Hypocrite

Unlike me, of course

Somehow I found myself far down a winding rabbit hole watching an interview with a woman who claims she was kidnapped by Jeffrey Epstein when she was nineteen, lured by promises of a lucrative modeling career and repeatedly sexually assaulted. Dark. In the last minute of an hour-long interview, she had what seemed to be a throwaway line about how one time she saw Jeffrey change.

She quickly dismissed her statement as unbelievable. Something in the offhand way she said it gave me chills. Who knows? “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy,” indeed.

This got me thinking. One thing I’ve learned through a lot of reading and listening to hundreds, if not thousands of hours of long-form videos & interviews with (seemingly) brilliant and (as far as I can tell, but who can be sure?) knowledgeable people, doing my level best to step outside of the algorithm frequently to avoid my own biases, is that I don’t “know” shit about this world or what really goes on in it.

It’s hard to say whether I spend a lot of my time listening to this stuff because I have a deep thirst for knowledge or a tendency to be masochistic, or both.

Interesting how many people are “certain” about any number of “facts” about many topics, but don’t bother to do any actual research. Like, just read the actual transcripts instead of drawing conclusions after watching a deceitfully edited five-second YouTube short. You must do the research if you are interested at all in something approaching “facts.”

I’ve wanted to write about politics before, because I have opinions, but I’m discouraged by those whose motto seems to be “I’m frequently wrong but seldom in doubt.”¹ And they are loud and proud, baby!

I have a lot of doubt about what I think I know. There is always a larger context. Another quote comes to mind: “For every complex problem, there's a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.”² So I mostly keep my mouth shut.

Because the foundation of what is real seems to shift with the slightest breeze, I have to simplify to keep my sanity.

Honest and unflinching self-reflection, absolute rejection of the idea that I’m a victim and the acknowledgement that I’m a tiny speck in an unimaginably vast universe, a mere point which paradoxically (holographically?) has a critical piece of the puzzle which makes up the big picture. As I believe we all do.

In those moments where my ego has been crushed by the weight of unfortunate decisions, the conclusion I reach is that the only thing that is real is Love. Maybe this is cope. Spiritual bypassing. I don’t believe this in my heart, but it’s something I’m willing to consider.

It seems that the only hope I have of becoming a baseline decent human being as opposed to someone who causes destruction and pain but is convinced that they are a “good person” is to align myself with the mysterious thing that fuels this bizarre, universe-machine, mystery show.

Because my judgement and ability to apprehend “reality” is for shit.

Lately, many people have been blowing things up and patting themselves on the back for doing “the right thing.” It’s so obviously not the right thing but there go I if I’m not vigilant.

I have to know that about myself, otherwise the risk of becoming a smugly self-satisfied chaos agent is greater than zero. Any of us could have been the Nazi prison guard. Or the Republican. Or the Democrat. Whatever disgusts you, makes you feel utter contempt. Whatever the thing is that you are so sure you could never become. That.

[climbing on soapbox]

Wrap your head around this idea or it's probable we will destroy ourselves. Stop trying to find some deep evil or meaning in a billionaire’s hotly contested but enthusiastic hand gesture. Is he murdering people? No? Then kindly shut up and take a hard, uncomfortable look at your life. Your actions.

Do you spend any time thinking about powerful people who are sowing hatred and division? Are you yelling about it on the internet? Do you feel superior for pointing and calling it out?

Screaming about “them” won’t change our course one iota.

Anyway they’re not doing anything to you, you are doing it to yourself.

Are YOU sowing hatred and division? I don’t know, maybe by eviscerating someone you don’t know, online, anonymously, because you’re sure, no CERTAIN, that you are fucking right and they are fucking wrong??

[okay, getting down now]

I get it; I’ve been that guy.

Some hippy³ said, “You add to the suffering in the world when you take offense, just as much as you do when you give offense.”

I’m “justifiably” infuriated by the endless skreeling⁴ and the tantrums, the delusions, the projection, and the hypocrisy!

And that wrath, my friends, probably makes me a hypocrite. See how that works? If I honestly examine any moral stance I take concerning others, a double-standard emerges. All I can manage is to act the best I can in my little corner of the world and hope you do the same.

If I can mind my own business, let whatever it is go, let it pass through me, back into the ether from whence it came, then maybe I can treat the next person I meet with the softness and caring that we all deserve, so they can contribute their unique piece of the puzzle to make a picture worth looking at.

I’m rooting for Team People. Are you with me?

1. The phrase "I'm frequently wrong but seldom in doubt" is often attributed to Ivy Baker Priest, a Utahn and former U.S. Treasurer who served under President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Fascinating woman: Ivy Baker Priest

2. H. L. Mencken.

3. Ken Keyes Jr. His book, “Handbook to Higher Consciousness,” which I discovered as a teenager among my mother’s many books, profoundly changed the way I looked at life.

4. I was sure this had to be a word. Apparently I made it up but it sounds like the noises grown-up toddlers make when they perceive an injustice. I’ve been known to skreel on occasion.