Bert: You know, begging you pardon, but the one who my heart goes out for is your father. There he is in that cold, heartless bank day after day, hemmed in by mounds of cold, heartless money. I don’t like to see any living thing caged up.
Jane: Father? In a cage?
Bert: They makes cages in all sizes and shapes, you know. Bank-shaped some of ’em. Carpets and all.
~ Mary Poppins (1964)

This is not a sane way for people to live. You’ve always known this on some level. We have all always known this on some level.

It just doesn’t feel right. They herd us into classrooms where our minds are pressed into uniform shapes learning lessons which organize clean-cut, authorized thoughts into neat little boxes, then they herd us into cubicles where we turn gears to turn millionaires into billionaires. We go home and our minds are herded into advertising that makes us want to consume, news media that makes us believe our government is virtuous, and sitcoms where fake actors play out scenes which convince us that capitalism is working out perfectly fine. Try to get away from the phoniness by talking to a real person, and it turns out they’ve been processed through the same system. It feels pinched, like trying to wear an outfit that’s too small your entire life.

But the rewards of moving inside their painted lanes are so great, and the penalties for stepping outside them are so severe. The closest most ever come to authenticity is learning how to fake their way through society while secretly knowing it’s all bullshit. The marginalization, alienation and shame which can come with climbing over the rails of the slaughterhouse queue and running free are so difficult to live with that the herd mostly stays in line and keeps pouring its lifeblood into the fuel tank of the machine.

But we also can’t keep living like this. This machine we keep fueling by moving within the lines is filling the oceans with poison and filling the air with greenhouse gasses while killing the trees and driving humanity toward nuclear war. The lanes they have painted for us have formed a funnel into our own extinction.

So those lanes are necessarily going to have to become moot. All the societal structures which have been put in place to incentivize us toward producing and consuming and away from authenticity are going to have to fall away. Either because society collapses or because we changed our ways quickly and drastically enough to avert disaster, this march away from our own authenticity is about to end.

So why not start now? Why not take off that tight suit and stop acting out this masochistic charade?

The painted lanes they have us all marching within are past their sell-by date already. You are looking at a societal structure that is already dead, but hasn’t yet realized it. In a few years all these jobs and promotions and goals and fears and hopes and prayers will be completely null and meaningless one way or another, so why not take a chance on living out your own sacred, inner truth?

Everyone, at some point, gets a glimpse behind the veil. Maybe in childhood, maybe as a result of intense inner work or deep personal trauma, or maybe under the influence of psychedelics, everyone has seen the face of life underneath the veil of conceptual societal constructs. Most later convinced themselves that it was just silly childhood immaturity, just the stress, just the trauma, just the drugs, just this or just that, so they could forget about it and plug themselves back into the machine without too much cognitive dissonance.

But it was real. It is real. I swear to you on my life it is the most real thing that you have ever encountered. Everything else in your life might be varying degrees of fake, but that, that is real. And it can be lived.

So why not start now? Why wait until this world ends for better or for worse? Why not end your own world of painted lanes and beating drums right now? Stop marching inside their lines to the beat of their drum. Stop relating to life using dead ideas you were handed by other people for the convenience of the powerful. Start dancing your own dance in your own way.

I don’t know how to dance your authentic dance, so I can’t tell you how to do that. But you do. You know. Underneath all the societal impositions and expectations and pressures and demands and fear and aversion and painted lanes, you know. The instructions are written upon the core of your being, and if you get sincerely curious about them, they will show themselves to you bit by bit, as needed.

You have been told that it is dangerous to trust yourself to move through life ungoverned by rules and authority and social pressures, but it isn’t dangerous. Rules and authority and social pressures are what got us to this point, and now we’re staring into the abyss of extinction because of them. Rules and authority and social pressures are what’s dangerous. Living authentically is safety. Once you move past all the voices telling you you mustn’t and you shouldn’t, you will find that your own inner truth is so much wiser and healthier than society’s dead ideas about how we all ought to live.

Trust yourself to be bravely and defiantly true to the truth, clear-eyed rebel. I trust you. Life trusts you. You can trust yourself. Climb up over that slaughterhouse rail and go live a life uninhibited by the painted lanes of a servile society, for the good of our species and for the honor of your own majesty. Leave the cage they built for you in a ditch by the freeway and stride out boldly into uncharted lands beneath the open sky.

