More than anything, what Covid has brought me to is the idea of parallel institutions. I had small regard for most institutions going into 2020, but I did have *some* regard for them. The press, the FDA, the CDC, the schools, what have you. Now, I have almost none. Not in a vindictive or angry manner, but in a calm manner of, "if I follow their advice, my life will likely be worse."
I find myself torn between two ideas. The first being, one has a duty to pay attention to it all, to engage and fight for what is right! To stand up in the face of tyranny and be courageous. To take a stand.
The second idea being, simply, not not engage. I have ceased paying attention to the mainstream narrative. I do not follow the news or the latest trends. I am trigger-happy quick to shift my focus from any of the mainstream insanities that occupy the airwaves. I focus on reading books, on learning, on growing, on staying healthy, on keeping a financially sound household.
And I suppose this sounds admirable in some ways, but in others I also question whether I am abdicating some duty I have as an American, to stand up for certain principles and to fight back against tyranny! And yet, in a very Randian sense I am selfish. The mainstream BULLSHIT makes me feel bad. Reading a 100 year old book and going for a run feels good.
At any rate, thank you Charles. I read everything you write.
Me too. However I read an article this week saying that full blown totalitarianism set in (in Russia & Germany) when people stopped speaking out. So this compels me to keep going in my own small way.
Same here with the disengagement. It's my self preservation. We need less macro focus if we hope to rebuild community. The less I hear about the world's problems the more I can be available for my neighbors, the animals, the trees, etc. Community happens in a very small radius and that's where our energy can actually make a difference.
Yes. And as more of those small community circles happen, they expand and eventually overlap, and this is how real change is possible. The only way we are going to be “saved” is from the grassroots up. Not the other way around.
Thank you…I agree on this perspective whole heartedly …the grassroots/small scale simplicity has become the bottom up approach needed for a true decentralized parallel society to evolve…I’m so ready.
I think we need to listen to what our hearts need most in these times and act on that. Simply being IS powerful, when we are in alignment with what is true for us. The clarity and intention with which we move forward in the world will ripple outwards and impact others, who will impact others, and so on. By our actions, we change our immediate world and those we are in contact with, and through the vast mycelium network of human thought, the essential goodness is passed along, variously halting at some junctures and intensifying at others, but everywhere having an impact.
At the same time, I think we need to be careful to resist the temptation to insulate our lives from others that walk a different path. I really love something that Mattias Desmet wrote in The Psychology of Totalitarianism, where he spoke of The Art of Full Speech as a direct remedy for the mechanistic scientific paradigm that enables dominance and control. Full expression of our humanity, including both our certainties and uncertainties, our hurts and vulnerabilities, as well as our truth, is the only way we can remove the pin that the whole terrifying, totalitarian, technocratic mindset depends on for its massive cogs to turn. It's the only way to stop the masses dehumanising the minority and so prevent them carrying out heinous acts such as those inflicted on minorities by past totalitarian regimes. It’s the EMP to the digitalised world-mind – the only way the whole machine can come tumbling down or the global t.v. screen can short out to black (whichever metaphor you prefer).
So I am with you – I too am going off-grid in the physical sense with my family, seeking self-reliance as far away from the tentacles of the system that we can get. But I think all of us who do this need to keep speaking with integrity from our place of truth, as tempting as it is to shy away – even if it’s uncomfortable and awkward and irritating and frustrating. Speaking our truth in the midst of disconnect and discomfort is how we bring the whole thing down. We don’t have to shout – we just need to stay in our truth as much as we can. As with many things in life, it will probably involve lots of falling over and getting back up again and starting over.
I am a novice at this, an introvert stumbling along. But I feel intuitively that if we see ourselves as conduits for what is true and beautiful, and not purveyors/missionaries of it, it could be vitalising, not draining. As conduits we need strong, off-grid roots, away from technocratic social and physical engineering. So let’s celebrate going off-grid in whatever way we can – whether that’s in a physical, social or spiritual sense of the term.
Seems we feel the same on this issue. I am in Australia and have lost my scant regard for the consensus bureaucracies and pretty much all politicians. And like you no longer listen to any mainstream media. I have struggled with my mind telling me I must stand up and speak out but my gut instinct is to not. This would not be following my bliss! Haha. Is this a cop-out? As an introvert I tell myself that by sincerely attempting to interact with my fellows in a positive non judgemental way (hard) and striving personally to remember that everything in my sphere is God makes a difference.
I want to join this Aussie thread. I am in WA. Isolated, not allowed to leave the State until a couple of months ago and still living under a State of Emergency whilst our Premier travels the world promoting tourism! I have moments of activism, writing, sharing, promoting healing and even assisting the Informed Medical Options Party at the last election. I have joined the Parallel Movement and like their pledge. (It is fairly new and I haven’t connected with anyone yet -https://www.parallelmovement.org.) I think my main is to be relatable to others in community and honour Self and although I am more focused on Self and much less on volunteering for the environment and other issues than at the same time last year I am OK with my stance. I feel I am following my heart, spend a lot of time in spaces of gratitude, love and compassion but still capable of being really angry and letting the perpetrators of injustice know. I have noticed I am avoiding the C 19 and vax issue with new people I meet, or if comes up and it seems we hold different view points I have said “OK, let’s not go there “ but make a mental note to address underlying issues like Charles has raised. The right to protest (protect forests or protect our right to stand up to big corporations) is common ground I have met some of my Green friends I felt alienated from. And I don’t know if I can believe anything that government or the MSM tell me. For example the sunrises and sunsets are so vividly orange, pink and a deep red that I never remember seeing before. Can it really be volcanic ash or is it Geo-engineering chemicals ?
Sam, I feel that interest in and desire for a parallel society, I think it's a completely healthy response to what has happened. I just started a podcast called "Creating a Parallel Society" that I'm hoping to have Charles on one day! If you're interested you can find it by going to my Substack. Thanks for your comment here!
As Buckminster Fuller says "you never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete ". There are many parallel health initiatives arising as well as more and more folk wishing to live more off grid... myself included. I often feel like I am already in a different reality as I am choosing not to engage with MSM and with people who ooze the fear, scarcity, divide and rule and other programmes. I guess its a form of energy preservation.
