It’s a loaded question. For some of of us anyway. I heard from a woman I haven’t seen for three plus years. A nice person. We met at a “spiritual” group I had joined several years back in an attempt to find new connections. I hung in for several months, but it didn’t work for me. I suppose I was hoping for a repeat of an earlier experience with another group I had been part of for over a decade - initially formed around the work of philosopher Ken Wilber - though we quickly lost that focus - and which had produced many rich discussions and friendships.
Wow that's a helluva report. Even Mom. I know of others - here in New England where the spell's effects are particularly potent - who report similar. It's insane and heartbreaking and yet ubiquitous and becoming normalized making it all the more insane.
"I feel like the world has gone crazy. I no longer want to take part in a society that hates people like me." I fully understand the feeling. The world has gone crazy and it's a lot to take in, hard to absorb let alone get comfy with.
So, at the risk of sounding hyperbolic or self-important, I genuinely feel the world needs us. Really - whatever the future is going to look like (and I'm a full believer that after this collapse, a new world emerges that is better) we, impervious to the Program are essential. Humans who stand up for humanity - in the face of all kinds of insults and harms - are essential to humanity's future. So, that's you. And that's me and a whole bunch of other people who are finding each other. Thanks for the comment!
EXCELLENT!!!! If I had friends I’d send this to them! I can’t find the energy to feign the normality everyone is projecting. So no more friends for me… in real life.
"I can't find the energy to feign the normality everyone is projecting." This is exactly how I feel, too. Absolutely nothing is even remotely normal and yet people are going about their lives as if the last few years never happened. I have never seen anything like it in my life.
Yes, there are two separate realities now and only some of us see the other reality. I love how you say that you are not the person you were before covid, although you live at the same address and answer to the same name. That is how I feel exactly! I feel a strange sense of strain when I talk to most people now, like I am putting on an act. It is all very draining. Love your writing and grateful to find people like you here on Substack.
Exactly. It's very odd. And you know the reality many are still inhabiting is collapsing and another is emerging, but for those who don't see it, saying that sounds nonsensical. I know what you mean - we live alongside each other, can share the same meal even - and yet, different reality.
I always go back to the knowing (for me it is) that I came intentionally for this time. And really why not? It's a hell of a show - even at its most challenging.
Yes, you are right. The other reality is collapsing but I know if I say anything to most people, they would think I was nuts. And, yes, it sure is a hell of a show!!
Well said. The Van Morrison song "Pretending" is the one contemporary art-work I know of that captures the present normality-feigning phenom you describe. Scroll down on the group substack I contribute to, PostModernConservative , if you'd like to read my extensive essay on the song and the phenomenon.
Jul 19, 2022·edited Jul 19, 2022Liked by Kathleen Devanney. A human.
This is much better than the short version I've been telling people, which goes something like this:
The social aspect of my musical life has been destroyed. I'm still playing the piano, but only for myself and occasionally for a very small circle of friends.
Someone who used to be my best friend for many years told me I'm a murderer and conspiracy theorist for not taking the jab.
An ex-girlfriend, who is otherwise friendly with me, told me she'd never allow me to be in the same room with her again because I didn't take the jab.
My mother won't let me visit her in person unless I take the jab.
I can't go to to the classical music concerts in my town any more because I didn't take the jab.
I feel like the world has gone crazy. I no longer want to take part in a society that hates people like me.
But otherwise, I'm doing OK: spending lots of time outdoors, working on Chopin Nocturnes and Debussy Images, visiting the very few friends (some jabbed) that I still have, working on sewing projects, reading lots of books (and Substacks).
Oct 9, 2023·edited Oct 9, 2023Liked by Kathleen Devanney. A human.
hubbs and I have really come to enjoy being "anti social" now.
We do not have to visit or have discussions that cause others or ourselves to "walk on eggshells" or some of the insecure types to lash out and scold. I am so sick of the scolding. This includes pretty much our entire extended family. All of them are focused on obedience to script and and absolute intolerance of opposing views, or even discussion.
Damn. So sorry for you. Most of my progressivist family members and friends haven't been this bad. I think the piano piece you need is that turbulent one the character Dreyman plays in the central scene of The Lives of Others. I am glad you have Chopin and Debussy...
