"I don't think you're as lost as you think you are."
On the prison of safety, and the freedom of risk...
“I don’t think you’re as lost as you think you are, and I think that you’re in a better position to take control of your life than you realize.”
Jake spoke these words to me when I was feeling completely lost and defeated. You know those moments, the ones where you feel like you’re out of gas, and this is it?
They sound like simple words, but the way he spoke them, it actually shifted my perspective immediately. I wondered, “what if he’s right?”
He was.
It’s amazing how much our thoughts and programmed beliefs about what we can and cannot do completely warp our life experience, and by contrast, it is amazing how fast things will do a complete 180 when a new perspective is introduced to a surrendered mind.
**Keyword being surrendered mind. It seems nothing new can break through the ego. Surrender is not the same thing as defeat, but it often shows up alongside it.
To anyone who is feeling like their life and even themselves have gotten so far away from them that they can’t possibly catch up, see what happens if you start saying that to yourself.
I’ll be honest, it’s scary.
Scary doing something different, scary putting yourself out there on a level you haven’t before, and we often make it about fear of failure or fear of rejection, but I think it’s deeper than that.
I think a lot of us, myself included, are afraid of the intimacy that it requires for us to open up and let ourselves OUT.
Why would we fear ourselves?
I have no idea, but it’s a thing.
I think the other part is not so much a fear of failure, but a fear of success.
I have no idea why, other than the fact that the egoic self that tries to keep us safe will automatically direct us toward what is FAMILIAR and will resist that which is UNFAMILIAR - even if the familiar is pain, and the unfamiliar is freedom.
That last sentence is what I’ll leave you with. It applies to so much more than the individual tapping in with their creative selves, or anything relating to ones life purpose and deepest soul desire.
I want to also step back and apply it to society at large.
We are unconsciously comfortable with the familiar.
We are unconsciously very uncomfortable with the unfamiliar.
Regardless of what those two things are.
Familiar could be a torture chamber and unfamiliar could be a giant breezy house on the beach with a kitchen full of food, if that torture chamber is all the ego knows, it’ll actually fight to stay there, even though it is torture.
I’m having a slight Cheech and Chong moment as I write this.
Not because I’m high, but because I”m like …. holy shit that was not what I intended this article to be about and the new message is manifesting as I type (and as one of the new kittens we just got is sitting next to me fascinated with the noise my fingers are making on the keyboard.)
So with all that has happened regarding the majority of society co-signing tyranny and a life enslaved to a conveyor belt..
We have an egoic reaction (or addiction) to safety. To the familiar.
It is easier to go along with it. It is easier to defend the tyrants, if it means things will allegedly stay the same, meaning the false sense of security one derives from big government…
(Continued below)
Everything is being automated. Hospitals are a joke. Have a problem you need security or saving from? Order food and call the cops, see who reaches you first.
(Stole that last line from Tom MacDonald’s song “Fake Woke”.)
It is scary to take on the responsibility of our own survival. It is especially challenging within the system we live in, which requires our energy / allegiance to the machine 24/7, so no one has time to learn the things that doctors, public schools, daycares and grocery stores provide at convenience for them (although rapidly becoming inaccessible due to fake inflation- but real nonetheless. These people have a fiat currency to control demolition, but that’s another topic. Research FedNow or what a Central Bank Digital Currency is if you’re new to it.)
I don’t know where you live and I wasn’t planning on posting about this just yet, but it seems like a good time:
If you are able to make the drive to Camden, Tennessee, you should probably come to the Self Reliance Festival happening October 13th through the 15th. I’ll be there. I’ve been a few times, I’ll be performing music Saturday night as well, but that’s not the point of the festival. This is a preparedness festival full of survivalists, homesteaders, permaculture experts, people with extremely valuable know-how to build a life OUTSIDE of the system where you, the sovereign being, and your community of your choosing, can live free. On your terms.
I know it’s called the SELF reliance festival, but a lot of what has always been emphasized both at that festival and in preparedness circles in general, is the necessity of community. If you are planning on doing this on your own and SHTF, you’ll likely become a casualty. This is an excellent place to build community, and from what I remember from the last two festivals, there were people all over the United States (as far away as California and New York) who showed up, and we even had some people from Canada.
Anywho, if you can’t make it, there are likely other festivals similar to that near you. The Freedom Cells groups on Telegram are great places to find out what is in your area if you choose to go that route.
Alright this was weird because this wasn’t what I intended on writing about, but yeah, life is speeding up, we are entering into a new age as a collective and all experiencing it down to the core of our individuality. No pressure.