I totally relate to this - and have the same thing around wanting to just let it be and move myself on and when to stand against tyranny - it's a bit of a dilemma...so my decision is to dance with what comes to my door and trust that standing in my truth will lead to right action if any is to be taken.
Ha, cool. We have been on Stewart island since we left the bay in 2015 or so. Our daughter Teal who we had on Gabrielle and Alan’s land in 2014 is 8 now. How time flies.
Substack has some great writers and thinkers, far better insights than the mainstream.
I relate so well to what you are saying. I have found myself frozen at times to move forward fully in my own life, yet completely going “off grid” seems irresponsible as well. We struggle with balance. At least we struggle together.
As i am someone keen to go off grid and connect more closely to the land, I am curious to ask... what prompts your comment about it seeming irresponsible?
I was using the term in quotes as a metaphor for insulating myself from all or much of what I'm learning is going on in the world on multiple fronts. The virus/"vaccine" issue was just the beginning. Yet, as a mother, grandmother, wife, neighbor, citizen of the world, it seems irresponsible to "see no evil", just because I feel so powerless to confront it. And with so much coming in from so many directions, the impulse to "hide in a bunker" (more metaphor, sorry!) is strong. But not stronger than my sense of responsibility to others, nor my curiosity, frankly. :)
I think tuning out is actually a form of activism. It takes extreme effort to create your own bubble and home life in a way that aligns with your ideals. I kept my head down during the whole pandemic but didn’t over isolate…now people are slowly waking from the dream of shattered promises from the “authorities” it’s a good time to shepherd folks further into the light. Luckily some “activists” (like Eisenstein) took the time to keep the fire of wisdom burning while the storm raged outside.
It's always tricky to know when conditions require activism and resistance. But the saying is true: first they came for the gypsies... We are in a very perilous moment as techno dictatorship becomes quite real for 1.4 billion Chinese, has recently spread to Hong Kong (actively and aggressively) and probably Taiwan next. Then Laos? And after that who knows as China expands its Belt and Road initiative, its global public health agenda (China had exported its surveillance tech to over 80 countries even before the pandemic), and then eventually its central agency control with its absolute tech control of entire populations (as happened in the last two years in Hong Kong). It's hard to over-state how important these developments are for world history. This is a very delicate moment requiring deep study and smart activism.
What a beautiful response. I love thinking that it is brave enough to stay in the liminal space between tensions as a form of activism in itself. Sorry if I’ve read a lower interpretation into your words. They are beautiful as is, and I thank you.
I hope you are right about people slowly waking up. I am not as optimistic, surrounded here by suffering people, plenty intelligent but still immersed in trying to carry on within the old paradigm.
This waking up is dicey stuff. The required frameshift is at first absolutely overwhelming. And who has energy or time to spare these days ...
If I am at all inclined toward conspiracy theories this is mine: our ability to live has been molded and forced toward corporate reward and government overseer control.
It’s nearly impossible to break out of this unless one is healthy and has resources to spare and a bit of land in a community that still has good air and soil. And I think also a larger wider perspective that embraces a spiritual perspective — ‘there’s far more to all of this .. ‘
If our civilization fails, and it clearly will someday and that day seems to be now, I take comfort in the many beautiful souls stepping forward in ‘nonaction’, in kindness and love and kinship. Here is where alchemy happens.
Yes, my conversations on this topic have generally turned to parallel institutions as the path forward. A critical mass of people, particularly the professional managerial class, will not wake up and acknowledge the evil forces that drove the Pandemania. And, even if there is some hope of awakening, it’s on them. There’s nothing we can do to show them the light, other than trying to be our best selves.
Yes, parallel institutions. Some have existed in business with success for as much as 60 years. My husband of 3 1/2 years has been trying to wake up the professional managerial class for more than 2 decades. And he had great success for the 5 years he was a chief executive using his collective intelligence workshop model. In 2007 he left the corporate world to write and speak about these solutions. And they certainly do not limit themselves to "business," but rather to society at large. Like many, he lost work and opportunities due to his carefully thought-out decision with regard to "the vaccine". If interested, check out his two latest articles on Substack. (and you might like his first, which was written beginning in May of 2020, The Mismanagement of Covid-19)
I spent the first half 'fighting' and protesting and calling. Then I decided that the bullshit will happen in one form or another forever so I am going to focus on making my life and my families the best it can be. And I let my joy radiate out to those around me. I hike, play tennis, read, spend time with like minded friends and enjoy every minute of life.
I suppose the time to fight with come again but my goal is that even when it does, I can keep a calm and tranquil mind through it all
Beautiful! I too spent the first half fighting. I went to rallies to protest, wrote letters in anger, and mourned the loss of friends who rejected my views (and me for having them). Then I started connecting with others who were like minded and found an entirely new community of friends. I still occasionally write letters, but I write them with a view to solutions, rather than protesting. I got a local bar to drop their vax mandate and successfully advocated for an exemption so my daughter could go to her camp. That forest fire may still be raging (especially here in Canada!!), but I'm making my own refuge in the meantime, and doing more to prevent and prepare than I ever was when I was in the anger/despair phase of this journey. (though don't get me wrong, I'm hardly a ball of light - I still get upset and angry easily! I just don't live in the upset for quite so long)
My lowest point was when my 26 yo son told me he got vaccinated. For a while my hair was falling out and I was very traumatized. I have accepted what happened and moved on. But it still hurts. These days I just try to get on with life and be satisfied with my lot. My greatest hope is that the majority of people will see sense and reject boosters.
I still get upset too and have to ban myself from the phone/ computer when I feel my mood going down. I think before I felt like I had to feel the anger often to feel the seriousness of the injustices but then I realzied that was only hurting me.
I hope Canada isn't as bad as we've heard, I really feel for all of you there.
That's a respectable position, but as with Candide seeking to tend to his own garden, what about the forest fire heading your way? If awake and compassionate people don't join in the struggle to push back these forces of control, who will?
I think it's possible to bridge the two worlds. We can only tackle the forest fire if we see a clear path to action, and for me I only see clear paths to action when I'm not stuck in fear or anger. My choice right not is to run for mayor in my own city to try to effect change in this society. But I can't control whether I'm elected or not, so I'm also tending to the parallel society that can thrive no matter who is elected. Gardening, connecting with others, sharing our ideas and finding joy in music or nature are just a few of the ways I think we can create in parallel the society we want even as we continue to be alert to ways we can participate in the larger one we live within. I think how we live in both works will be different for each of us.
