Photo by Justin Luebke @ Unsplash
My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness. The Dalai Lama
How are you coping, Sensitive Soul? You’ve been living under extreme stress and constant pressure from two invisible wars raging around you: a war against a menacing spike protein and a brutally divisive identity war that’s assaulting your soul and the soul of nearly every human on earth right now. Increasingly intense waves of terrorizing images have battered you for the past 20 months (or 20 years if you count 9/11 as a prequel to 2020). You can’t put your head in the sand or flee to another city to escape these invisible wars because they’re everywhere, so you’ve been forced to adapt. Your life, your livelihood and your liberty have been suddenly and massively disrupted and a “new normal” imposed within a matter of months. Though you may strive to be kind and lead an ethical life, it’s possible to get swept up in mass confusion and lose your moral compass under these stressful conditions. You’re at a crossroads for your soul. Awaken from the nightmare and choose, Sensitive Soul.
Crossroads of the Soul
Whether you’re spiritual, religious, or good without God, in this warlike environment, you are choosing your future and participating in choosing a future for our world.
I believe that the horrifying deterioration in the ethical conduct of people today stems from the mechanization and dehumanization of our lives, a disastrous byproduct of the development of the scientific and technical mentality. ~ Albert Einstein
When scientific and technical entities gain unprecedented power, humanity can be reduced to a series of data points that are collected, sold and then deployed against them for profit. The warped world of digital reality can seduce and mold humans in its own inhumane image. It’s become completely normal to willingly hand over sensitive and private data which was once shared only with your best friend, your lawyer, or your physician. Tech companies have spent billions figuring out how to keep you sharing, liking, swiping, tapping and clicking, so they can chain you to your device, vacuum up your data, and influence what you buy, where you go, what you think and how you feel. Meanwhile, they continue to devise more intelligent algorithms they constantly tweak to control your behavior below the level of your awareness. Nonstop exposure to these digital daggers can make a prison of your mind and a stone of your heart. The philosopher-activist Angela Davis is quoted as saying that prisons are designed to break human beings and convert them to specimens in a zoo: obedient to their keepers, but dangerous to each other.
Has our digital reality, media fear porn, mandatory masking, lockdowns and antisocial distancing made us obedient to our keepers and dangerous to each other?
A Measure of a Society’s Freedom is How it Treats Its Dissidents
It may be tempting to believe that normalcy can be restored by silencing, punishing or converting those who disagree with you, but that is a very dangerous and undemocratic illusion. Those who question authority preserve a free and democratic society by resisting the overreach of the powerful, who will always seek more power at the expense of ordinary citizens. Conscientious objectors speak for the soul of a nation by holding leaders accountable for their actions and challenging the prevailing narrative. Publicly denigrating and deplatforming those who do not go along with the mainstream is the first step along the slippery slope to a hellish future of segregation, suffering and death. History records way too many examples of this destructive dynamic, which we are destined to repeat in our generation unless we wake up from the hypnotic effects of a constant state of emergency and recover our common humanity.
It is possible to destroy our society from the inside out if the humanity of a sub-group of people is denied. Before human beings can enslave, torture or subject other human beings to horrific experiments, they must first dehumanize them. Here’s how: First normal is defined by leaders, who claim to be the only ones who know what’s true. This one true belief is then widely broadcast with the demand that all good citizens conform for the benefit of society. Increasingly strict measures are imposed to coerce compliance. Relevant debate gets suppressed. Nonconformists are publicly shamed, marginalized and have their privileges revoked. Dissidents are shunned by conformists.
You Risk Losing Your Humanity When You Deny Another Hers
The stress of continuous conflict weakens and confuses everyone, enabling corrupt leaders to direct the frustrations of the many toward the blaming of the few. Poison seeds of fear, intolerance and hatred are thus planted everywhere in everyone. These toxic seeds get watered by a steady flow of panic-inducing messages, and can eventually bloom violently in the public sphere. Rampant discord then enables leaders to justify even more punishing control measures. Like death from a thousand cuts, liberty, freedom and democracy perish this way. If corrupt leaders are unopposed by dissidents, a totalitarian ideology can lead to the extermination of a minority with the compliance of the majority.
No man is good enough to govern another man without his consent. ~Abraham Lincoln
Leaders who demand strict conformity to an extreme ideology, whether political, religious or military, are always trying to increase their power by controlling (not equitably governing) masses of people. To gain the “compliance” of large groups of good and ethical people, three primary manipulation tactics have been deployed throughout the ages:
Create fear by identifying and amplifying an outside threat to the population that induces peak stress levels in them.
Channel their fear into hatred by blaming a minority for causing the threat.
Consolidate power for a few by systematically disempowering the many in the name of the common good.
Brutal atrocities in the name of God, science and the government can occur in an atmosphere of fear, blind faith in authority, and the scapegoating of minorities. The environment that surrounds us now is fertile ground for a repetition of past miseries, as similar conditions already exist: The exploitation of an invisible threat has created an epidemic of isolation, fear and fatigue. Relief has been promised in exchange for the acceptance of draconian countermeasures, the suspension of civil liberties, and the normalizing of hatred toward minority groups. Millions refuse to be skeptical of the dominant narrative, putting blind faith in the government, drug companies and technology to protect them from the existential threat they feel. Millions more make themselves an easy target for those who would abuse their power by willingly handing over their freedom in exchange for a false sense of security.
Wake Up From the Nightmare
I refuse to believe that this nightmarish scene is your destiny, my destiny or the destiny of our world. As part of one universal spirit, you have come here to fulfill a unique role that helps you to grow spiritually while also evolving the global soul. This one precious lifetime of yours is potent with positive potentials which stand right beside the perilous ones. How will you choose, Sensitive Soul?
Your soul knows the shortest, safest route to your true destiny. Why is your ego behind the wheel? ~ Anthon St. Maarten
You may be at a confusing crossroads, but you can trust your soul to guide you. It thrives on love, harmony and flow, so unplug from the jangling noise and spend time with yourself, alone in nature if possible. You can journal or just ponder some soulful questions to help you awaken from the nightmare and move toward dreaming a better future into existence for you and for the world:
What did your soul have in mind before you were born?
What did you envision the world could be when you were a child?
What do you envision the world could be now?
What’s your unique contribution to a future worthy of the innocent ones born today?
What one compassionate action step toward that soulful future can you take this week?
Love + Logic = Restoration of Sanity
Choose with your heart, your soul and your logic, Sensitive Soul. Look for clues to your soul’s purpose in surprising synchronicities and activities that make your heart sing. Be kind to yourself and others. Remember that much of reality lies beyond human understanding, so stay humble, curious and skeptical. Seek to genuinely understand those with whom you disagree. Guard your humanity from those who would attack it, and for the sake of your own soul and our global soul, please protect the humanity of every living being.
Crossroads of the Soul
Katie, Thank you for this timely, cogent and important essay!