_____________________________

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25 responses to “Rebel”

  1. This is a late post, but yet another look “under the veil”, check out the TRUTH behind the US Prison System, and the parasites that have bought into it!
    “Some of the country’s biggest corporations have moved into prisons to take advantage of this bonded labor force. They include Abbott Laboratories, AT&T, AutoZone, Bank of America, Bayer, Berkshire Hathaway, Cargill, Caterpillar, Chevron, the former Chrysler Group, Costco Wholesale, John Deere, Eddie Bauer, Eli Lilly, ExxonMobil, Fruit of the Loom, GEICO, GlaxoSmithKline, Glaxo Wellcome, Hoffmann-La Roche, International Paper, JanSport, Johnson & Johnson, Kmart, Koch Industries, Mary Kay, McDonald’s, Merck, Microsoft, Motorola, Nintendo, Pfizer, Procter & Gamble, Quaker Oats, Sarah Lee, Sears, Shell, Sprint, Starbucks, State Farm Insurance, United Airlines, UPS, Verizon, Victoria’s Secret, Walmart and Wendy’s.
    https://www.21cir.com/2018/09/the-slaves-rebel/

  2. there are thousands of people who are conscientious nomads who travel around in their modest vehicles (many looking like “stealth” vans) and spend most of their time boondocking in the wilderness. they are not lonely as they join up with others regularly. they have sold up everything they owned and probably invested it all (except for price of their van) and find temporary jobs on the road. most are singles, some couples, a few with kids. i did this many years ago when my kids were small and found that the biggest expense was fuel, so staying put or traveling short distances was like having cheap rent. if i was to do it again i would check out all the yard sales in small rural towns, buy up the small bargains, and then go to a flea market in another area to sell my goods. would also work to make small valuable items while on the road and sell them later. i heard of someone else who would come across talented artists in rural areas who didn’t know how to market their items online to reach a bigger market — so if you have website skills, you can earn a living that way. others make beautiful photos on their wilderness trips and sell them. also, if you develop valuable skills before you go on the road (e.g. how to do plumbing for greywater recycling, how to make fermented vegies) that knowledge helps get free meals and accommodation. there’s also WWOOFs (willing workers on organic farms) that’s been around for decades. check out the tiny home movement to build yourself a comfortable home with no mortgage. the opportunities are numerous.

  3. ‘They got the guns, but, we got the numbers, gonna win, yeah, we’re takin over”… Morrisson

  4. ‘They got the guns, but, we got the numbers, gonna win, yeah, we’re takin over”….Morrisson

  5. You want independence? You want freedom? Take another look at your local independent locksmith, plumber or electrician. Why do you think they sacrifice doing grunt labor so hard without glory? They understand. It’s worth it to be free. No overthinking required. Try it. You’ll get it. There are niches out there. You just have to be prepared to hire yourself and play the part.

  6. Let us all pause to relish this long awaited and overdue historic moment of the inglorious death of unhero, madman, warmonger and death merchant extraordinaire Sen. John McCain, Jr. (aka Wet-Start Johnny). R. I. H. May he roast in Hell.

    1. And who could ever forget (or forgive) McCain’s craven and shameful apology kissing the ass of fellow master war-criminal Heinrich Kissinger, calling protesters “low-life scum.” https://youtu.be/yP9In2fNs84

  7. Caitlin writes:
    “It just doesn’t feel right. … All the societal structures which have been put in place to incentivize us toward producing and consuming and away from authenticity are going to have to fall away. Either because society collapses or because we changed our ways quickly and drastically enough to avert disaster, this march away from our own authenticity is about to end.”

    The fact of the matter is that there is no time left for us to change our societal ways. Nature has already initiated the clean-up of the mess humanity so painstakingly created not just for itself but for all living species. As a result Modernity and its societies are slowly collapsing. Our eyes catch the early signs of this collapse but our minds still trick us in refusing to accept the fact. Now if by any chance some individuals survive this collapse they rapidly will rediscover life’s absolute need for societies in order to ensure the further survival of the individuals. And so they will assemble, cooperate, and start a new societal cycle…

    In the meantime I feel that we have to be realist because if there is an After-Modernity ..it is still far away. Our mental rejection of the still existing Modern societal order generates indeed its own narrative that can lead some individual believers on a path that can be sanctioned by the system. Whatever our dislike for this society the fact is that there is no way to hide from it. “Everyone, at some point, gets a glimpse behind the veil”; yes for sure. But it would be foolish to believe that one can escape “the lanes painted” by the societal system …”the penalties for stepping outside them are so severe” that one risks ending up in misery …as David describes in his comment. And so I believe that writing about rejecting the system comes with the responsibility to initiate those who want to be free from it how they first must learn to exploit it in order to extract from it the substance that ultimately will ensure their freedom from it.