I am in the same place as you are. We all live on the same planet. How do we create the new while at the same time putting a hand out to our brothers and sisters who are struggling under the weight of the old that is crumbling?
Indigenous people lived off the land, in harmony one might add, for thousands of years before colonialism arrived in the Western Hemisphere. We all saw how that went. Grow your own food, and yes, resist, and be active in your community, etc.
I wish I could disengage. I can easily relate to the value you find in old books and creative endeavors, but I am finding it hard to look away. So I obsess about everything going on in the world. I read the media ( sometimes), but mostly to confirm my view of their manipulation and duplicity. Sometimes I push back with a letter to the editor, which never gets published, but helps me consolidate my thoughts. I used to get letters published all the time. I spend a lot of time online. Mostly I am trying to figure out what is really going on. Wish I could put it all aside and immerse myself in a great book. Maybe I will work on that.
that is my position exactly. And I am a former journalist. When the outrage I felt from early on in pandemic started eating me up, I made the decision to step back somewhat. To stay informed from a distance, and accept that the mainstream story I was being told was not reliable. And to see that my taking an angry position was the other side of the coin that my righteous friends family and colleagues were taking. I decided that connection was more important than conflict with my family, and concentrated on that. My poor tongue - I have to bite it often, even now when I see what I think are the effects the vaccination and boosters are having on weakened immune systems. I am just so thankful that I found Charles's voice early on in pandemic, someone who could speak so articulately to the questions popping up.
“Forgive them father, for they know not what they do."
It's important to keep in mind that forgiving someone does not mean that things go back to whatever they were previously--that is a different choice altogether. We can choose to forgive someone and also choose to not have a relationship or contact with them going forward. Often people think forgiveness means that everything returns to whatever "normal" was, but this is not true.
I think the covid madness has shined a light on a lot of ugliness--in a lot of different forms--in the world. Many have experienced this in various forms of persecution--like the woman in the ukulele group. In my opinion, it is important to find like-minded people that won't shut you out like this going forward.
I find myself quite lonely much of the time now, although communities like this are helpful. I have a few long term friendships, my husband and two daughters with whom I can share, but my larger community and other relatives and 2 previously close friends have rejected me. And I’m not ready to risk sticking my toe back in that same water, especially as it remains as cold , murky and shark filled as ever. Purposefully so. No apologies. No extension of reconciliation. Pandemania indeed.
I don't know where you live and the demographics seem to vary widely in different areas, but there are many people like yourself--out there and waiting to connect with others--you just have to step out of your comfort zone and find them. I have made quite a few new friends in the past 9 months by doing this. It's so heartbreaking to hear the stories of people being dropped like a hot rock by those closest to them, but don't let that stop you from moving forward and finding something worth having.
I agree with what you are saying, but it is so difficult. I live in WA state where like-minded people are few. It takes quite a risk to speak up and find them. Sometimes, it just feels easier - but not easy - to say nothing and get along.
I live in New Mexico near Santa Fe, a "liberal bubble." The local newspaper ran at least 3 vaccine propaganda pieces every day. I used to write letters regarding the environment, local politics, etc. and they would publish them. Once they grabbed hold of the covid narrative, they refused to publish any letters that did not agree with it. My liberal friends avoided me. Some called me an idiot when I tried to show them evidence that supported my views. Not easy to forgive. There are some like-minded people, but they live a distance from me. I'm 80 and don't like to drive at night. I have to stay overnight if I meet with them. I was a member of the local opera guild for more than 45 years. They had a party at a member's house and asked that everyone be vaccinated! I did lose my head, burnt that bridge, and told them I would never contribute or associate with them again. My husband died 5 years ago. I would miss our old life under normal circumstances, but given the exclusion I have suffered, the loneliness is amplified. Thank goodness I love to read and swim, two things that are done happily alone.
Suannee, that is terrible. I am sorry for your loss on every level. I am glad you have things that bring you joy. We are all needed now more than ever. The Universe gives the greatest challenges to the bravest souls.
I'm not sure I'm brave enough. I was invited to a fund raiser for our esteemed governor. I wanted to go and write her a note with both my opinions and scientific proof that her authoritarian, useless, job-destroying rules were hurting rather than helping anyone. I chickened out and cancelled at the last minute.
I'm sure that in some areas it's more difficult to locate others like us than in other areas. It is a risk but remember that there are most likely quite a few other people that are in the exact same position as you--afraid to step out and make connections. I promise you that they're around--you just have to find them. I know that this can be challenging but worth the effort.
Thank you Kelly. I live in Texas…an open State. But lost a very close friend who dropped me abruptly, a plant based support and social group that I started in 2017, and my yoga group. I also had retired from a career in end of life care in September of 2019 so lost those wonderful relationships as well. My new husband and I planned to travel all we could for the next 10 years since we were 67 and 69 when we married in late 2018. Virtually everything we planned slammed doors in our faces. We are resilient and have made other plans, but at our ages have little hope to experience many places in the world we’d hoped to explore. We also moved across town into a new community in the middle of it all. My question for you is “How?” How did you reach out without getting your arms cut off? I find many delightful conservatives who are more aligned with my values on the health freedom subject, yet come up empty with more holistic (probably a poor term, here) thinkers who I previously found to be more on the left. Which was my home before so called progressives pulled them clear off the Left coast into places I simply cannot go. We are about to attend a libertarian leaning conference out of state and I’m sure I’ll find those I can to talk to there. It’s here at home where people mostly mind their own business that I feel the losses most. I realize that I am Not alone in this group.
I have found it interesting that so many of the alt health people have acted so afraid and then crazy in this--you'd think they'd feel equipped to deal. My 16 year old daughter was supposed to go to France on a school trip this month--she's not going for other reasons--but she said that she wouldn't go because of the requirements--what happens if you test positive when you need to re-enter the country? It stinks that you can't enjoy what you've worked for by traveling. I got involved with others by looking into home schooling. My daughter started school this past year--after she and my 13 yr old son stayed remote the prior year to avoid the madness--and she couldn't tolerate the masks. Both kids had medical exemptions but had to do a shield--my son did that but she refused and did the mask. She was getting severe headaches so I took her out of school. Connecting with some people in that area, I got involved with people against the school mandates--which has led me into politics--which I've always avoided beyond voting. I consider myself as libertarian but now hold office in my local Republican party which we just successfully re-organized into a grassroots party and got the establishment out. Most of our adjoining parties in my area have done the same.
