... and new Compromises... give and take? riiiiiight.

That's the beauty of a well worked Con... The con artist takes a kernel of Truth to bait you... Once it's seen that you've bought their "credibility"... you're kept dancing and distracted so you don't notice when the "airplane" you're riding makes a big wide turn... taking you in a direction you had No Intention of Going...

Don't talk about and illuminate the problems around you... keep the din going 24/7 of bieber's latest punk behavior, what latest stupidity some kardashian has been up to... and who really cares about some nfl player kissing his boyfriend? just keep the mind candy diverting their attention... here and there throw in some bit of the brutality that befalls those who resist ... just to tickle their fears...

...and it's all done under the protective and obfuscating blanket of  the built in coercion of Peer Pressure... from all the good, quiet, obedient members of the herd.

It.Is.Hilarious. People forget that a Free Man is a disobedient man.

By the time you wake up and realize where you are, where that damned plane took you... you're so far gone... it's too far to get back... most just surrender, give it up and go along...

You know... Discrimination is a word that's vilified these days. Yet discrimination... is maybe a person's greatest tool. Being able to discriminate between what fits in their world and what doesn't... What values soh-sigh-uh-tee has the right to demand and those it doesn't...

Then, if you're lucky, you possess and can sustain the second greatest tool, the courage required to hang on to what fits, and forcefully discard the rest.

My entire life, as long as I can remember, I've been running against the wind. I am genetically incapable of peacefully enduring being in one place... it is simple reality. No matter how much I love a place, no matter how beautiful it is... I ache to be moving... just moving.... not going anywhere... just moving.

I have fought the knowledge contained within for as long as I can remember; Pushed by that desire droned into me to strive for affirmation. Working hard to see that what I knew inside was the best of me... were faults.

Let me step out of that ordained "Line" in pursuit of the things that please ME... and all soh-sigh-uh-tee's insidious weapons are quickly brought to bear. I'm labeled irresponsible. Unrealistic. Selfish... foolish... and all that conditioning that's been tatooed on our souls festers up to fill my mind with self-doubt, and self-recrimination.

I am tormented by Visions. On the one hand I see what I know to be a joy, a contentment, that which is Me... In the other vision I am assaulted by all those accusations of what soh-sigh-uh-tee sees as a useless scoundrel. 

Opposites battling within a hollow brain pan... You just hold to what you see is true and do the best you can.

Brian