Where Do I Go from Here?
I could posit I caused this, but that would be very egocentric, just as it would be for me to presume this was something done to me by some greater act of Divine Intervention.
It is what it is. There is a war happening right now. It has absolutely nothing to do with me but it turns out to be right next to where I was going to travel in November. A trip that was postponed in 2021 that was meant to be made up for this year. The uncertainty of the situation in the Levant region is even greater now than during the COVID situation. There are clearly moves being made off camera, so I decided to change my flight. Then I found out that my flight can only be changed if it is in the same region without a change fee. I do not yet know the cost of this change fee. I sit in the suspense of finding out. The relationship I have with this plane ticket at this point is something like a parasitic growth I’ve been carrying on my hip for two years. I thought nothing would stop me from going the second time around, but here we are. Never say never.
As I reimagine this adventure to anywhere but here, I feel the joy of wonder. I feel the curiosity of possibility. I am embraced by a familiar state in which I most like to be. Explorer Mode. Constraints will come and walls will appear seemingly out of nowhere, but I am just juicing this moment to feel all of its worth. A very important lesson has been cycling the past two years, and for me, it was a perpetual battle with my shadow. With rage, with obstinance, with self-righteousness, and with my defense mechanisms for feeling those big feelings in front of other people.
I am sensing how to define such a limitless state. How to inhabit the craziness without falling victim to external perspectives of that persona. At one level, we need to be able to embody the irrational to know reality, but this often comes at the expense of credibility. So a pathway is needed. A model of behavior. An example of how what seems to be just another crazy woman is an ill-defined trope. Even women believe that normal behavior is crazy because this caricature has been made up and it permeates our culture. Its even taken over the feminist movement now so that every instance of a woman making a request can also be seen as just more crazy women.
Maybe its trust or some kind of unconditional surrender that makes a woman seem crazy, and coincidentally this is also the thing that makes a woman a woman. Acceptance of things as they are because it is the natural order. In fact, when I am not allowing the Universe to unravel as it should I seem sane on the outside but due to the resistance I hurt on the inside. Its a tough job to hold up the scaffolding of a character that will not live on past this life. When I live in the walls of sanity as it is known, I pace the same path every day, knowing it is for nothing. With uncertainty, now that is what makes life meaningful to me. It becomes clear that there is no way to be certain of anything and therefore I know nothing for certain. The story can take whatever shape the character can bend into. Flexibility makes for a more interesting story for me anyway.
On PsyOps
The complexity of life from the perspective of this biologist makes the idea of some sort of grand narrative seem almost impossible. Personally, I don’t even think that the scientific community’s story of Biology is wholly factual, it's just presenting the most parsimonious path (as biologists do). On the other hand, I have sat at tables with people that have a far greater understanding of the world than me. Based on their social status and class, they could be “in the know”. With that being said, it is completely possible (and highly likely) that information is withheld from the public for the sake of preserving the current order. I do not think they all work in concert with one another, just that their interests are being served and they would like to continue with that being the status quo.
I think where I can be vigilant is in my approach to countering this onslaught of distracting information with my daily practices. I think this is where it becomes obvious that we need to disconnect from our devices at intervals throughout the day, otherwise we are always accessible to those distractions. So whether we call them PsyOps or Fairy Tales, I’m not so certain it matters what you believe in, just that we are all aware of the power our brain has to recognize and also to construct patterns. Alas, the very same machinery that makes us highly adaptable also makes us prone to self-deceptive and self-destructive behavior.
Originally written in Collective Journaling at The Stoa
