The Never Ending War

Tempore Belli|Anos Singulos MMXXI—The height of the crisis has reached its peak with the Left and Right killing millions of lives. Children of both sides praying to be saved from an attack from either side and hoping that we will one day get along. Women and Men of all stripes rushing to mentally sterilize themselves of all connection to opposing views, so that they will not be able to birth a half breed and suffer the barbaric fate. Families crushed, forced to choose a side, and humanity ever entrenched in a downward spiral to the hellfire. All for the sake of progress? The ceaseless bloodshed and constant infighting seems more like a regression to me but what do I know?

My name is Orhan Arden. I am 31 years old and I don’t know where I belong in this world. To say that I am caught between a rock and a hard place would be an understatement. I have lived the entirety of my short lived life in constant confusion and distrust for the establishment. The same establishment that both the Left and Right blindly support. Surely if they could see what I see with impartial vision, they would stop this ceaseless infighting. They would also squarely see who is the true fire that needs to be extinguished and the life that we should all be truly living. But I am merely a disenfranchised child in relation to our more experienced boomers who refuse to retire, and unworthy of an opinion in this already jaded world. Am I alone in this assumption?

I am neither Left nor Right, right nor wrong, but, I am simply a living sentient being charged with the simple duty of growing and prospering. With the emphasis on being prosperous. Though, for countless eras we have been everything but prosperous. This also applies to the establishment of which we feed daily. Over countless eras the inhabitants of this world have raped, pillaged, mislead, restricted, chastised, scapegoated, killed, sacrificed, and corrupted the entirety of its kind. The “other” has always existed and the ‘collective” was never truly realized. I myself, was always too dark, too fat, too wise, or too misguided to make a difference in this world.

What do I know? I know that the world has been intrenched in constant conflict with no real reason beyond greed and the unquenched thirst for being right. I know that millions of beautiful souls just waiting to grow were denied that privilege because of our inability to care for our fellow people. I know that we have become stagnant as a people and have ruined all opportunities for us to grow beyond this world and space. I also know that billions of our people suffer everyday by no fault other than our own. We decide what our world will be like, and we also decide what is allowed and what is not allowed. It is not our creator that decides, for we know that we were all imbued with free will and an inalienable right to live. So why do we continue to torture ourselves?

Who says that we must use appropriate grammar in the target language we use? Who says that we must work 5 days a week? Who says that All Lives Matter or that Black Lives don’t? Who says that we have to use money? Who says that we must graduate with a college degree to survive? Who says that we need to depend on money to live a life? And who says that we must love or subscribe to one gender over the other? What are restrictions and who is the authority that mandates them? Some say an omniscient being does, some say that our bosses do, and some say that’s just the way it is! Nothing is ever the way it is! And nothing is “normal” or compulsory. We make it so collectively, and by continuing to do so, and by continuing to live under this era of self-imposed restrictions we will continue to suffer.

The next age of human revolution will not be characterized by bloodshed and violence but will be a revolution of collective trust and tailored opposition. We cannot go head to head with an establishment that has an unlimited sources of money, means to mobilize resources, and consistently changes the rules of the game that it has clearly established. We must transcend the game of suffering by refusing to participate and or make a concerted effort to resist. How do we resist? I assure you we do not do so by picketing in the streets, throwing bombs, or killing anyone (even if we’d rightfully like to do so). But we do so by exercising our powers as Presidents, Vice Presidents, Directors, Managers, Supervisors, and employees of all of the establishment operations we support.

Liberation needs to be sung from the hilltops of every corrupt business that marginalizes every contributor from top to bottom. Yes, I said that ALL contributors are marginalized, and until you realize that simple notion you will never be ready for a peaceful form of revolution. To explain this mentality you only need look at the structure of any company with oppressive hierarchal structures. Who is to blame? Is it the CEO who puts pressure on the Senior Vice Presidents? Is it the Senior Vice Presidents who put Pressure on the Vice Presidents? Is it the Vice Presidents who put pressure on their Directors? Or is it the Directors who put pressure on their Managers? Is it Managers to Supervisors and Supervisors down to Employees? Having a basic understanding of this philosophy means that you understand that neither of these parties are the root of your suffering.

If you truly want to become advanced in this philosophy you will also realize that the establishment is not the Board member forcing the CEO to force everyone else to be miserable. You will realize that self-imposed restriction outside of protective parameters is our truest enemy and the ultimate man-made establishment. You will also become well versed in thinking beyond this world and begin pondering on the vastness that this universe has to offer.

Money is one of our greatest self-imposed restrictions. This is why I did not make it out to be the root of all evil. Self restriction outside of protective measure causes the greed and lust for money. Money supports power into the hands of the few and power corrupts. We should be farther along as a species, and our constant clinging to money has stagnated that growth. Some, desperately clinging to the traditional mantra of the money doctrine will profess that Money serves an inalienable purpose, or that it allows governments to provide needed means for competition and deterrence, or that it ensures that all of our resources are not squandered. But that couldn’t be the farthest thing from the truth in my view. Money is a self-imposed hierarchal demand on over 7 billion people in the world today. It is a permission slip for those who have the most of it to oppress people. It defines a definitive framework for how our societal structure should be built, and so long as we have it and continue to embrace this culture of money, the longer we will be oppressed by it.

One only need look to the fight for climate change as a clear example of where money falls short and becomes restrictive. We have the tools and the research potential to proactively create green forms of production. But because of the self-imposed restriction of money, companies fail to implement life-sustaining technologies for the shear cost of it all. In what world does this make sense? Certainly it makes no sense in this world or any other beyond the vail. So why do we continue to subscribe to it? The solution is complex but the reasoning is simple.

People have been psychologically manipulated over generations to adhere to oppression and hierarchy. Some say it is the capitalist system, the inherent greed it births, and the soullessness of the people who perpetuate the system. But is capitalism the root or a symptom of the root associated with self-imposed restriction? I would clearly argue the latter. Our world as we know it is a reflection of our unquenched ability to correct ourselves and self-restrict ourselves. This is a product of our very ability to critically think and have a conscience about anything. We don’t live based on what actually feels good but in fact live based on what “feels right”. Feels of course being the operative word. What we feel is a direct result of our ability to critically think and reprogram what we instinctually know. We live our entire lives fighting our instincts or gut feelings we intrinsically know are right. All for the sake of being “sophisticated” or “productive” members of society. The need to belong to a social group or not be the anarchist of the room.

Well I for one choose to be an individual, and choose to live a better life. One not filled with regret, over-analyzation, or self-conformity. I choose to be bolder and to critically look at our society as a whole and focus on liberation. Happiness and peace should be the goals of every living sentient being, but we cannot do this until we break the cycle of self restriction, and start working when want to, living when we want to, writing when we need to, and working together when we have to. I hope this essay has encouraged you to think beyond the daily troll of restricted life, and start visualizing on what a grander existence looks like and how we can proactively actualize it now!