I relate to what you share. Living in WA state, there are so few here who are unvaxxed, and so few who recognize the oppressive and discriminatory climate. It can feel very lonely. Online communities help, but aren’t the same as close friends who genuinely understand what you are experiencing.
I hear your loneliness, pain. I live in a highly vaxed state still restricting access for the vaccine-free in many places, lost my job, hard to
Find work for unvaxxed, lost a large social circle. Yet, I’ve found a new community here (while maintaining relationships a few open minded friends triple and double vaxxed friends), a few I’ve developed new friendships. Maybe on various comment threads you can find others, maybe there are activist groups near you you can connect with. Hard to
Imagine a single state without activists! Staying healthy is more than just avoiding covid (or whatever else comes down the pike). We need each other. Reach out
I too lost my job. Was a substitute teacher; got terminated Oct 19, 2021. Our governor just a few days ago made a permanent mandate that all government workers must be fully vaxxed. Spoke with a friend today - a nurse - who believes that I as an unvaxxed person am more at risk of spreading covid than she is and stated that unvaxxed get more severe covid. It felt so hurtful to think that she does not see us as equal.
But, I have recently reached out to find more friends who are kindred spirits, and that helps.
Would you mind explaining how you “reached out”? Most of us are so beaten up we don’t want to risk drawing even more fire in the process. I mean, posting an ad “lonely and unvaxxed meet here”?
Thank you Glenda for the laugh! And being able to laugh at horrible things is a time honored method for survival. I have been fortunate that two groups were started here locally almost at the beginning, to help folks who did not agree with the covid mandates band together for support in a very blue county and state. Lots of these grassroots groups have started around the country. Maybe you could investigate and start your own? You may be surprised to find how many like minded souls there really are near you who have been afraid to speak out. My own old community of 30 plus years evaporated practically overnite, but now I have a whole new community full of folks I normally would never have connected with pre-covid. It was very sad to lose so many old friends, but now I am having fun re-inventing myself with a whole new crowd! At 63 most folks never get a chance to do this.
Glenda, I cannot speak for teacherlori8, but I can speak for myself. I actually started getting to know my neighbors here in the apartment complex where I live. I go walking with a really wonderful older woman who lives next door. We didn't start talking until this year, though she has lived next door for years. She has been vaccinated but could not care less that I haven't been. I know it might sound strange, but ask for people to come into your life, and I promise you that as long as you are open, they will.
I highly recommend seeking out medical freedom groups in WA. WA, like we here in OR, and also CA, NY and NJ has been fighting children's mandates for years, and a large community has formed around that issue. Amazing people!
I live in Wa state also. Have you checked out the Free WA group? There are many off shoots of this at least on the west side of the mts. Our own local group called Be Brave WA helped me alot not to feel so isolated, especially at the beginning. To walk into a room full of people once a week with no masks and no social distancing and, well just acting normal. went a long long way to preserving my own mental health.
Our group just had a fourth of july party last nite and it was really great to be with these folks that I normally would have had little in common with before covid. To just be with people that I know are not going to turn on me based on what the talking heads are telling them, even if we disagree about some things, has been a huge relief.
It's difficult to navigate these days, it's like a walk down a corkscrewing path through a series of funhouse mirrors. There are those who shout at anyone not in their church of conventional fear, and others who shout about how the conventional view is all about intentionally depopulating the world. Scientific thinking and heart-centered intelligence seem very rare these days.
"The room is swaying like a boat, but I'm still afloat..." -Pat Fish, "The Human Jungle"
I agree. I find myself walking a tightrope on all sides really. I don't agree with everything in any of the groups I am part of these days, but I need people and so I try to let the stuff I don't feel in alignment with slide over my head. Frankly I would rather deal with folks I have religious and political differences with than folks who want to force me to have a medical proceedure against my will or require me to wear a mask with every interaction I have with them and basically feel afraid of my very existence. I can tune out rhetoric I don't believe or smile and nod and be polite; but it is hard to tune out palpable disgust and fear. And while certain folks might want to invade my brain with their own brand of propaganda ; I am far more afraid of the folks who want to invade my body and believe they have the moral right to do so!
As am I. I still remember watching the Watergate hearings on TV, and seeing Sam Ervin refer to William Pitt's statement about the King of England, saying to the witness, "... and you are now saying that what the King of England cannot do, the President of the United States can!"
Here's the quote:
“The poorest man may in his cottage, bid defiance to all the forces of the Crown. It may be frail, its roof may shake; the wind may blow through it; the storm may enter; the rain may enter; but the King of England may not enter; all his force dares not cross the threshold of the ruined tenement.”
I say that my skin is just such a threshold, and that this would apply no less if I were a woman faced with laws against abortion. I say no, the state may not enter.
It's remarkable to me that what the King of England could not do in the 1700s, and what Sam Ervin ridiculed as the contention by the opposition that the POTUS could, the vaccines-über-alles crowd now assert that they can. If that's "progressive," it's progress entirely in the wrong direction.
I resonate with your thoughts and feelings, Glenda. Unlike your situation, however, I lost my husband and 2 teenage step daughters during the beginning of pandemania. What was suppose to be a “break” to give each other some space to eventually regroup went from 3 weeks to 2.5 years and finally a permanent break altogether, ie divorce and the girls fearful of my existence. I envy/admire that you got to keep your family, that your love and bond were strong enough for to stay in tact. But like you, it is this type of community here that keeps the fire lit under me to keep moving forward. Communities like this are who I lean on for support and understanding. This community is a much more emotionally available, bonded, and accepting family that I have EVER had, and I feel so grateful to be a part of it. I have finally found a warm and cozy home.
Oh, dear Cristy, my heart goes out to you. I am grateful every day that at least my biological family is in this with me at least on the "virus" issues, but am sad that my step-family is not. I agree, this community feels closest to my heart, although of course we would all have divergent views in some areas. But I feel we could address them with respect and love. I would so appreciate meeting with all of you here, "with skin on". That is what I am missing. And I pray your daughters will one day grow into independent thinkers and meet you Rumi's field.
