Whatever You Say I Am
In one of my teenage diaries, I wrote something that I have repeated again and again throughout my life.
“What if the crazy people aren’t crazy after all? What if they’re just awake and we’re not?”
It has always been one of my favorite stoner thought experiments.
But imagine it..
What if the moment you slid earthside, you were relinquished and severed from your Source?
What if you spent your childhood, and then your young adulthood in conditioned enslavement because you could not see the bars that imprisoned you and even worse, you believed that they would bring you “happiness”?
What if one warm October evening, when nearly four decades have past, a Shadow Reaper appears? He is the one who arrives when it is time to do your shadow work. What if he mirrored back to you, all of your ugliness and all of your fears, while insidiously harvesting your Light? What if he suspended you in time for five years until you finally, finally slipped from his grasp?
What if, somehow, bedridden and barely hanging on, you made it through The Dark Night of the Soul?
What if then, you trudged through The Swamps of Sadness at a snail’s pace, nearly giving up time and time again, and along the way, losing your People like Atreyu lost Artax?
What if, when you finally dragged yourself upon the swampy shore, you collapsed and surrendered, and then heaved and vomited until you were empty? What if there was a lone dandelion, and a voice that sounded like God’s voice, that told you that you would be required to traverse the next leg of your journey alone?
What if Pluto moved back and forth between Capricorn and Aquarius, exposing the old and the new, and all of the sudden, you could see all of the invisible threads of Power?
What if you pulled at one? A stupid one – like corporate abuse.
What if the unraveling of a single thread made all of the threads collapse like rows of dominoes or a house of cards and there was nothing you could do to stop it? What if fragments of knowledge that had been contained in separate data siloes began leaking into your field of vision, and all of the fragments connected?
What if you began trying to tell The People, and one by one, they turned away? Some of them left when you wouldn’t stop talking about how corporations abuse their employees in the same exact way that covert psychological abusers trap their victims in an eternal cycle of abuse and dependency.
Some of them left when you consistently repeated that it didn’t matter if the Puppeteer was blue or red – they were all on the same team anyway.
Some of them walked away when you refused to shut up when something was unjust, or when you began to stop giving them pieces of your soul for nothing.
Many of them left because your story forced them to look at themselves, and they didn’t want to.
What if, every time you spoke, people began to tune out, and eventually, they became irritated or bored?
But what if they aren’t irritated because you are speaking the truth? What if they are irritated that you are speaking at all?
You sound too negative now.
You sound too suspicious.
In their minds, they create a story about you. It is the only story that makes sense to them. They shake their heads and they confirm amongst each other that their story is true. And now, there is consensus. The herd has agreed that you just haven’t been acting like yourself lately.
“You’ve been so angry. So paranoid. So conspiratory. You’ve been alienating. You’ve lost weight. You don’t socialize. You behave unpredictably. You go into hyperfocused holes and manic spells. You used to put dinner on the table every night for the children. You used to shower daily, and shave all of your body hair off. Sometimes, you wore makeup. You kept the house tidy. You were a star employee. You used to knit, and do yoga, and go to church, and other activities and behaviors that ‘healthy’ and ‘happy’ people do.”
What if, while you were listening to The People tell you how sick you are, you were able predict every word as it came out of their mouths? Not because you were gifted or brilliant or magical, but because it isn’t hard to do. The People are all saying the same things. They are running an automatic script, just like a robot does. What if, when you use your patient voice, and you speak slow and easy, and explain to them what is happening to you, and about the invisible structures that you have unraveled, it is decided:
But what if you weren’t? What if you had just woken up one day, and everything was different, and nothing was real?
We have containment protocols for The Crazy People. Quite a few of them, actually.
Luckily, I will go full blown Tyler Durden if I am placed in a 12 Monkeys type of setting setting.
As the Crazy People do.
As we expect them to do.
Meanwhile, you’re taking up gardening and pilates and breathwork because you’re healthy.
Whatever you say, Buddy.
-Cass