  8. P.S. Caitlin, I wrote an open letter to you on my website. I would love if you looked at it. I would be even more stoked if you would let me know what you think. Here it is: http://chriscarlson.me/dear-caitlin-johnstone/

  9. Yes, yes, yes! And now let’s do it. There is a plan to actually change these things. There is a way we can a really make things better. It is simple and beautiful. We can fix everything. All it takes is regular people deciding it’s time to make things better. It starts with a plan to end war.

    We already have all the tools we need to make this happen. We have email and cell phones and the Internet. Humans are inherently well networked. There is something like six to seven degrees of separation between you and anybody else in the world, so an idea can spread around the world incredibly fast. All we need is for people to just stand up and do something, and we could organize a world wide protest against war in matter of days or weeks, it only needs a spark. It only takes a few people spreading the word that there is a plan to end war globally, and that spark would catch fire.

    Consider how well connected the world is. Even in Afghanistan, a third world war torn nation, (where I spent a good bit of time for the record), most people have a cell phone and internet access. If we start spreading a plan to organize a world wide protest against war everyone in the world would certainly hear about it. And consider, most people agree that war should be ended. The majority of people in the world are against war. A significant percentage of people from every country would agree that war should be ended. A significant percentage of people would be willing to protest. A world wide protest against war would bring the global economy to a halt, governments would be forced to listen. I say we stand up for what is right.

    I say we get together, join hands, and demand our governments disarm completely. I say we stop beating around the bush and finally make the world a better a place. We can solve all the problems this world is facing, but it begins with the people getting together and standing up for what’s right. It starts with ending war. Next we can begin to tackle environmental issues and social issues. For now let’s end war.

    I talk about this idea more here on YouTube, https://youtu.be/QvEiY6Q-dTg, and you can read about it at my website too. God bless you all. Thanks for reading. Please, if you feel compelled, share this idea with people you know.

    Chris

  10. Yes.. the old fake it, fake it, till you make it does work. Its the last step of not believing your own bullshit that is hard. The other problem is that i cant find a good explanation of why our species follows this path. I suspect it accelerates human evolution by killing more people than the old law of the jungle does.

  11. There seems to be something special about the 50 year mark when the realisation comes that much of what controls us is BS,
    Perhaps the reason for the “50 realisation” is that we are now the same age as those seemingly wise superiors who once appeared to have all the answers and dictate how we should live our lives..
    However that we are even talking this way would suggest we are well up on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs where a majority of the worlds population are struggling to meet physiological needs rather than self actualization needs and where short term survival is more important than the long term survival of the planet!

  12. Amen to all above. In fact, I posit that one must live in this artificial reality to begin to see what is beyond the cage and that the bars are removable by our own acts.We cannot avoid the painted lanes or cage from the start. We are programmed as children and must move through societal trappings. Some stay at one level or another. Some move up and down through a narrow band of perceived servitude and perceived freedom. Nancy probably represents most of us. Finding ourselves awakening to a possible life outside of the cage Caitlyn writes about, we have a new set of choices. Do we play out our role while noticing the absurdity without doing anything? Do we, Like David and Alan, take a stab at freedom and find ourselves defeated? I find I am working towards trimming away the excess. One less credit card, one less comment on Facebook, moving to a smaller town. It isn’t much, but cutting each bar of our own cage begins to move one from fear and loathing to action.