You wrote very close to the version which I have been avoiding. I have that thought about living in a Zombie world (or a killer clown world) pretty much every day. I never had a lot of friends, or just never bothered with friendship maintenance. Right now I have zero real life friends. I have writers like you and the dead ones like Orwell. This week I am down and cynical and think that this civilization has peaked. Rapid decline. I am going to learn Spanish and try to help them inherit the continent. The rest of “us” seem to me to be Eloi. They have mostly stopped wanting to even reproduce. Now they may have lost the ability. I am casting about for something worthwhile to do.
I honestly believe, we resisters are far more important that we know. In fact we're essential and the movie would have been over by now, if not for us. Just being you is as worthwhile as anything you can do.
did you really send this?? bravo. I have experienced some of what you are talking about, not to the full extent as you and your partner. Been blessed or cursed to be self employed for a few decades off and on. Good and bad with it. Over all it gave me lots of freedom and I am thankful for that. i sincerely feel for those that had to make decisions about work/income or receiving an unknown jab. Thankful I did not have to make that choice, especially with a family to support. I do know that I would have not taken the jab and figured something else out.
Great summary, and thank you for sharing it. It’s the same for all of us “live and let live” types, who have always minded our own business and quietly lived life, working hard every day to take care of our own. We have been forced to re-examine what we believe, and how we want to be in this world. It’s a good thing really. Growth was needed for all of us. Which included pruning of our relationships!
Thank you Kathleen for a great recap of thoughts I've thought, feelings I've felt, friends I've lost (most), and common sense sanity I've taken for granted for years, but now has sometimes seemed like, it's hanging by a thread! If losing friends was not bad enough, family is almost worse. Despite my most thoughtful, persistent and diplomatic communiques (as of Aug. 2020) with seemingly intelligent, much loved and very well educated family members, all of them (20 in total), took to the propaganda. Simply impossible to reach them on an intellectual or an emotional level. Consequently, two have left this reality (my siblings) and are are no longer with us. Fortunately, I have had success and good fortune in relocating from the PNW and in have reseeded a network of new friends. A lovely brand new environment in a part of the country which seems much more resilient, aware, and skeptical of .Gov.
Thank you for the comment. We've been - to use an overused word - traumatized by the last couple years. And I feel for the losses - physical and otherwise. I'm delighted to hear you say you've found a network of new friends. That's really wonderful and encouraging. My partner and I talk about moving somewhere more compatible, but so far, the timing hasn't been right. Hoping that changes sooner rather than later, because while I cherish the online community I've found, a friend to have a cuppa with, or glass of wine, would be great. Best to you.
Thank you so much! I'm glad you related - it's so helpful for me, finding others in the same boat having the same experiences. It's been so crazy. We'll get to the other side. 😊
I’ve received emails from spiritual groups I used to attend requiring proof of inoculation. What a completely useless mandate by those that worship that which makes us human - our own sacred vessel. I did respond to these emails with snark and evidence with no responses. I will show no other person any papers that deem me sanitary. F U!!!
I hear ya. I think a lot of so-called spiritual groups outed themselves as inauthentic and couldn't self-reflect long enough to see their own contradictions.
Sending this out to those that haven't asked how I was doing. Really entertaining and informative and so well said. Thanks again, love your writing. Will let you know how my 90-year old mother in law responds. In case she does. I forwarded to her.
I already know I've risked being uninvited to her 90th. But reading your piece, something shed. No "be nice" story I was telling myself could hold back the floodgates of truth I suppose.
Wow! This is so beautiful, real and raw. This just really hit a nerve with me. I have felt so alone, like so many who have been excluded for actually believing in informed consent, bodily autonomy and (god forbid) for asking questions.
I have always been one to question authority long before this current nightmare and have been disappointed that so many people choose to just follow the current thing on TV or social media.
Since I am already pretty introverted and have been shunned in the past for speaking out publicly about an abuser, I kind of had traversed this lonely territory in the past.
It is still painful to be rejected by ‘friends’ I had known for 5-10 years over what exactly.....my own choice with how I want to take care of my heath? These people knew I had an autoimmune disorder (celiac) and that I am super sensitive to medication.