Completely spot on; people cannot fathom why I am leaving California permanently. They tell me that most restrictions are gone, so I should stay. Unfortunately, many friendships are permanently destroyed, as I cannot share a life with people who have such a different worldview as mine.
What’s been hard is many social and business connections that collapsed because of my vax status, we share similar views and values on other things, sometimes many other things. Even my state aligns with many of mine. But not in the jabs. It’s one thing I’ve liked about living where I do. So it’s been very confusing for me. I think you can probably relate.
yes yes and yes - always to your clear thinking and expression of what many need voiced Charles. Like you, I don't enjoy my own indignance and disdain being rarked up in some of these conversations - however, I don't find that with your writings. What is important is that we don't take on the role of victimisation...no matter how tempting - we are certainly not victims! Yet I know of many dear friends who are, quite understandably, stuck in this mode. I feel for them because they are in pain and disbelief - feeling unacknowledged, unheard and desperate for some sort of vindication that we were not wrong in making our 'unpopular' choices and having our 'questionable' counter-opinions. In the case of say the ukelele group, I would simply not be able to attend because it would not feel good or right to my soul to be treated with such disdain and patronisation. But if making that choice left me feeling bitter, disgruntled or angry at missing out, I would need to find another way to reframe it that felt right for me and didn't put me back in victim mode. The way I look at it is, I have moved on...I am now freeing myself up to find more aligned friendships, groups or interests that don't result in me feeling like a bad or inadequate person. There is nothing wrong with the remorse felt around that - as in your analogy Charles, it would be akin to sadness at leaving a less-than-ideal relationship but knowing it is ultimately for my higher good and joy to come! Whichever side of the fence we are on, to be truly self-sovereign is to be true to self, to let others be true to themselves no matter how much we may disagree and to be willing to move on from what no longer serves. And to take note of where there is any resistance...this is the edge to work on. If I am acting ONLY out of opposition or resistance, there is no peace in it. I have to find my own peace, my own coming to terms...my own higher knowing. Sure, we want accountability, we'd like acknowledgement (which we may never get) - but are we going to be miserable and angry forever if someone doesn't give it to us? Like everything - and you do this so well Charles - we need to be able to hold the paradoxes. Keep up the great conversation - it is so refreshing and something I can totally get on board with!
I couldn't agree more! Although in the case of the ukulele group, I'd say keep talking to them, stay true to yourself and be there for them too. (Of course keep boundaries and don't become a doormat.)
The best way out of this is if we finally agree to disagree. I'm not sure if this is possible. And to be honest, I'm an introvert and I usually remove myself from these situations. I'm also dreaming and hoping for a parallel society where people are free from pandemania. I was thinking about what Mattias Desmet said that the way out of mass formation is to continue to speak out and ask questions.
Right. I suspect it's harder to dehumanize someone you're in an ongoing conversation with. Probably not impossible, so I guess it's still a good idea to retain situational awareness as you continue the conversation. There are some pretty bad stories about what people are able to do to family and friends when taken by Mass Formation Psychosis.
Same here. In the beginning, I was sharing important information with everyone I knew. Nobody wanted to know it. One even asked me to take her off my email list. It has been a solitary and sometimes, lonely experience. Not a single soul has reached out to engage me in any conversation regarding this topic.
Jul 2, 2022Liked by Charles Eisenstein, Charles Eisenstein
Charles, the element of your writing that gave me the greatest hope during the pandemic was the sense of being free of the need to demonise an 'enemy'. Reading the venomous comments of people on each end of the covid spectrum and finding them to be the same was disconcerting, particularly when I recognised the tendency in myself. I remember reading People Of The Lie at uni and here was my very own opportunity to practice the art of taking a stance without demonising those who stood elsewhere. For a long time I felt such rage at the unfolding manipulation and the blatant stirring of fear, the potential vaccine damage being done. I wrestled with that, but then, like the hulk, I found that instead of fighting the rage and trying to subdue it, I could be angry all the time in a low level, sword-sharp clarity kind of way. That residue anger enables me to hold boundaries quite effortlessly and without a sense of loss. Healthy rage is something that interests me coming out of the last two years, as does, the positives that might have been experienced by the encounter with the virus. I know someone who had chronic pain disappear while they were ill and who was somewhat enabled having recovered. Our tendency to make war against everything, including a virus, means we are not engaging with an experience which might be for the good if we were less frightened and better equipped. The western health service, whilst good in many ways has also made people helpless, relying on experts instead of having the knowledge to take responsibility for their own health.
I like the "low-level anger" idea. It reminds me of how subjected people around the world (for example the people of India, humiliated for years under British colonialism) patiently held their low-level anger until the right moment arrived to express it. Perhaps the 33% who have refused either all vaccines, or the 2nd vaccine, or the boosters, are waiting for such a moment.
I spent two years being angry. It was bad for my health. I minimize my contacts with friends, family and others who have a problem with my views. Most of the time I don't challenge people unless I think they may listen, but sometimes the ire still leaks out as I tell them the consequences of what they're doing will be. My granddaughter and her boyfriend got the vaccine last year and now they have Covid. I don't rub their noses in it, but I'm sure they know what I think. The biggest danger I face is that at times I hope they (not my granddaughter) get the consequences, not something that I'm proud of.
I did manage to have a conversation with a good friend who just retired here in the Uk and had all the jabs cos he had planned a road trip around New Zealand for 7 months and nothing was going to stop him, and new grandchild in Australia that he is on his way to see today. At the time I did suggest very strongly that he didn’t get the jabs as I was concerned for his safety. When I reminded him of this and told him of the abuse I had received, he said he thought I could die if I didn’t get the jabs. Still no contrition, but to be fair he was not one of the abusers. Next month we traditionally go camping to the same place (25years) and like the ukelele lady I am torn as to to go. It was here last year that I got the most abuse especially from 2 people who were actually in charge of teams of jabbers. I’ve known these people for over 25 years as part of a summer community and now I have lost that. I’m quite a lively member of this grouping as a prolific philosopher, talker and musician and have been told many times what a contribution I make. Last year I had to leave after 4 days. This all makes me stronger in some ways but I now find myself mentally constructing a new identity to survive if I do go. This is going to get all the more complicated when my friend in Aus returns in 4 weeks who says he doesn’t want to talk about it. Talking about stuff is what I do. I realise I sound a bit like a victim but right now that’s how I feel.