  13. I am unsure now what to write in reply – given I have just read all the comments (something I don’t normally do because on most forums one’s response/comment is at the head of the line and I usually just dive straight in at that point. Each person finds their own way to free themselves from that tunnel/funnel – the passageway to the slaughterhouse end. I’ve been on a number of journeys which have not especially followed a corporate highway. Yet working – I think it was not aspiring to the heights of the ladders to bigger office, higher levels of pay etc in which I found my freedom – to a certain extent. One decision I did make though was not to return to my field of professional endeavour in Australia which was clearly hemmed in by rules and regulations and obligations which were in fact inimical to that profession and the objectives I was ostensibly to participate in. I returned with my retirement – and the level of pension fund (superannuation at the very lowest level – but with enough. And so I read and think and write in this fashion – I/we travel – never grandiosely – but quite low to the ground – associating with people wherever those travels take us – meeting folk of the same or similar approach to life – whether on a local bus in LA or at a home-stay B&B in Cuba – or in a little village in China – or within Australia – on Kangaroo Island or in Denmark in WA. The conversations convince us it is not all about the sleeping cubicles at what people call the pointy-end of the ‘plane. We can endure cattle class for the number of hours it takes us to get to there. The luxury seems of some degree of plastic/falseness – I once travelled a sector business class from Japan to Hong Kong courtesy of back-and-forth air miles my wife had accumulated – actually quite uncomfortable – and they did not deliver my meal – so what can I say of that experience? Perhaps the cut of my jib did not fit the business suit look – I fell under the radar? Your essay though is a wake-up to lots of people – whether they have managed it as they had hoped, might have hoped – or not. Not to fall into that thing of wanting possessions – my wife calls them – essentially – dust catchers. It was a Japanese expression I came across which suggests that all one needs is enough which I thought summed up where I’ve got to. I hope that others might get to that point too. Thanks for your daily homilies/pep-talks- essays of what it’s all about. I look forward overtime – whether of this general outlook or the specifics of the political shenanigans we are enduring.

  14. There is no freedom without destroying the cages. It is all about balance…

    Excerpt;

    “What To Do…

    • First and foremost; work to deprogram yourself from the brainwashing. Be more skeptical and question all authority. Turn off your TV. Garbage in equals garbage out. You do not need to fill your head with the incessant deceptive harangue of corporate others trying to sell you their products and services or ideologies. Corporate media will rot your brain faster than a venomous snake bite.

    • Second; realize that this is the few rich and powerful self anointed elite and their administrative class against the rest of us. We are many, they are few. [If you are a member of that jivey league, college educated, self anointed elite snob administrative class, go look in a mirror.]

    • Recognize that you will not make positive remedial change within their system. Recognize that your local elections, like here in Saint Augustine, are all about the criminal Vanilla Greed for Profit administrative class fighting over their local crumb supply even as they are enveloped by a greater more evil force, Pernicious Greed for Destruction Xtrevilism. Those in either criminal group do not give a rat’s ass about you or your friends or your family. Their insular arrogance and internecine bickering is now so pervasive that they no longer even take the time to give lip service to the wants and needs of the common person. It is all about them selfishly fighting over access to your wallet and controlling you. Yes, it is disheartening to learn that you have been deceived by those you have trusted for so many years and that you are living in an illusion, but the sooner you accept and embrace the reality the better off you will be.

    • Shun the corrupt self anointed elite class corporate system as it shuns you. Work outside the crooked system to make a more moral and positive world. Morality is what it is all about. We do not need a hierarchal system that is ruled by the few. We need instead a one for all and all for one levelocracy. A system of direct democracy where we send messengers bound to convey our local will to a minimalist central government charged with the protection of the greater commons, rather than sending crooked unbound representatives controlled by deceptive lobbyists that thwart our local will when sent to a centralized pack of gangsters. Consider having nine regional Presidents rather than one President, with a system of shared emergency control. Our Constitution and its Bill of Rights and our ‘rule of law’ are like corrupted software that is out of date. They need to be upgraded to be made more inclusive and eliminate the corruption, not by crooked politicians, but by you and your friends and neighbors.

    • BOYCOTT the vote. A boycott abstention is in reality a vote of no confidence in this crooked government. That is why they are working overtime in this election cycle to get out the vote. They want you to validate their criminal control. Don’t do it! A vote for a lesser criminal immorality is a vote for criminal immorality.

    • BOYCOTT those who oppress you. You don’t have to buy from the greedy merchants downtown who have denied you opportunity. Support other working class businesses.

    • RESIST ANY erosion of your Civil Liberties, no matter how small. Work to protect and grow the public commons.

    • Get Solvent ASAP. Avoid sorrow don’t borrow! The thirty plus year bull bond market (all the bubbles that have caused the turmoil domestically and in foreign countries around the globe) is unsustainable. DO NOT get caught with your pants down. It is possible that 100 trillion dollars of phony derivative fiat credit/money could disappear globally overnight. There will be NO chairs left when the music stops playing. Until that time continual global rolling bubbles in specific countries and sectors of the economy (especially oil and finance) will be used to justify austerity and sequestration (cute little euphemisms for screwing you financially and draining your resources) will be increased. Focus your efforts on becoming self sufficient and support community programs and others that do the same.