Point being, we will see a split, even more than we’ve seen before. Even within ourselves:
That which clings to safety, and the familiar, will inevitably choose bondage and decay.
That which is willing to fling themselves into the abyss of RISK and try something it hasn’t experienced before, but deep down longs for, will choose freedom — even if they fail. They will choose fulfillment — even if they fail.
Failure and success really aren’t the point. The point is, I want to get to the end of my life knowing I gave it my all. The worst case scenario would be looking a child or grandchild in the eye and telling them that something I wanted more than anything didn’t work out because “I didn’t believe in myself enough” or “I was too scared to fully commit myself to it” or even “I was too scared to even try”.
Comment below and let me know if there is something that terrifies the fuck out of you that you’d like to fling yourself into regardless… if failure and success are of no real importance… but rather, the honoring of our lives and spirits in surrendering to risk, which takes the heart of a warrior.
If you’re reading this, I already know you have it.
Whoso would be a man, would be a nonconformist.
-Emerson, “Self-Reliance”.
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Much love ❤️
So many great observations in this, and well expressed. I especially like and relate to your unexpected turn as you followed your stream of consciousness; so much of my own writing and understanding comes from allowing my intuitive ADHD Terrier brain to plunge down rabbit holes and following where it leads. Often it's difficult to bring back what I find, it's too big to bring out in one piece and has to be dismantled then reconstructed with new language to glue it all together.
This essay inspires many thoughts, their seperate signals flashing on briefly in the dark then winking out again to be replaced by others, all pulsing with life in their own pattern and timing, each unique and distinct but all of the same species, countless fireflies each silently singing it's own part in a chorus of insight, often leaving me the interpreter breathless and at a loss for words.
Some of those random inspirations:
What IS the Ego, really? Is it merely a defensive structure, or is it only the peak of a towering mountain thrust up from the Earth by Titanic tectonic forces that created it, submerged to the neck in a Midnight Sea? What brought the Flood that inundated the landscape and engulfed it, burying unknown treasures of priceless value beneath the waves? How do our Ego and the vast landscape hidden in the depths affect our economies of interaction with each other, and how do those relationships and transactional models reflect and create the structures of the society we live in, each layer of our reality a reflection of and metaphor for all the others? How does the "debt" economy manifest in our lives on so many levels, and why has it been so popularly accepted over a "gift" model of exchange? How are they fundamentally different?....
I intend to explore these connections and submit my findings, and would welcome thoughts on the matter, a comparison of notes that might yield new understandings and appreciations of the differing gifts we each have waiting beneath the surface. In the Agora of liberated thought, we may find that a gift of appreciation expressed in a few honest words offered for the value provided by the gift of another's perspective yields more abundance than all the ephemeral illusions of material wealth that we've ever imagined.
On a personal note I wish to express my thanks for the efforts you and others ( Derek, Joel...) consistently pour into the pursuit of understanding the human condition and current events, those infusions give me air for my own deep dives. Most of my own effort has by necessity been dedicated elsewhere thus far, a bit of guerilla gardening here and there, hunts for specific tools and resources elsewhere, the perpetual cycle of falling behind and catching up, mapping the inner landscape, etc. I am currently taking steps toward becoming more public, in ways I never imagined doing before and that honestly scare the hell out of me and summon fears and doubts I never even suspected, and much of my time continues to be invested in that pursuit. If my absence from these forums is noted, know that it isn't for lack of interest or appreciation, but because of attempts to exercise what I gain here in other realms beneath the surface, where hopefully I will find gifts to offer here in the Agora very soon, in kind for a growing list of kindnesses and insights I have received. For now, I hope this comment and my genuine thanks are enough. Awesome work Tess, and very timely.
-Ronin Ravenquill
"Order food and call the cops, see who reaches you first."
The REALY SCARY SHIT over here in the Philippines, is that there's:
NO 9-1-1 (No Emergency Services whatsoever)
NO COPS PATROLLING THE STREETS
NO AMBULANCE/EMT Coming to SAVE MY ASS
NO ONE even Interested to check if you're OK, laying half-dead in the street
NO SENSE of Community or Building same (maybe a bit in the countryside/province)
NO SENSE of Pride or Patriotism / Country-Building
Everyone is just out to GET THEIRS and Think Not about Anyone/Anything else . . .
I reflect on my earlier days back in the States, and visiting other parts of the world, a time when people still had HOPE that things will be alright, or get much better - Respect - Honor - Admiration and other Core Values that most of Humanity Still Gave A DAMN about Mankind.
Pessimistic - somewhat
OPTIMISTIC - 1000%!!!
We Will Survive & Thrive