"The Goal" - Beware the Snare of the Machine (Part One)

A response piece to Stone Bryson's "The Goal" - Part One

I read a story by

Stone Bryson

called “The Goal”. In the first few sentences, I saw the story of a great pitfall myself and millions of others on this planet succumb to. By the end of the story, it was like a nail being driven through the heart — a point so well made, in such brevity, I wouldn’t dare give it away.

I am going to respond to his piece, but first, I will link it here, so you can read it before reading this if you choose.

If not, I’ll be using quotes from his article and expanding on that in segments.

Heads up, we’re going on a deep journey toward the meaning of life in this post.

Don’t worry, I won’t leave you on a dark note. There’s beauty and even music to share at the end.

But I also won’t bullshit you either.

This post was LONG. I was going to release it as one post… but I’m gonna do it in two parts I just decided.

Welcome to part one.

The Goal

Let us begin.

It’s important to write this, because transformation is in the air for the collective. Angst, change, crisis, upheaval, endings, things being seen for what they really are, which was never what we thought.

This is what brings evolution, but the process can be gruesome. This is the collective Tower Moment, the collective Dark Night of the Soul.

Welcome, and happy breakthrough season to you all.

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Despite her mother’s admonitions, she had lived her entire adult life working toward that goal, never, “Being in the moment,” as Mom constantly advised. It was the only way she could emotionally process the exhaustive, at-times heartbreaking effort she was putting into her career path each and every day.

Stay busy, she would say to herself in those darker moments… stay focused on the goal.

Her career was her life; nothing else mattered, and she apologized to no one for her choices. She had sacrificed everything for it - dating, hobbies, recreation… even sharing intimate physical contact with others was cast aside as superfluous. If it did not serve her ambition, it was seen as a waste of energy; there would be time enough for life’s trappings once she had climbed that first mountain.

Today, she had finally reached the summit. Now… her life could truly begin.

-Stone Bryson, The Goal

When Trauma Response Meets Cultural Programming:

I can only speak for myself. Maybe you will find yourself here too.

Growing up, I could spot power dynamics immediately. And I knew who those people were.

I knew they were men with money, power and respect. I knew the fear they instilled in others made them “safe” — or so I thought, because turns out, most of those men are now dead or in prison. But I digress.

I saw no value in being a woman. I saw women being cheated on, left to raise kids alone that they didn’t seem to want in the first place, I saw them miserable.

I saw them betrayed with no justice, I saw them alone. Defenseless.

I saw the ones with that “thing”, from dope dealers to doctors, having some sort of immunity toward becoming prey in a society of predators.

I knew I sure as fuck wasn’t going to be prey. I don’t have a predatory instinct, but I knew I had to somehow justify my existence, as I felt “of myself I was nothing” — and I don’t mean that in some humble Biblical way. I mean I felt was nothing but a sitting duck without “being something” — or rather, someone.

Did I deal with a lot of victimization growing up through various means? Yes, and I’m not here to get into that. Enough is said with that sentence.

I grew up looking up to men. Drug dealers mostly. They seemed to have it all, no one was out to get them (at the time at least) because everyone was both afraid of them, and wanted something from them.

My own experience, and the “advice” of those around me, was to be anything but a woman. Never get knocked up or just be someone’s wife — get your money, get your career, be independent so no one can control you.

What I didn’t know is that trying to build a solo-empire is only building a fortress of isolation around yourself, but I’d find out a decade or two later.

That year was last year, 2023, when I wrote an article called “The ACTUAL Meaning of Life”, which I’ll link at the end of this post.

I had no female role models. I still don’t. But I thought it the way of weakness, and I was too terrified to embody any traits we see as feminine, unless I could use them as leverage. Not sexually, I’ve never been the promiscuous type, but as a way to somehow, again, justify my existence.

I thought if I could be smart enough, successful enough, powerful enough, strong enough, pretty enough, all of the “enoughs” — then, finally, maybe I’d just be enough.

Maybe then I’d be safe. Maybe then I’d be worthy of being alive. Maybe then I’d be worthy of being loved. Until then, I could expect nothing other than betrayal and death.

The Insidious Progression

I had to learn to make myself a monster at a young age in order to survive. It worked. Trouble is, when you leave the life of drugs and all the chaos of the underworld behind… you have to learn new behaviors, and that armor I had been wearing was almost impossible to remove. It took years to even recognize how destructive I had become as a human being — without the drugs.

Drugs were my solution to a deeper problem, they were not the problem itself. The real work starts when you get sober, and it never ends.