David, that is hard, but if part of your authenticity is talking about things, you are doing no one a service by being silent. Be you with no apologies. I am a very communicative person myself, and I have reached a place over the past two years where I have found more of my voice than ever. I will not stay silent so others may stay comfortable. I will speak from my heart, but I will still speak!!!
I have come to what I feel is a healthy place with regard to the rejection I experienced not only because of my vaccine status, but also because of my stated views. First, by deeply and completely putting myself in their shoes I can honestly see how they saw my views as a grave threat to them personally or else their loved ones. And from that place how could they do anything but distance themselves from us? The second way I find peace, when I think of how friends could get on planes, or go to restaurants, or put their kids in camp while my family could do none of those things, is to remember that they paid an incredible price for that privilege. When I remember that I feel glad that I did not have to pay that price, and feel compassion for those that have paid it. I stop feeling excluded and start feeling grateful. This has only come from a huge amount of internal questioning and reflection, but it means I no longer see this as an abuser victim situation, so I feel there is no need for me to forgive anyone. I can be at peace knowing they simply have a different way of seeing the world than I do. Of course, I can still go through clouds of anger and sadness when I'm triggered, but as long as I stay calm through the emotional storm, I come out feeling peace again on the other side. Thanks Charles for your reflections.
Thank you for this wisdom. I've been working on empathy too. One of the things that helped me early on to make sense of the dissent was to see the bottom line was we were all trying to keep ourselves safe, some by being vaxxed, others by being vaccine-free. The hardest bit was that others were not willing to engage in that 'common ground' level of discussion.
Thanks for articulating my feelings. The Covid theater awakened me to a phenomenon that has occurred repeatedly in history. Scapegoating, witch hunting, crowd formation.... I had never experienced how it felt to be ostracized. It’s taught me to be more fair minded, choose friends more wisely, and to be prepare it could happen again. Ignorance was bliss, but civil society can change in an instant.
Seems to me, it's not a question of forgiving vaxxed friends who avoided us. Forgive? Who am I God? Rather, this is an opportunity for me to reflect on times in the past when I isolated others from my circles. And then, to forgive MYSELF for those instances. Covid is an opportunity for self-reflection and choosing a new direction. An opportunity to look in the mirror and forgive the guy looking back.
Well said. I think that this applies to many of us, leftists who have seen the "pandemic" more as a "pandemania." The response to covid has helped me see how I was myself a proud left-leaning liberal with a superiority complex, judging the lowly rightwingers as, at best, selfish conspiracy theorists, somehow believing that government, however imperfect it was, was the only force to protects us from the evils of capitalism, even as I proclaimed the evils of corruption and revolving doors between the corporate and governments worlds, and I was so proud of my awareness of corporate media's manufacture of consent, and other concepts routinely spewed out in my too many years in academia.
The only crack in my liberal armour was my complete and radical lack of trust in big pharma and the whole of industrial allopathic medicine complex. That was maybe the crack that shattered my liberal bubble when the covidian mobs started to form, who knows? In any case, I now look back at my previous proud stance as a member of the enlightened left and do feel shame, as my past behaviours are mirrored everyday in my many colleagues and acquaintances who have embraced the covidian narrative and have relegated my views to the dung heap of rightwing conspiracy theories. I should never forget that past self, be grateful for the covid madness to have shed light on the tenuous nature of that self, and move forward, forgiving myself, and continue to struggle ahead along new yet unknown paths, hopefully more accepting and free of ideological labels.
You have perfectly described my own reality as well - lifelong leftist and Dem voter in US (NDP/Green supporter in Canada). From the outset, I bought the official Covid narrative before the vaccines arrived. I was a mask Nazi, I would critique shoppers for going against the arrows in supermarket aisles or not standing on their designated crop circle while waiting in line. I mocked people attending Freedom rallies as "Covidiots" online. (I later apologized to many of these people individually since I too now attend these rallies.) But, like you, the one thing I didn't trust was Big Pharma. I did not want the experimental injections. I had discovered the FLCCC's early treatment protocol and decided to protect and treat myself that way instead of risk the investigational injections from Big Pharma. I gradually "woke up" over a year, bit by bit, falsehood after falsehood became apparent to me but not all at once. And now I am able to look back at my former self, see how ideology, political self-identity, and a large amorphous twitter gang I was part of had short-circuited my independent thought. I had rushed to judgment, adopted a position, mislabeled and dismissed a whole group of people and a whole set of information, without any critical examination whatsoever. Knee-jerk reactionism. And smugness.
It was a frightening self-discovery when I saw it - how easily and automatically I had let myself be inducted into the mass formation. I am stronger for this insight, now that I have exited the mass formation and can see it and see how effortlessly I slid into it... how treacherous that pattern really is. And while this insight should also help me empathize with my many (former?) friends and allies still in the mass formation... I am finding it doesn't. Now that I have awakened, I am impatient and feel everyone else should too. lol! Not sure what's next for me/us/society.
I really loved reading both this and oac's account above. I too was a lifelong leftist and cultural snob. I have to be careful not to transfer my natural snobbyness on to people swept up in the mass formation. It's hard. But life, as always, provides lots of opportunities to rediscover humility! :D
Thank you for sharing and for your courage to question. That's hard to do, when one is swept up by comforting beliefs. I wasn't able to question many leftist positions until covid either and now I'm so distrustful of any group and looking for the manipulation. I'm sure there is more questioning and waking up to do yet!
I completely understand your feelings of impatience and continued judgment even if you know that it is not productive. My own understanding of what it felt like to be a well-intentioned believer in the covid narrative is often not sufficient to be empathetic of the many that are still swimming in the sea of corporate propaganda, wanting to force us to plunge in.
Same here. I got off the leftist boat with Big Pharma too. I've seen way too many miracle cures of impossible diseases come food and herbs. And because I'm a deeply spiritual person, I had WAY more in common with the Christian right during the whole pandemic than ever before in my life! They kept saying they didn't trust the government and they had faith in God-- and I was like-- ME TOO!
Yes, that tentative alliance with the Christian right was absolutely eye-opening (I had previously been extremely close-minded toward that community!), even it recent events seem to be reforming the old divides. Regardless, I will never go back to writing off a whole group, having gained a better understanding of our common humanity hiding behind the stereotypes.