    • Take a world view and expose corruption and the phonies amongst us, You do have a civic responsibility to yourself and to others to make the world you live in sustainable…

    The good captain realizes that she is not only responsible for her ship’s safety but she is also responsible for the quality of the water she navigates in… a responsibility that goes beyond mitigating the negative impacts of her own vessel… a responsibility that includes insuring that other vessels do the same… a responsibility that extends to safeguarding all creatures, great and small, whether sea based or land based, as they all contribute to the quality of the water… it is wise to realize that even the most seaworthy vessel will eventually founder in a polluted sea of slime, thick sludge and debris…

    • Study and learn. You are what you have been through, but now and the future are up to you.

    • Stay positive — we can do this!

    Express love and sharing with those who are genuinely kind and giving, shun and castigate those who are not.

    Life’s great, stay busy, have fun!
    …and peace to you all!”

    More here…

    http://saintaugdog.com/sadarticles/immoralsnobsignoretheir%20corruption.html

  15. I always wondered what happened to Mary Poppins, after Dick VanDyke left her and she left the children. How did she survive after the spoon full of sugar stopped making the medicine go down and the kids grew up? What happened after Father went bankrupt for the fifth time and could no longer afford a nanny for Jane and Bert?

    Where did she go? I see now she took up writing and became an articulate crusading columnist for an online journal of her own, championing charmingly simplistic solutions to the complex urban problems of today’s society, floating off propelled by her umbrella from time to time into the aether when things got too confusing.

    It’s not all bad. Guy de Maupassant said, “Life is never as bad or as good as we think.” But a little magic recipe such as Caitlan suggests is inspiring from time to time and worth the lift. There are a few, very few, little niches in life we can find into which we can fit from time to time that afford us a little independence, and sacrificing for them is worth every struggle, but savor them while they last because they do not last long.

  16. John Allen aka Ol' Hippy Avatar
    John Allen aka Ol’ Hippy

    For humankind to survive past the 6th Mass Extinction Event well underway, there needs to be a mass consciousness raising paradigm shift away from industrial capitalism and the consumerism that’s murdering Earth and her children. Technology isn’t needed, will is. A will to change most of our ways. It’s either that or perish. The ecosystem is so stressed from all the toxins and CO2 production by nonstop industrialization that there will be a shift in what’s going on now. Whether humankind survives the ‘shift’ remains problematic. So far since 1970–the year I realized the real need for real change after the 1st Earth Day teach-in when I was in the 10th grade–I’ve seen little to indicate that leaders take this existential threat as serious as it is. In fact I speculated on my site that the energy corps subverted the education system so children wouldn’t learn what I learned in public school. Class of 1972. Nothing else make sense as tothe reason folks want to believe the nonsense spread by the energy corps PR firms and academic whores for hire to write phony papers. I just hope enough people wake to the fact that the world’s crumbling as the continue to burn fuels for frivolous things amplified by the constant drone of constant consumerism’s constant advertising. Change is eminent regardless, so how about changing before the decision is totally out of human hands? Or perish. Peace

  17. Yeah. Great post, great comments.

    I read Walden when I was seventeen, and I mis-heard the message. I heard “fuck all that” when I should have been hearing, “reduce your denominator,” that is, learn to live simply (cheaply). So I shucked my way through school and work, basically becoming a freeloader on my parents and a terrible employee because I was always pursuing my own interests on the company’s dime. This worked well enough when I was doing word processing because I was smart enough to be really efficient through macros and so on, but eventually the work was still boring and ever more hateful, so I was always getting fired. Each time I got hired it was for a better salary until I hit about 50, then it was downhill. When I was unemployed I moved back in with my parents. Twice, I think.

    There’s no happy end here. My projects, my pursuits, were satisfying, but led to nothing much. I had talent and ambition but lacked discipline. I was a dilettante and essentially a chiseler in my own fashion. Now I’m a retiree, collecting SS, which is enough for my needs (no car though), a cheap apartment, writing and trying to write.

    I have no advice. I simply wasn’t able to do what my employers wanted, and I wasn’t disciplined enough to do what I wanted–writing. So I’ve played my way through life, avoiding boredom mostly through useless pursuits like video games, sometimes producing first drafts of novels but never seeking publication because I knew I didn’t really have anything in hand. I don’t know. I should have been advised, “don’t go into engineering, go into science, that’s what you love.” But I doubt that it would have made much difference, because a lot of science looks to me like a desk job in an office.