They also don’t live in my body and have not suffered what I have suffered for years before I figured out what was wrong (doctors did not help) and yet they think they can pass judgment on me for declining an experimental shot?
Maybe their eyes will be opened one day, maybe not. I can only make myself happy by making art, cooking, gardening, listening to music and reading great Substack essays.
Wow to you. What a beautiful comment. Sounds like life prepared you - however painfully - for these times.
"I can only make myself happy by making art, cooking, gardening, listening to music and reading great Substack essays." So wise - yes we are in charge of ourselves. And you sound quite strong in you. Thanks so much for the comment. Best, Kathleen
I loved this! Thank you! Love that you actually sent it to "Deb".
When this "operation" came along -- and it was so 𝒐𝒃𝒗𝒊𝒐𝒖𝒔 that that's what it was -- I thought, "Here we go again." Why "Here we go 'again'"? Well, as someone who saw the 𝒐𝒃𝒗𝒊𝒐𝒖𝒔 back on Sep 11, 2001 and watched the whole country (I think you're in the U.S., too?) take on an utterly absurd story as fact, the roll out of the "COV!D" crime was for me a "Here we go again."
I knew from experience that "facts don't matter". Neither does liberty. This simmering vice in the vast majority in the "land of the free and home of the brave" bubbled to the surface in all its disgracefulness.
I knew from experience that any attempt to point out the absurd, the contradictions, the flat-out lies, the grotesque unlawfulness of what the freaks running the "COV!D" operation intended for us would subject me to abuse -- abuse I'd had my fill of years before. I knew exactly what "the mob" would do. Unfortunately, they proved me right.
Most importantly, I knew from the experience of trying to get at the truth of Sep 11 that you could tell the vast majority 𝒂𝒏𝒚𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈. The grander the absurdity, it seems, the better.
Again, your note to "Deb" is excellent, spot on. Thank you for writing that and thank you for sharing it with us.
Thank you so much. I'm glad you enjoyed it. It's really gratifying for me to hear that.
To be clear - I did not send it to Deb. Still may, I'm on the fence. She's considerably older and I worry it might be too much for her. Would it in fact, help? I don't know.
I was the same with 9/11. Some of us can just 'see' it and yeah, it's really obvious. And no amount of information will penetrate for those who just can't see it. Crazy.
Really appreciate the comment.😊Hope you have a little group of like-minded which makes the 'mob' easier to live with.
Jul 21, 2022·edited Jul 21, 2022Liked by Kathleen Devanney. A human.
You know...I thought I may have misinterpreted what you wrote, Kathleen. My apologies.
A truthful response such as yours speaks truth into the world -- whether it helps that individual or not. As Solzhenitsyn reminds us, “The simple step of a courageous individual is not to take part in the lie. One word of truth outweighs the world.” – Alexandr Solzhenitsyn Your note has many words of truth.
Thankfully, I have my husband, and we've left New England for the FL Panhandle where there are many, many, many more truth and freedom people than in the "People's Republic" or the "Live Free or Die" state.
I've subscribed, Kathleen, and look forward to more of your content. Thank you for being out there. :)
Thanks you again. I'm glad you and your husband are in sync. We've thought a lot about moving and hopefully when it works better with my partner's kids, we will find a friendlier state. New England is tough. Best to you.
Yes...the friends we left behind tell us how tough it is. It became intolerable for us and we had the ability to pick up sticks and leave. Best thing we've ever done. Best wishes to you and your partner.
P.S. We share one other thing, too. A first name. :)
I grew up in the Florida panhandle and I miss it especially during the frigid midwestern winters. My mom still lives there. Wish I could move back. Congratulations to you for going down there. The people are great and the seafood is fantastic, I’m a bit jealous!
In the book Journey to Ixtlan by Castaneda, Don Genaro tells a tale of his attempt to find his way back to a home and people that he can never go back to, because he now knows that they are all phantoms. The only one who is now real to him is his fellow warrior Don Juan. For Don Juan, the poem by Jimenez, The Definitive Journey, captures his feelings for what he has left behind:
. . and I will leave. But the birds will stay, singing:
and my garden will stay, with its green tree,
with its water well.