Very true, Joel. I too have reflected on my own past behaviors... how easily I embraced a narrative because everyone around me did, how quick I was judge others existing outside that narrative. There has been a lot of personal growth for me through this whole pandemania. I see that as a good thing. I feel I'm stronger and more in my power because of it.
Yes, especially since my co-housing neighbors still believe I put them at risk, by my continued stubborn refusal to get with the program. Until they lose their fear and forgive me, and “people like me”, my forgiveness of them goes nowhere but to soften my own heart.
This is beautiful. Seems like in doing so, it's also halfway to forgiving every other person on the other side of the aisle. Almost like silently extending an olive branch out in perpetuity through a practiced, intentional transcendence of the self. Certainly an excellent direction to go in :)
Michael Beckwith once said something like this: “thank you FOR GIVING me the opportunity to learn and grow.” To me, it’s not about “releasing” the other, forgiving them, it’s about the mirror Joel mentions, above. I have no other interest in the abusers, nor those who stood by them and said nothing.
Joel, so well said. I have used this as one giant opportunity to notice when I am getting on my spiritual pedestal and judging others for not living up to my standards and then having the courage to get off of it, get back in the muck with everyone else, and forgive myself.
Wow, this is a deep insight. Thank you for this. Haven't we all sometimes isolated or neglected people?
This really makes clear to me the deep lesson pandemania brings us. I think we only just started to learn the lesson, and that's okay, because the lesson is worth it to take all the time that's needed.
I think I am most vexed by the treatment of children during all this. That they were, and are, made to suffer so, is deeply disturbing. They are at once so resilient, and yet so impressionable. Taking faces away from their eyes by the masks hurts me to witness.
yeah, the masking actually bothers me more than the vaxxes. It's not rational -- objectively I think the vaccines are more harmful -- but the masking is what made me want to become a hermit.
The masking is the thing, people donning a visible sign of consent to the mind control. Even though the injections are causing, and will cause, untold harm, and those who submit their children to them are walking on the rim of a pit they will not let themselves see, the masks signal -to my eyes- unthinking surrender. Early in 2020 my father said, in response to my already deep worry about the children being shut out of the wider world, 'children are resilient.' Many adults, including me, do not have the required resilience to survive this indefinitely.
Some children have now known nothing but pandemania. And as you say Charles, this is going to roll on and on, swallowed by the amnesia wave, it is a fracturing down to the roots. Thank you for your writing and your voice and for your deep responsiveness to the tides of now.
It's more than the masks and shots. It's the fact that they no longer feel that the world is a sane place, with rules that make sense. That is the root of the mental illness we're seeing. The rules no longer make any sense, and yet we are being forced to follow them. Although a few parents truly believed the rules they enforced, most parents were not able to hide the fact that we didn't truly believe the rules made sense. I worry that during the pandemic, we actually taught our children how to follow insane rules. That really bothers me.
me too. And it goes beyond that. I realized in school that the point of the arbitrary, inane rules was not actually to "improve the learning environment" by banning baseball caps. It was to establish the principle of "you will obey the rules." To achieve that end, the more irrational the rules, the better.
"I am his mentor, Hypocris(h)ies(h). I put him through s(h)chool, where he learned to s(h)tand up for a princip(le/al) and s(h)it down on his(h) own s(h)tool."*
- Firesign Theater, _I Think We're All Bozos On This Bus_
This makes me think about the quote from Theodore Dalrymple: „…In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, not to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is in some small way to become evil oneself. One's standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control…“
Paul, it hurts my heart what children are going through. Masks have bothered me so much. I am glad to see I am not the only one. Wore one for a few months, but every time I put it on, I felt heavy and dirty. I literally could not breathe. I stopped doing it, and did wonder if I would get yelled at or thrown out of a store. But nothing ever happened. It was all in my head. The first time was the hardest, but every time after that, I built up my courage muscle.
Very good and thoughtful article. Thank you! I would add that we cannot simply move on. not just because the psycho-social damage remains. but also because the top down mandates and fearmongering are not over. by a long shot. It is is not a question of will it happen again, because it is still happening! WA state gov just announced that mandatory covid vax plus boosters is now permanent for many state employees. All our WA collleges are mandating vax and boosters for not just staff but also students. This is likely to become permanent also. The federal government just spent more billions of our non -existent dollars on monkey pox vax. When will that become a required vaccine? This is only just beginning, not ending. No matter how much we wish it were so.
This schism between the non-compliant and compliant is getting wider as the disowned and ostracized are being forced to create an alternative culture in the blue states or move to a red state. The entire socio-economic and political topography of our country is literally changing before our eyes. We are setting up the conditions for a civil war right now. And for those who doubt this, I suggest you really dig deep into how our first civil war actually started. It was not just about slavery as so many history texts and woke educators claim, it was at it's core really about state sovereignty vs federal government sovereignty. And at it's legal core that is also what the fight over Roe vs Wade is about.
If you remove the emotional and highly manipulated charge from these issues, including the vax mandates, you will see it is really about power and money and the control of resources, especially people. This is a baseline of human dynamics. We have simply tweaked it beyond all sanity.
I'm no fun at all to be around. I'm incandescent with rage because I was seriously sickened and grievously injured by the Pfizer poison injections. All the love-and-light-talk in this comments section annoys me, despite the fact that I'm generally a spiritually oriented person.
It seems I'm the only commenter to this newsletter who's been covid-vaxed and been seriously injured by it. I feel like an alien among the rest of the commenters here.
I'm so sorry to hear this. The betrayal of the people by those in power is brutal and rage seems like an entirely appropriate response. There must be so many people in your position. The first vaccine damage payout has just been given, I think. I know others who have been hurt who are trying to detox some of the damage by seeing alternative practitioners or by taking supplements. Please ignore this if it is unhelpful or intrusive or feels like way too little too late, but I understand that the protocol that was suggested to help with covid is also helpful to undo some of the damage of the vaccine - vitamin D, Zinc, Quercetin, NAC and Vitamin C. I find it helpful when I have been disempowered to find a way to take back the power and take some kind of constructive action.
I am so sorry to hear that. Truly. I am unjabbed, but I would not wish injury or harm to anyone at all, even Bill Gates or Klaus Schwab. Love and light only happens after you have traversed the depths of hell. I am certain there must be a way to reverse the effects. I believe in the power of the human body to heal. Find an alternative medical practitioner. Start with Zach Bush, MD.