    I tried to find a commune, but that wouldn’t have been an answer. My tastes are such as are unlikely ever to make me any money, and making money at something, some creative pursuit, will kill whatever made you want to do that in the first place. That’s my bad answer to life’s toughest challenge.

    What’s wrong here is that the system over-exploits labor for the sake of the rich, our masters. Bertrand Russell told us fifty years ago that we should all be working twenty hours a week, or less. That still could be true, and AI is already making a lot of us obsolete. When enough of us are obsolete that something has to be done, I don’t know what we’ll do with that. I dread it.

    Alan Carl Nicoll

  18. Read the article, feel great, read the comments, crashing down the hill. But no broken bones.

    Knew a guy who did that, looked like a bum, tons of money thing. People dismissed him offhand. He could get you a bank mortgage while you were collecting unemployment. They expected him to grovel, he could easily buy out most people, with cash. He sat on the boards of numerous large organizations. He had the most amazing photo collection and his was a prominent face. Why did he submit to the ridicule of others? Why did he hide, right out in the open? In some sense he was the most humble and the most arrogant person I ever knew. What a strange honor to be open to loving the bum and then get to meet the King.

    There is something in our past genetic material that tells us we could have it all. A time when that meant just having the confidence to survive on wits and effort. Without much stuff. Now it’s mostly subterfuge and dirty tricks, selling your soul. So here is too simpler ways and the inevitable crunch that will take us back to it.

  19. Alan,
    Yes, we do need some money, decent clothing and probably some form of transportation to function in our society, but that does not mean we have to buy into the mainstream B.S. and media run our lives, thinking and feeling. We can make significant changes without being paupers living out of a tent.

    Perhaps real freedom is mostly internal rather than so much external. We can wear some of the the trappings of the fake worlds and still be free within, so long as ego doesn’t demand we ‘do our praying in the streets’ and make our rebellion obvious. It may be safer to wear the disguise of being ‘one of the herd’, at least to some extent. The Matrix films are not that far off the mark, IMO.

    1. Amen to that. I wish that I had your wisdom 14 years ago. My story is under “David” in these comments, and I did it all the wrong way.

  20. I’m in my late 50’s. In 2004 I did just what you said. I was so fed up with the BS, the cage, the phony everything, that I just sold my nice house in a good neighbourhood, quit my job and started again. I ended up in a small run down cabin in the woods, became a writer, published 5 books (mediocre in retrospect), did small jobs, published websites, etc.

    So, by 2007 my partner had left me and went back to the city. By 2011 I got sick from all the stress of trying to survive all by myself. The revenue from the books, websites and odd jobs could not cover my bare-bones life. By 2014 all my savings were gone. I could not afford to have my cat get the vet treatment he needed when he got sick, so he died. I am now living in a basement, and completely burned out and am the family joke.

    Not saying you are wrong, but you need a very supportive network to do this – that is where I went wrong. The old saying, “No man is an island” was coined I’m sure by a person who went through what I did. Just an FYI.

    1. Perhaps someone trying to go on their own needs more resources at their disposal as well?

  21. “Climb up over that slaughterhouse rail and go live a life uninhibited by the painted lanes of a servile society, for the good of our species and for the honor of your own majesty. Leave the cage they built for you in a ditch by the freeway and stride out boldly into uncharted lands beneath the open sky.”

    Great sentiments. But quaere: How do you do it without money?

    So here is where I am, and where most of us have no choice to be:

    “The closest most ever come to authenticity is learning how to fake their way through society while secretly knowing it’s all bullshit.”

    I only know one person who is truly free. As a poor Palestinian-American, he saw through the absolute criminal fakery and theft of the social order a long time ago. But he was also very smart, and for a decade he worked as a lawyer at a personal-injury firm that hit it big on asbestos and tobacco cases. Now he’s worth over a hundred million dollars, which he’s invested in municipal bonds (no work, nothing but occasionally cashing checks and reinvesting what’s not needed). So he dresses like an old bum, rides a bicycle everywhere, sleeps underneath bridges if he feels like it, and smokes a pint of tea a day. HE is free.

    Those without money, though? Not. At. All.

    1. There is a sobering gist in Alan’s post which posits that if you want to be free of the system you detest, you first must learn how to exploit it and extract from its very core that which you need to gain your freedom.

      Yes, the seemingly contradictory (‘autheniticity’ vis a vis ‘fake’) yet paradoxical statement “The closest most ever come to authenticity is learning how to fake their way through society while secretly knowing it’s all bullshit.” …is probably the most accurate observation yet.

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