Start Believing
One issue we’ve had to struggle with is the notion of facts. Facts are very poisonous things that often peer pressure us into going against our nature. Often, we do not lend enough Creedence to Creedence itself. We often seem trapped in these walled modes of thought about what reality is and isn’t.
So that’s why I wish to appeal to the great and mythical things which stir our spirits, that old calling that rests in the sea winds on a dark night in every harbour. To the madness, the innocence, and the imagination of old.
I am here to make a proclamation that magic is real and that our foolish unwillingness to accept it has put us into the throes of misery. That we have decided upon pessimism, cynicism, and conformity to a common order in which the despots and the oligarchs of the world thrive by our low expectations of what life and humanity are.
I wish to propose that the world is full of good and evil, right and wrong, and heroes and villains. That there is something admirable in being ridiculous. That Don Quixote was the last righteous man of his age and that it is far better to fail as a hero, than to succeed as a pragmatist.
I think the narrative was biased in how we presumed that he tilted at windmills. That we took the author’s words at face value, and did not entertain that perhaps there were giants. That, perhaps, there are monsters to slay, and innocent people to protect. That there is something important in being a hero, and doing what is heroic.
I think the greatest and most heroic figures are generally those we never know of. The ones who get no credit. Who are not recognised. If you’re a firefighter or a doctor, then fair enough. We need those kinds of heroes too. But I am talking about the gentle and ordinary people who help strangers, who are moved by what disturbs them. Who are not afraid to seem foolish or tedious when every instinct in their being demands them to speak out to a silent audience.
I think that there is something to be said about everyday virtue, and about doing what is good, even when it may possibly lead to misunderstandings, embarrassment and awkwardness. I think the whimsical and the socially unconventional clumsiness of such do-gooders speaks to a courage that is rarely awarded.
I think a real rebel is not some rockstar who is given the praise and adulations of millions of people, who make product placements and make record labels wealthy. I think that is the height of conformity. Rather, what I respect are those apostates of good things who desperately attempt to be heard. Who will spend hours on a street corner trying to open people’s eyes with pamphlets and soapboxes, only to be dismissed as loons and outcasts.
I applaud the disheveled weirdoes who march on the streets against war. Who are judged and bullied on their appearance, who are dismissed as doe eyed idealists, who are dismissed as hippies and Bohemians and derelicts and traitors. I see far more patriotism in the spirits of some blue haired dissident who barely understand what they’re talking about, than the clean cut pundits who attempt to frame them as idiots and idealists.
There’s nothing idealistic about opposing war. In fact, what is far more idealistic is to conceive of the notion that you can somehow talk a million strangers into randomly murdering a million different strangers. If we can make such an accomplishment, then I see no difficulty or irredeemable obstacles of reason that one may have the same strangers perform the far less taxing chore of embracing eachother in brotherhood and humanity.
Even the most tedious and miserable activists, with their sanctimony, their pretense, their ignorance and their obnoxiousness, have far more virtue than any of the slick and well dressed mouthpieces of corporate hegemony that are spat out of Harvard or Eton.
I think that the world needs saving, and I think it will be saved by people who are not afraid to look foolish or embarrassing. Because we live in a state of affairs wherein cruelty, apathy, pessimism and selfishness are framed as intelligence.
I think it’s going to be the freaks, the weirdoes, the spazzes and the loons who are going to be the most lucid in our times. I think that in a world that is poisoned by fear, militarism, nationalism and corporate media, that madness is the new genius.
I think that if you are not deeply troubled, that if you do not suffer sleepless nights, that you do not subdue yourself with drugs, that you do not require coping mechanisms to endure the many burdens of what is to come, then you are living in a fantasy world.
I think that if you seek compromise, nuance, subjectivity and justifications for the things that should make you anguish, then you are no different from a Jesuit in Sao Vicente, or a blackshirt in Rome. If you are still trying to rationalise problems instead of calling for their immediate resolution, then you are suffering from the most pitiful of suicidal pathologies.
Start opening your eyes to the world of good and evil, the world of heroes and villains, the world in which the innocent must be protected, the world in which the poor needs justice, and the world in which God gave us stewardship of nature. A world in which the weak are just as important as the strong. Where even the most gentle of beings should be protected rather than regarded as easy targets.
I think the most fundamental and most dangerous doctrine of our times is the kind that makes us feel stupid for feeling compassion. The doctrine that speaks of the deserving poor, that speaks of how pollution benefits the economy, that speaks of how war makes global stability. We should ignore such excuses, and stop thinking it is wise to have our minds to a job that is clearly more suited for the heart.
I think we need to explore the possibility of a categorical imperative, wherein righteousness is an instinct instilled in all living beings. Where affection, forgiveness, fairness and kindness come naturally to us, and must be churned out of us through an abusive relationship with school teachers and newspapers.
We exist in a circumstance wherein we are made to feel ashamed for having instincts towards virtue. That such virtue is regarded by authority as a kind of savageness that must be civilised by corporate doctrines.
But as I keep living, and as I keep seeing others live, that we are not in an age of relativism, nor are we existing beyond good and evil. Rather, we are being ruled by villains, and such a state of affairs will inevitably command us to be heroes. We can either do that, or we can resign ourselves to shame, misery, wickedness and early graves.
Right now we exist in a time of darkness and untruth, but I think it will not last forever. I think the world is inviting heroics, justice, righteousness and goodness. I think history will put those on a pedestal who acted against their instructions, and who followed that childish sense of right and wrong when so many voices parroted the cause of obedience and pragmatism.
And I think we should be exemplary to mythic history. We should embrace the tales of knights and chivalry, of the classical heroes in the Odessy. We should look upon the moral tales of Robin of Locksley, and the impossible feats of those who acted against convention to do what was right.
Don’t strive to be clever. Because make oneself vulnerable by being kind in time of cruelty is never clever. But it is what is right. It is what is radical. It is what is necessary. Let the clever count their money, and rest on their laurels.
To suffer the punishments of kindness, to suffer the price of being vulnerable. To suffer the betrayals of trusting others. Is to do what is heroic. A hero is not measured by their trophies, but rather by their scars.
To be strong is to let others live. To be strong is to carry more burdens than just your own. To be strong is to sacrifice. Don’t fall for the supposed intelligence of weakness. Know what is good, and know what is evil, and never again let yourself be swayed by the justifications for suffering. Never let yourself be swayed by the bounties of serving power.
Always help those who cannot reward you, and always defy those who can punish you. To get these mixed up is to immiserate the spirit. Your body will age, decline, fall apart and rot in the ground. The only thing that will remain is your deeds, your spirit and your example to others.
