Continued from The Valley of the Shadow of Death
Ghosts, spirits, demons, horrifying dreams. They are guardians of the gateway.
Remember the Great Story of the Garden of Eden? You must not eat of this fruit unless you desire knowledge. The knowledge of Good and Evil.
Witches and witchcraft, supernatural disasters, ordinary disasters blamed on the supernatural.
Well-meaning warnings based on ignorance and superstition abound, preventing most from becoming curious and keep the curious from searching deeper. Deeper into the meaningful.
Some of us looked…. at death…. and felt fear. And looked again, deeper. The fear fell away with understanding only to be replaced with a new fear, a different fear, or both. Eventually and often with Great Terror… look now and you’ll remember a time. You know terror now, don’t you, but one time the Great Terror fell away and …… nothing. Understanding. That fear is gone. The first time is disorienting, an anomaly. Don’t worry, it will happen again.
Don’t get too smug though, understanding doesn’t necessarily make a person any better, just different.
This happens in an evening or over a 25 year span. You don’t really keep track, but.. you do, don’t you. Some part of you. Until…. you start looking for fear, to understand. Understanding feels good. It’s addictive. You need more fear to understand more. We get some version of what we think about and the feelings of fear intensify. You begin to cycle faster, you recognize the cycle don’t you. You’ve seen it before in your life or someone else’s, until… you stop fearing fear. Or it starts driving you mad. Oh, it’s good to Stop fearing fear.
I wish it was this quick. Nope. Like Hercules drinking from the Cup of the Giants that kept refilling itself because it was attached to a huge lake, you will face thousands of fears you don’t even know exist within you. Your moments will be swirling with depression, fear, anxiety and worry, interrupted only by sex, TV, sleep, books, and more sex and fantasies of suicide. You will get discouraged, you will give up hundreds if not thousands of times, you will walk The Valley of the Shadow of Death.
Early along the way you will begin to question, maybe because it’s funny, then over time more seriously. Easy now… it will suck you in. Then maybe in anger, or genuine curiosity. Careful, those questions are dangerous. Those questions bring attention. Those questions entertain the drunk, stoned, and bored. Those who have given up the quest become uncomfortable, concerned, afraid, angry.
Those who have read about people who question try to analyze and declare your mental illness, and, failing that, they will try to find others like you that they can study to make themselves famous for ‘discovering’ a new ‘illness’. These weaklings NEED you to be a victim to help them feel strong. They feel the pull of the darkness. They want it but they feel afraid so they send you. They judge you for your uncertainty while stoned on their delusions of shared echo-chamber smartness that is lewd, reckless, and stupid backed up by a degree.
Careful… don’t look into the dark. What you find might remove your fear forever. Or, maybe you will choose instead to give up, keep your fears, and instead travel church to church as a paid guest speaker, calling upon all to heed your warning, STAY AWAY FROM WHAT YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND! Maybe you’ll become a therapist longing for the bravery of the souls who come to you for answers. You don’t have answers though do you, so you ask “how does that make you feel?” and “Are you taking your medication?”
But then, you meet a person here and there who has been here and there. They understand, they encourage. You’ve finally found someone that sees your world. And maybe you are THEIR someone who understands.
It gets lonely as only the most drunk or the most stoned are interesting or interested.
I would encourage you to look away, if that makes you happy. Sure, why not? I always cringe when I see some poor soul circling the drain like a washrag in the toilet. They’ve got a shit storm ahead of them. They’re not likely to make it. There’s no clear map. They’ll eventually become more insistent in their search for answers and for help. All will try to drag them away from their dark obsessions or medicate them. If properly medicated a soul will lose its highs and lows. Try to be a ‘good boy or girl’. Get back to work and STAY MEDICATED.
I can only wish an early death for that poor soul caught forever in human purgatory.
However…. for the few who make it all the way….. you will NEVER be the same again. Life is just like it was before, but YOU’RE NOT. Napoleon Hill suggested that most men who do anything extraordinary with their lives don’t get started until 45-55 years of age. It takes about that long to clear the misunderstandings developed in early training, to clear your head of superstition and ignorance. If you are going for it, keep one foot nailed to the floor of sanity so that you are free to look at truth.
But.. talk as little and to as few as possible about the strains of truth you find. All except few will try to convince you that you are wrong, that you are crazy. Well maybe, but only until you’re not. If what you find is true and you seek truth, you’ll know. Keep at it and you will emerge unflappable, unsinkable. People with the greatest education will come to you for advice. You’ll have none but your best understanding of the compilations of shards of truth that you will package and offer with humble hope that it will lighten their load.
As I tell this long story I hope you look away and read something light-hearted and fanciful instead. If you read this you will see the path ahead, the path you’re on, the path behind you, or if you aren’t out frolicking with new-found freedom, you might read about the path you have successfully traveled and finished. Out the other side.
My question today is: When you emerge (an unlikely IF) will you help others? Oh, who gives a shit. The next entry of this series will get the train a-rollin’.
What the hell?!! Oh, the cat is wearing a green ribbon while leaping after a feather. It must be Saint Patrick’s Day.
Erin Go Bragh
Or as my Father-In-Law always would say ~ Erin Go Bra-Less….
The Convert 
Hi Convert,
You know sometimes I want to write Convict, since we are being judged, all the time. But I am guessing the only laws you have broken are of the heart. Do people understand you? Well, they would if only they could find your words. I hear there are one billion web sites with each site having on average of maybe a thousand pages, which gives us one trillion pages on the worldwide web…right…now. The number is only growing, so what is a poor boy to do? I don’t know. This post has a lot in common with Nietzsche. I guess you know that or maybe not. Shit, as you say, it doesn’t matter. If people acted the way you write the world would be a whole lot better off. They won’t, of course, and we will continue to kill each other with false ideas and bullets that rip our flesh. I like that phrase that humans are like viruses. There is no cure. I was imagining you in a wheelchair, like Roosevelt, by the radio, speaking to a nation under attack. Under attack…yes, we are all under attack. Oh well, does it matter that what you write is great and good and helpful? Does it? WTF. Thanks. Duke
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