Many afternoons the skies will be blue and placid,
and the bells in the belfry will chime,
as they are chiming this very afternoon.
The people who have loved me will pass away,
and the town will burst anew every year.
But my spirit will always wander nostalgic
in the same recondite corner of my flowery garden
The awakening from the phantom world has always been part of the warrior's path, long before Covid. Nowadays the phantoms are called NPC's (Non-Player Characters), a term describing the programmed background characters in virtual reality games. But we all were once phantoms/NPC's. Many of them will snap out of their trance in the coming years, feeling lost and directionless. They will need a helping hand.
That's beautifully said. So true - I love Castaneda's books, read them many years ago now. Maybe time to re-read them.
"But we all were once phantoms/NPC's. Many of them will snap out of their trance in the coming years, feeling lost and directionless. They will need a helping hand."
Of course, none of what Casteneda wrote about was real, he made all the characters up. And then later on he became a nasty controlling cult leader in LA. Check out Amy Wallace's book about her experience in that cult.
A great piece of writing, thanks. It’s good to know there are others out there, ‘the uninfected’. I’ve got a few friends left, not many though. I basically can’t trust anyone who was recruited into the zombie army anymore. I now consume no media, legacy or social, and read mostly people’s work on substack. It’s been a godsend.
Wow that's a helluva report. Even Mom. I know of others - here in New England where the spell's effects are particularly potent - who report similar. It's insane and heartbreaking and yet ubiquitous and becoming normalized making it all the more insane.
"I feel like the world has gone crazy. I no longer want to take part in a society that hates people like me." I fully understand the feeling. The world has gone crazy and it's a lot to take in, hard to absorb let alone get comfy with.
So, at the risk of sounding hyperbolic or self-important, I genuinely feel the world needs us. Really - whatever the future is going to look like (and I'm a full believer that after this collapse, a new world emerges that is better) we, impervious to the Program are essential. Humans who stand up for humanity - in the face of all kinds of insults and harms - are essential to humanity's future. So, that's you. And that's me and a whole bunch of other people who are finding each other. Thanks for the comment!
EXCELLENT!!!! If I had friends I’d send this to them! I can’t find the energy to feign the normality everyone is projecting. So no more friends for me… in real life.
We can be friends.😊
"I can't find the energy to feign the normality everyone is projecting." This is exactly how I feel, too. Absolutely nothing is even remotely normal and yet people are going about their lives as if the last few years never happened. I have never seen anything like it in my life.
I feel that way too. It's truly like entering a bizzaro world. Some deep cracked, or split but not everybody sees it.
Yes, there are two separate realities now and only some of us see the other reality. I love how you say that you are not the person you were before covid, although you live at the same address and answer to the same name. That is how I feel exactly! I feel a strange sense of strain when I talk to most people now, like I am putting on an act. It is all very draining. Love your writing and grateful to find people like you here on Substack.
Exactly. It's very odd. And you know the reality many are still inhabiting is collapsing and another is emerging, but for those who don't see it, saying that sounds nonsensical. I know what you mean - we live alongside each other, can share the same meal even - and yet, different reality.
I always go back to the knowing (for me it is) that I came intentionally for this time. And really why not? It's a hell of a show - even at its most challenging.
Thank you!
Yes, you are right. The other reality is collapsing but I know if I say anything to most people, they would think I was nuts. And, yes, it sure is a hell of a show!!
It's almost like the Man in the High Castle, but in the same sector of the multiverse.
Well said. The Van Morrison song "Pretending" is the one contemporary art-work I know of that captures the present normality-feigning phenom you describe. Scroll down on the group substack I contribute to, PostModernConservative , if you'd like to read my extensive essay on the song and the phenomenon.
Yep 👍 I feel the same way and I have a couple of real friends who share our state of being, too... you’re welcome to join us 😃
It makes it all doable - that others are experiencing the same, doesn't it?
Thank you! 😊All my new besties are online. Best.
This is much better than the short version I've been telling people, which goes something like this:
The social aspect of my musical life has been destroyed. I'm still playing the piano, but only for myself and occasionally for a very small circle of friends.
Someone who used to be my best friend for many years told me I'm a murderer and conspiracy theorist for not taking the jab.
