On Rats and Truth

#FirstCoffeeThoughts

I was listening to a new audiobook and this line struck me. It struck me because I felt like I was listening to myself from long ago …

I have been reading a lot of different posts on social media with similar sentiments: 𝘏𝘰𝘸 𝘥𝘪𝘥 𝘐 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘮𝘺 𝘧𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘴, 𝘯𝘦𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘣𝘰𝘳𝘴, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘧𝘢𝘮𝘪𝘭𝘺 𝘮𝘦𝘮𝘣𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘕𝘢𝘻𝘪𝘴?

The answer to that is very simple: 𝐘𝐨𝐮 𝐝𝐢𝐝𝐧’𝐭 𝐰𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐤𝐧𝐨𝐰.

People don’t ask hard questions.
People don’t even communicate.
People aren’t willing to make judgments about people mainly because they don’t want people doing the same to them.

But you HAVE to ask.
You HAVE to know.

If you were truly friends with someone you would know how they felt about society, about politics, about themselves, about you … because friend’s talk … friend’s share … they have a relationship that is built on shared information, support, understanding, and a willingness to see each other fully. That is what love is about … but I know very few people who really embrace this idea … Their friendships are superficial and transactional and lack a foundation of realness.

The same is true – even more so – for the family structure.

There are many cultures that have a view of family that is based on SILENCE and COMPLIANCE and on CONTROL and OBEDIENCE and has nothing to do whatsoever with love, trust, communication, or understanding.

In my communications class ALL I ever saw were families unable to communicate with each other; couples unable to speak truth, children afraid to speak to their parents, parents who hated their own children as much as themselves.

But mostly what I saw was fear disguised as silence and by that I mean people were more worried about being alone than they were about being honest, understood, and understanding others.

The silence, the not asking hard questions (or any questions), not discussing difficult topics, not sharing truths … it was all about keeping a status quo that protected THEM from loss, loneliness, and gave them the appearance of normalcy.

Many relationships are sustained on nothing but lies and comfort.

What if I talk to my friend about something and find out we’re not as compatible as I thought? What if I talk to my partner about something and realize I don’t want to be married to them anymore? What if I realize something about myself that no one around me is going to accept?

Self perseveration.
Perceived normalcy.
Silence in exchange for security.

This is all I ever see ESPECIALLY in neurotypicals who are groomed and easily brainwashed into compliance with reasonless rules and beliefs.

Consider how many cultures put everyone else’s comfort over the needs of the individual.

Consider how many cultures put status, age, and gender at the top of the list for who determined what is said, how things are done, why they are done, and what is acceptable.

Consider how much of your lives are controlled by rules that only benefit people the exact opposite of you.

Consider how much of your lives are controlled by your fear of punishment, hard truths, and absolute candor.

Everything is made up.
Words. Ideas. Beliefs.

Made up by someone who had a enough power and influence to determine how THEY wanted reality to be for EVERYONE else.

Everything is someone else’s story that was forced on you to believe and live within.

Right now we live inside the dream of deranged, misogynistic, frightened, inadequate cis het white men.

It’s not truth.
It’s a fairy tale.

I have written essays before about how I loathe the phrase “all of the sudden” … because nothing truly happens “all of the sudden” except perhaps acts of nature but even those can be studied and predicted it’s just no one thinks it’s important to be educated about those things.

“All of the sudden” my husband became a member of the alt-right. “All of the sudden” my friend started calling people the n-word. “All of the sudden” my parents started watching Fox news …

Nothing is sudden.

Things are only sudden because you didn’t think you needed to pay attention to them because it didn’t directly effect your life in a way that was significant enough for you to actually care.

It was PREDICTED.
You were WARNED.
There were SIGNS.

The people around you who you are “suddenly” surprised by the behavior of? They were always like that, they just needed the freedom to express it openly.

… and you gave it with your silence, your fear of loneliness, and your need for comfort.

“𝐇𝐨𝐰 𝐝𝐢𝐝 𝐈 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐤𝐧𝐨𝐰?”

You did know.

You just didn’t care.

You cared more about your own comfort, the status quo, following the rules groomed into you, and believing what you were brainwashed to believe about what society is, what family should be, and what friendship is.

You cared more about your own comfort than you did about truth.

You only lived in your own reality and didn’t notice the reality of others.

All you needed this whole time was 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘵𝘰𝘭𝘥 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘧 …

I can point to so many moments and quotes that resonated with me when I was probably too young to be absorbing such thoughts … but one that I wrote a lot in my journal was when Nicodemus said:

… in The Secret of NIMH.

I was 11 … and standing around watching kids around me on the playground without a care in their heads and to me they just looked mice scurrying around trying to escape human hands that tried to put them in cages.

Truth is isolating.
Truth is terrifying.
Truth is painful.

And once you know it, there is no going back.

That alone is enough to keep people WILLFULLY ignorant.

Friendship, country, family, God, etc … all of the things that aid in defining your compliance, fear, sense of “normalcy” and other ideas groomed into your heads by your oppressors … are NOTHING but stories that have been told you by people who want to control you. They are fairytales you have been told and lies that you choose to believe because to let them go and embrace truth is a painful, isolating, transformation into something more than frightened, powerless vermin.

𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘥𝘦𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘥 𝘢𝘯𝘺𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘦𝘹𝘤𝘦𝘱𝘵 𝘪𝘯 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘰𝘸𝘯 𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘥𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘪𝘴𝘯’𝘵 𝘵𝘳𝘶𝘵𝘩.

Things are defined FOR US by other people whose sole goal is to make sure we are controlled and kept in our places and not allowed to see the truth they are hiding.I have been trying to preach this to others since 6th grade because Marcus Aurelius taught me:

Define your reality in your own terms.

Determine what things mean TO YOU and decide FOR YOURSELF how you wish to interact with and move through the world.

Decide WHO YOU ARE and WHAT YOU BELIEVE and how you want to exist in the world with others.

Read. Game. Watch. Experience media without the influence of others or turning to social media and YouTube to “know what to think”, stop reading reviews before you experience art and DECIDE THINGS FOR YOURSELF.

Make up YOUR OWN MIND.

But never forget …

Your reality is not everyone’s reality. Your truth is not everyone’s truth. There is no ONE WAY to see the world or the people in it.

COMMUNICATION. UNDERSTANDING. EMPATHY. LOGIC. REASON.

These are the ways forward.

But none of that can happen if you believe the lies you were told, if you only want to be comfortable, if you are afraid of asking questions, if you are afraid of hard truths, or if you are afraid of being disliked.

Wake up.

𝐈𝐭’𝐬 𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐰𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐞 𝐚 𝐧𝐞𝐰 𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐲.