Do I care what people think?

No. Or, mostly not.

It feels good to be liked

but it feels worse, to try to be liked

there’s no freedom in that

no honesty.

If you are honest, people can’t help, but be honest back

but the feeling is too uncomfortable for them

the knife in the back, goes right to the throat

and they don’t feel safe, not being liked.

It’s too dangerous to be around someone who loves the truth.

When I was a teenager, I admired men who had something to say

but most don’t

most convince others they do, by reacting to authority.

People REACT

it’s the safest action

it’s repetitive, Re-act

it’s no real threat

nothing new.

Words are spoken out of anger or envy, never from a place of original action

even protests, fulfill the human need to belong

group outrage, is intoxicating

the moral crusade is meaningful

after 50 years, protesters remember their satisfying social war

they laid down in front of a bus

they got arrested

after college, they got a good job, and raised a good family

they weren’t true believers because their faith was about feelings.

We are either growing into ourselves, or into society

Society

controls you

so that your thoughts and moods

move you

in the same direction

as everybody else.

Forget, sides

and outrage

you are accepted, if you participate

People know who you are

you are an enemy

you are an ally

you are someone who has had enough, of the social war, so you don’t want to talk about it

Maybe, you’ll get a lecture

“You need to care.”

But it’s comforting to them, to know, who you are.

You fit into a fashionable square

depending on your chosen, assigned, social, identity.

As we move into major life decisions

we revert to family values

if we had a family.

We please our parents, unknowingly

by becoming our parents.

If there is no family

it’s the people we look up to

the mentors, who meant something

because they noticed us

it’s the people who cared

the stranger, steps outside of all of that

Strange, to the last man or woman

totally alone

not even, fully known, to himself

judgements

put-downs

are recognized as reactions.

When official power meets this other kind of power

it’s a real threat

it does not re-act to power

it knows power isn’t there

power is an illusion

power doesn’t corrupt

but a fear of loss of power

does.

How do you know, you have become this man?

Your conversations, are mostly honest

You don’t measure the wind with your finger

You don’t try to convince others of the truth

You simply know it

and that makes people more angry.

What is the purpose of being honest?

What is the purpose of knowing the truth?

It can’t be put into words

Only that, when you glimpse it, and follow it

nothing else matters.

It’s so far away from society

and what society knows.

It requires no explanation

because it can’t be explained.

Few find it

Few know it

Few hold onto it.

It will separate you

and make you immortal

to the Few.