An ex-girlfriend, who is otherwise friendly with me, told me she'd never allow me to be in the same room with her again because I didn't take the jab.
My mother won't let me visit her in person unless I take the jab.
I can't go to to the classical music concerts in my town any more because I didn't take the jab.
I feel like the world has gone crazy. I no longer want to take part in a society that hates people like me.
But otherwise, I'm doing OK: spending lots of time outdoors, working on Chopin Nocturnes and Debussy Images, visiting the very few friends (some jabbed) that I still have, working on sewing projects, reading lots of books (and Substacks).
hubbs and I have really come to enjoy being "anti social" now.
We do not have to visit or have discussions that cause others or ourselves to "walk on eggshells" or some of the insecure types to lash out and scold. I am so sick of the scolding. This includes pretty much our entire extended family. All of them are focused on obedience to script and and absolute intolerance of opposing views, or even discussion.
Thank God we have each other.
"Thank God we have each other." yes, indeed.❤️
and like minded internet friends too
Damn. So sorry for you. Most of my progressivist family members and friends haven't been this bad. I think the piano piece you need is that turbulent one the character Dreyman plays in the central scene of The Lives of Others. I am glad you have Chopin and Debussy...
You wrote very close to the version which I have been avoiding. I have that thought about living in a Zombie world (or a killer clown world) pretty much every day. I never had a lot of friends, or just never bothered with friendship maintenance. Right now I have zero real life friends. I have writers like you and the dead ones like Orwell. This week I am down and cynical and think that this civilization has peaked. Rapid decline. I am going to learn Spanish and try to help them inherit the continent. The rest of “us” seem to me to be Eloi. They have mostly stopped wanting to even reproduce. Now they may have lost the ability. I am casting about for something worthwhile to do.
I honestly believe, we resisters are far more important that we know. In fact we're essential and the movie would have been over by now, if not for us. Just being you is as worthwhile as anything you can do.
😊
did you really send this?? bravo. I have experienced some of what you are talking about, not to the full extent as you and your partner. Been blessed or cursed to be self employed for a few decades off and on. Good and bad with it. Over all it gave me lots of freedom and I am thankful for that. i sincerely feel for those that had to make decisions about work/income or receiving an unknown jab. Thankful I did not have to make that choice, especially with a family to support. I do know that I would have not taken the jab and figured something else out.
No, I sent it to the substack universe and the lovely people who inhabit it instead. I didn't want to knock poor Deb over.
Good for you and I know you wouldn't have taken it either.❤️🩹
What would be the harm in "knocking her over"?
Great summary, and thank you for sharing it. It’s the same for all of us “live and let live” types, who have always minded our own business and quietly lived life, working hard every day to take care of our own. We have been forced to re-examine what we believe, and how we want to be in this world. It’s a good thing really. Growth was needed for all of us. Which included pruning of our relationships!
Well said. Yes, the hard stuff always manages to produce new growth. Thanks.
Thank you Kathleen for a great recap of thoughts I've thought, feelings I've felt, friends I've lost (most), and common sense sanity I've taken for granted for years, but now has sometimes seemed like, it's hanging by a thread! If losing friends was not bad enough, family is almost worse. Despite my most thoughtful, persistent and diplomatic communiques (as of Aug. 2020) with seemingly intelligent, much loved and very well educated family members, all of them (20 in total), took to the propaganda. Simply impossible to reach them on an intellectual or an emotional level. Consequently, two have left this reality (my siblings) and are are no longer with us. Fortunately, I have had success and good fortune in relocating from the PNW and in have reseeded a network of new friends. A lovely brand new environment in a part of the country which seems much more resilient, aware, and skeptical of .Gov.
Thank you for the comment. We've been - to use an overused word - traumatized by the last couple years. And I feel for the losses - physical and otherwise. I'm delighted to hear you say you've found a network of new friends. That's really wonderful and encouraging. My partner and I talk about moving somewhere more compatible, but so far, the timing hasn't been right. Hoping that changes sooner rather than later, because while I cherish the online community I've found, a friend to have a cuppa with, or glass of wine, would be great. Best to you.
That was brilliant!
You just described every pure blood's existence for 2+ years.
