So often we forget in the midst of the din of denial and accusations that all it takes is for one person to stop and listen and believe to the one voice rising above the chaos that warns of the danger ahead. Listening to that one voice will often spell out the difference between joy and tragedy.
We get so lost in the rush to to get out of the way it's hard to think, hard to see, hard to believe that anything can be different, and so we give up. That is what life is like for so many of us when we are so overwhelmed by whatever assaults our senses, our minds, our spirits. It's easier to stop, drop, and roll into the grave prepared for us.
I spend a lot of time researching, reading, and looking for more clues to the trail I've been following. The clues are hard to see and I miss them sometimes, so I give up for a while. I walk away or move on to something else. I need to take a break and give my mind a rest and so I read something else. Reading is never the problem. It's the flow of information and the onslaught of that juggernaut of doom and gloom bearing down on me that turns my knees to a rubbery mess that will no longer hold me up that forces me back and away because I need to give in and sit down.
I have been pointing out the dangers of relying on the media to give me the truth. Expecting a service that is paid to lie and cheat and lead me into danger to tell me the truth is like picking up a rabid dog and expecting it not to bite and infect me with its disease. I'm a little smarter than that -- not much, but a little.
Few will thank me for lighting a candle in the darkness and I accept that. Some people resent the rapid change from darkness to even the flickering light of a candle in the wind. Their eyes tear and they feel safer in the dark. After all, the candle won't last forever and they will be in the dark again so why bother?
It's hard to see at first. The eyes burn and tears flood the vision. Wiping them away helps for a second and the eyes still burn and sting. What will they see when the blurriness clears, the tears dry, and they are able to see? Fear sets in. The mind recoils from the possibilities and from the ability to see clearly the deepest nightmares that force them awake with a scream shattering the silence. Not knowing is better. Being unsure of the danger is safer. All that is needed is to go back to sleep, turn away from the images burned onto the retinas, walk away from the light and the knowledge that their world is no longer safe and secure and known . . . even though the world was never known. It has always been a nightmare landscape littered with bloody bodies and shattered lives. Better not to know.
But is it?
Is it better to be unaware that your moments are numbered and you will be a bloody and battered casualty of a war you didn't know you were part of? That is the real nightmare. That is the real cost of following the herd over the cliff onto the jagged rocks below or into the cold embrace of the abyss struggling for just one more breath.
That is what it is to wake up to the reality of the man behind the curtain pulling the strings and creating the fearsome image blazing fit to burn you as you stand shivering before it. There's the initial shock that so small and insignificant a person is the real danger when the curtain is pulled back. First, the shock and then the realization and then the anger. The insignificant man cowers before your rage and betrayal and he inches forward. You are secure in your outrage and never see the thin sharp blade as it slips it's poisoned length into your vitals and slump to the floor amazed that such a nonentity defeats you in the end.
Fear was better. Fear kept you safe. Fear kept you unaware of the danger. The danger would not have struck had you never pulled the curtain, never confronted the puppetmaster, never known. Now that you know, it's too late. Better to have feared.
But is it?
All too often we forget that everything worth having has to be worth fighting for, struggling for, and even dying for. Over 200 years ago, men who lived well ordered lives, often lives of obscurity and peace, decided not having control of their destiny, their business, and their lives was to live as slaves. No, their motives weren't pure, the men who started a revolution that rocked a nation and sounded the clarion call for others. They often obscured their motives and rewrote the books to seem heroes, and in their own minds their actions were justified. They did pave the way for millions, for billions. Some would say their revolution was justified by the freedoms they bought with those lies and the blood of millions. I might say that was true and they deserved their heroes' legacies, but not today because they led us out of enslavement to one master and into eternal enslavement to a master less not willing to let us go, a master able to use our fear and modern methods to keep us enslaved as they changed our very biochemistry and enslaved our minds to an empty ideal that was little more than a hologram carrot on a very real stick with a stiletto hidden in its lure.
Welcome to the pit of hell where every good deed is punished and you walk happily to Lady Guillotine whose bite is swift and painless and sure. Welcome to your worst nightmare. Embrace it. You have been expected and will now serve the greater good as you have served the greater good with your ignorance and belligerence and willingness to be deceived because you couldn't be bothered to give up your precious time to look for the man behind the curtain.
You all will die, and so will the voices almost silenced by the din, but at least they will die knowing they warned you of the dangers and the lies, though you would not listen, As you ponder eternity knowing you had a chance to escape, what will it profit you but shame and regret and the possibility that your children or your children's children -- your legacy -- will escape the ultimate doom. Isn't that enough?
If only you had paid heed to that one voice telling you the truth, to that flickering candle lighting the darkness. If only...
That is all. Disperse.