Cursed With A Blessing

I found music when I got sober. This was one of the greatest things to have happened to me. When I say I found music, I mean I started creating it myself. All those lyrics I’d write as a kid, all those lyrics I’d write when I was locked up, all those lyrics I’d write in my darkest hours… I knew I had to start singing them, and I knew I had to learn how to run my own studio and record myself, because I surely couldn’t trust another person to do that for me without taking advantage of me— so I did exactly that.

So far, so good right? Where did it go sideways?

When we confuse the Vehicle of our Dharma (purpose) for the Dharma itself, we lose both of them.

We lose the goal because we became so fucking fixated on the goal. We lost our WHY.

Why did I start making music? I can tell you to my core that it had nothing to do with “being somebody.” I was fucking terrified to start singing, I had never sang a note in my life until I was 21 years old.

(Allegedly, I used to sing and make songs up when I was a little kid. I have no memory of this, but I do believe the woman who told me so.)

I did it because I wanted to use all the shit I had been through to help others find their way through. That’s why. That is the fucking Dharma. Music is the vehicle.

We can summarize this in one word: CONNECTION.

It is the antidote to addiction. It is the antidote to suicide. It is the antidote to war. It is the antidote to all the things we DON’T want in our lives. And yet.. it is the thing we struggle with the most.

This is why we need people working to awaken themselves and in turn, being the example of how other people can do the same thing for themselves, and then we have a chain reaction of people who can actually connect and change the course of human FATE, to one of human divine DESTINY.

I found healing in realizing I wasn’t alone in what I had been through. The illusion of isolation is lethal. Thank God I found the others. Many of them are no longer here.

But we are not an extinct breed. If you’re reading this publication, you’re likely one of them too.

Let’s get back to the topic— where did this blessing, a literal gift from the Divine, go askew?

Well, I had a string of really toxic/abusive relationships, as that pattern continued in my life LONG after I ended my relationship with heroin and other drugs. That pattern (cycles of abuse) is actually MUCH harder to kick, but it can be done. Just don’t be surprised when you see people struggle with it— be grateful your struggle is different.

It’s not a fun one at all. And it can kill you just as easily as the shit on the street.

My solution?

I hit a point where I had to shut down entirely. I blocked everyone out. I stopped dating. Was totally closed off to men. Was pretty much closed off to the entire world, even friendships. Who had time? Certainly not I.

The only thing that mattered now was music and the mission. The Goal.

Once I could achieve that, THEN, I could finally be free. I could finally rest. I could finally breathe.

Sound familiar to Stone’s story?

Let’s take a peek at how it ends… as the girl in the story finally gets her dream job, that she is about to begin the next morning:

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Still, and despite herself, she decided to take her father’s advice and make a mental note of the date. This was most certainly a pivot point, after all… the date when her life finally, truly began: September 10, 2001.

Amera took one final glance up at the lofty, gleaming twin towers where she would be working early tomorrow morning. The goal had been reached, and she was suddenly filled with the hope - and the promise - that the future held before her.

She was, at last, alive.

-Stone Bryson, The Goal

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Do you get it? He clearly does. And it hit me too.

The reaper teaches us that the only thing that matters in life is Love. Everything else is noise.

In this story, right as the girl reached her goal and was about to finally feel alive… it would be the day that she died.

So, she never really lived.

How many other people have the exact same story?

How many of us are caught up in this matrix fuckshit and sacrifice relationships, friendships, memories, enjoyment, our fucking SOULS, just to chase what we’re told is the answer to something we’ve had within us since BIRTH!?

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Ain’t that a BITCH — steal something from someone, then enslave them with the WOLF TICKET that if they play your game hard enough, you’ll award them back with it… as if you didn’t steal it in the first place…

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Is it any wonder that these public schools suck the spirit out of children, forcing them to sit down, shut up, repeat after me, punishment if you don’t, likely pharmaceutical drugs too, and you lose your creativity- you lose your ability to be a free thinker- you are simply rewarded for being a good little conveyor belt marcher, parroting what someone else said who came ages before you.

You think you’re “on your way” because the gatekeepers of society give you occasional stamps of approval in the form of a sticker, a grade, a job, a raise, a shoutout, a LOAN for a house you never actually OWN, the list goes on…until they have your descendants paying for a wood box with money they likely don’t have to bury you in.

They get every.last.penny of “money” that only holds value with our collective consent.. and by consequence… the true value in living is lost.

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End of Part One.

Part two will release tomorrow. Special thanks to

Stone Bryson

… tomorrow this thing will take a turn in another direction.

In the mean time:

Remember your true value.

You are a Sovereign being. We all are. And we came here to remember.