Thank you so much! I'm glad you related - it's so helpful for me, finding others in the same boat having the same experiences. It's been so crazy. We'll get to the other side. 😊
I’ve received emails from spiritual groups I used to attend requiring proof of inoculation. What a completely useless mandate by those that worship that which makes us human - our own sacred vessel. I did respond to these emails with snark and evidence with no responses. I will show no other person any papers that deem me sanitary. F U!!!
I hear ya. I think a lot of so-called spiritual groups outed themselves as inauthentic and couldn't self-reflect long enough to see their own contradictions.
Fully agree. And yes, Fu(k that.
Sending this out to those that haven't asked how I was doing. Really entertaining and informative and so well said. Thanks again, love your writing. Will let you know how my 90-year old mother in law responds. In case she does. I forwarded to her.
Good for you! I'm curious to hear what your mother in law says - brave of you!❤️🩹
I already know I've risked being uninvited to her 90th. But reading your piece, something shed. No "be nice" story I was telling myself could hold back the floodgates of truth I suppose.
I can not share this with any family members other than my husband.
At this point, I believe they are seeking treatments for "trauma" from the past information I have sent to them. I am a monster.
My youngest daughter told me I am "sick". This is how it is in Northern Virginia 35 miles west of the swamp
I'm so glad you have your husband and he has you, Rosemary!
I"m also so sorry for the responses you've gotten from family, your daughter, in trying to help.
Best to you.
I will bake a big cake of many layers and icing. We can celebrate her birthday and you won't have to go there and put up with the silliness.
Wow! This is so beautiful, real and raw. This just really hit a nerve with me. I have felt so alone, like so many who have been excluded for actually believing in informed consent, bodily autonomy and (god forbid) for asking questions.
I have always been one to question authority long before this current nightmare and have been disappointed that so many people choose to just follow the current thing on TV or social media.
Since I am already pretty introverted and have been shunned in the past for speaking out publicly about an abuser, I kind of had traversed this lonely territory in the past.
It is still painful to be rejected by ‘friends’ I had known for 5-10 years over what exactly.....my own choice with how I want to take care of my heath? These people knew I had an autoimmune disorder (celiac) and that I am super sensitive to medication.
They also don’t live in my body and have not suffered what I have suffered for years before I figured out what was wrong (doctors did not help) and yet they think they can pass judgment on me for declining an experimental shot?
Maybe their eyes will be opened one day, maybe not. I can only make myself happy by making art, cooking, gardening, listening to music and reading great Substack essays.
Wow to you. What a beautiful comment. Sounds like life prepared you - however painfully - for these times.
"I can only make myself happy by making art, cooking, gardening, listening to music and reading great Substack essays." So wise - yes we are in charge of ourselves. And you sound quite strong in you. Thanks so much for the comment. Best, Kathleen
Please do send this brilliant diatribe and report back with the response(s)!!
I loved this! Thank you! Love that you actually sent it to "Deb".
When this "operation" came along -- and it was so 𝒐𝒃𝒗𝒊𝒐𝒖𝒔 that that's what it was -- I thought, "Here we go again." Why "Here we go 'again'"? Well, as someone who saw the 𝒐𝒃𝒗𝒊𝒐𝒖𝒔 back on Sep 11, 2001 and watched the whole country (I think you're in the U.S., too?) take on an utterly absurd story as fact, the roll out of the "COV!D" crime was for me a "Here we go again."
I knew from experience that "facts don't matter". Neither does liberty. This simmering vice in the vast majority in the "land of the free and home of the brave" bubbled to the surface in all its disgracefulness.
I knew from experience that any attempt to point out the absurd, the contradictions, the flat-out lies, the grotesque unlawfulness of what the freaks running the "COV!D" operation intended for us would subject me to abuse -- abuse I'd had my fill of years before. I knew exactly what "the mob" would do. Unfortunately, they proved me right.
Most importantly, I knew from the experience of trying to get at the truth of Sep 11 that you could tell the vast majority 𝒂𝒏𝒚𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈. The grander the absurdity, it seems, the better.
Again, your note to "Deb" is excellent, spot on. Thank you for writing that and thank you for sharing it with us.
Thank you so much. I'm glad you enjoyed it. It's really gratifying for me to hear that.
To be clear - I did not send it to Deb. Still may, I'm on the fence. She's considerably older and I worry it might be too much for her. Would it in fact, help? I don't know.
I was the same with 9/11. Some of us can just 'see' it and yeah, it's really obvious. And no amount of information will penetrate for those who just can't see it. Crazy.
Really appreciate the comment.😊Hope you have a little group of like-minded which makes the 'mob' easier to live with.
You know...I thought I may have misinterpreted what you wrote, Kathleen. My apologies.
A truthful response such as yours speaks truth into the world -- whether it helps that individual or not. As Solzhenitsyn reminds us, “The simple step of a courageous individual is not to take part in the lie. One word of truth outweighs the world.” – Alexandr Solzhenitsyn Your note has many words of truth.
Thankfully, I have my husband, and we've left New England for the FL Panhandle where there are many, many, many more truth and freedom people than in the "People's Republic" or the "Live Free or Die" state.
I've subscribed, Kathleen, and look forward to more of your content. Thank you for being out there. :)
Thanks you again. I'm glad you and your husband are in sync. We've thought a lot about moving and hopefully when it works better with my partner's kids, we will find a friendlier state. New England is tough. Best to you.
Yes...the friends we left behind tell us how tough it is. It became intolerable for us and we had the ability to pick up sticks and leave. Best thing we've ever done. Best wishes to you and your partner.
P.S. We share one other thing, too. A first name. :)
😊 thank you, Kathleen!
You bet! 😉
I grew up in the Florida panhandle and I miss it especially during the frigid midwestern winters. My mom still lives there. Wish I could move back. Congratulations to you for going down there. The people are great and the seafood is fantastic, I’m a bit jealous!
In the book Journey to Ixtlan by Castaneda, Don Genaro tells a tale of his attempt to find his way back to a home and people that he can never go back to, because he now knows that they are all phantoms. The only one who is now real to him is his fellow warrior Don Juan. For Don Juan, the poem by Jimenez, The Definitive Journey, captures his feelings for what he has left behind:
. . and I will leave. But the birds will stay, singing:
and my garden will stay, with its green tree,
with its water well.
Many afternoons the skies will be blue and placid,
and the bells in the belfry will chime,
as they are chiming this very afternoon.
The people who have loved me will pass away,
and the town will burst anew every year.
But my spirit will always wander nostalgic
in the same recondite corner of my flowery garden
The awakening from the phantom world has always been part of the warrior's path, long before Covid. Nowadays the phantoms are called NPC's (Non-Player Characters), a term describing the programmed background characters in virtual reality games. But we all were once phantoms/NPC's. Many of them will snap out of their trance in the coming years, feeling lost and directionless. They will need a helping hand.
That's beautifully said. So true - I love Castaneda's books, read them many years ago now. Maybe time to re-read them.
"But we all were once phantoms/NPC's. Many of them will snap out of their trance in the coming years, feeling lost and directionless. They will need a helping hand."
A good reminder. 😊 Thank you.
Of course, none of what Casteneda wrote about was real, he made all the characters up. And then later on he became a nasty controlling cult leader in LA. Check out Amy Wallace's book about her experience in that cult.
A great piece of writing, thanks. It’s good to know there are others out there, ‘the uninfected’. I’ve got a few friends left, not many though. I basically can’t trust anyone who was recruited into the zombie army anymore. I now consume no media, legacy or social, and read mostly people’s work on substack. It’s been a godsend.
Thank you, Chicken Man. Lost some friends here too, but also not willing to give up on everyone. Hoping some more still snap out of it.
Pretty much same here - though some Rumble/ Bitchute channels too.
SS has been a godsend for many of us. I'm truly grateful. Appreciate the comment. Best.
Boxed out.
Yes.
Now they are angry, not that we were correct, but because we still were NOT COMPLIANT and that is a mortal SIN.
Forget dishonoring your mother and father, forget stealing or looting, or hurting or name calling. Nope.
WE just did not comply like they did, and that was just awful enough for them!!!
(dammit!!)
Yes. We failed the zombie test and won't be forgiven! Thanks for the comment, Rosemary. Best.