Seems to me that your feelings are completely reasonable. I used to go to a meditation group. After our session, we would sit and drink tea and chat. The leader would ask each member to share something from the meditation experience, and so many people would make some comment about being simply blissed-out by the whole experience, "so calm and peaceful". Then he'd get to me, and I'd say, "oh, my mind was racing, the thoughts kept coming, it was a struggle just to sit there for 30 minutes." I was surprised that he responded well to my comments, but some of the others just seemed shocked that I wasn't drowning in bliss. I'm glad you were able to break out of the hypnosis that so many vaccinated people are under.
Daphne, I love your comment! You had me laughing out loud.
First I need to say that I didn't even want to get vaxed. I only did so because I succumbed - to my infinite, eternal regret and sadness - to the intense pressure from both society and even more so from my family, one of my two sisters in particular.
Second, I used to be able to meditate, and one of the multiple permanent adverse effects of having been sickened and injured by the Pfizer poison is that I'm unable to do so any longer. When I try (and I do try) all that happens is that I hit a wall of ferocious pain in my head, which is so intense my breathing quickens, by blood pressure rises, my heart rate increases (physical pain will do that!) and I either go slightly unconscious or I just stop trying. Or both. I wish that were the worst of the lasting effects form the vax, but it's not. Damage to my brain, resulting in short-, medium-, and long-term memory damage is the worst lasting effect. There are others as well which I won't go into. (This comment is long enough as it is.)
Hi, Nancy. Can you do that long distance? I live in the San Francisco Bay Area. Wouldn't you need to be able to physically examine me, feel my radial pulses, get a sense of my physical and emotional energy, etc.? (And no, I don't think you're too forward to offer possible help.)
I wrote a lengthy, detailed report describing my vax injuries, intending to post it at VAERS. I tried to post it several times but was unable to do so each time. However, I did finally post it to a survey about covid vax injuries and deaths that Steve Kirsch presented to his readers and the general public about a month ago.
You can find all the submissions to that survey here:
My report is number 500, posted on May 30, 2022 at 8:10 p.m.
Click on "expand record (space)" - click on the diagonal arrows - to expand the record so that you can see and read the entire report easily, on one long page.
There's a typo in the second paragraph of my lengthy written report. I mistakenly wrote that I received the second Pfizer shot on April 19, 2022. It should say April 19, 2021, well over a year ago by now. Other than that, everything else I wrote is completely accurate. It seems to me to be understated, in fact.
This is very insightful “Wouldn't you need to be able to physically examine me, feel my radial pulses, get a sense of my physical and emotional energy, etc.? ”
So sorry to hear you were injured and I know that in traditional Chinese medicine, acupuncture and herbs, this is exactly what would be necessary.
I’m sure there are wonderful practitioners near you if you were open to that and all the best on your healing journey 🙌
Thanks, Sara. I'm sure you're right. I used to be a therapeutic bodyworker myself and I'm familiar with the therapies you mentioned, as well as with homeopathy and various other holistic therapies. The real problem is I've lost all hope for this life, and I just want it to be over. I can't go into why that is here. I should write a memoir. Maybe that's meant to be my last therapy. Thanks for your healing wishes. Blessings to you.
I've read your response to the survey and have a few more questions before being able to determine whether this is the best route for you. I'll be away til late Tuesday and will respond to you then. Meanwhile, all the best...
Utter insanity. Countering a negligible risk in a population that has already been tested at 80-90% seropositivity by applying an intervention with very definitely nonzero risk of adverse consequences, some of them permanent and possibly life-shortening, seems insane if not completely brainless.
For some reason I'm reminded of a debate I recall about the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation, which claims that A. the wine and wafer transform, in fact, into the literal, physical blood and body of the Savior and B. there is no physical test that can be performed to verify this. You just have to believe us.
"We are setting up the conditions for a civil war right now. And for those who doubt this, I suggest you really dig deep into how our first civil war actually started. It was not just about slavery as so many history texts and woke educators claim, it was at it's core really about state sovereignty vs federal government sovereignty."
Was it "just" about racism and slavery? No. Was it partly about states rights? Yes.
But those who do not understand that it was overwhelmingly mostly about slavery and racism have been misled by a disinformation campaign designed by Southern racists in order to try and perpetuate their institutional racism through Jim Crow style approaches.
The Confederate government (up to and during the war) was explicit in their writings and government documents that the war was about slavery. If you cannot believe them to mean what they said then I wonder what you can believe.
Charles, I must respectfully disagree because it was just not that simple. Please see my recent response to James R Martin for a more in depth discussion on this. I do agree that the governement leaders on both sides claimed slavery as the main reason and the moral high ground for the Civil War. And yes it absolutely was a factor,; but there were many convoluted hidden agendas behind the Civil War, on both sides, just as there in fact are with all wars.
I was speaking about the states' right issue. There were also (and forgive me, my knowledge is, as you say, not very deep) important economic issues. Northern industrialists and bankers had different economic interests than the agrarian South. I'm sure, as you say, there are a lot more complex reasons.
Understood Charles. I agree that the official legal reason given for succession was state's rights. Which leads back to my original comment which sparked this discussion. Which is great by the way. I have no problem respectfully disagreeing as I always learn a ton from engaging with differing opinions.
Governments on all sides always pick the most charged., self- righteous and simplest issue to focus on when they want to create polarization, conflict and war., for numerous nefarious reasons. Otherwise where would they get their soldiers? You cannot get folks to pay attention unless you push the moral outrage button every which way you can and you have to push it really hard to get them to risk their lives for an ideology.
In any case, "rights" or no rights, the USA has never been a democracy, not even in the sense of a 'democratic republic', with a representational form of democracy. So I'll not be doing any flag waving on the big national holiday tomorrow. All nation states are, in varying degrees, somewhat oppressive and anti-democratic, and were designed to be from the very beginning. See: https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/12/13/the-u-s-is-not-a-democracy-it-never-was/
James R Martin, I do understand your points and I even somewhat agree; but I encourage you to dig deeper. Both the Union and Confederate governments had multiple agendas for starting the Civil War. The powers that be on all sides always emphasize the most emotionally charged and morally righteous justifications for whatever they are selling. The fact that there is often a percieved social justice kernel of truth in the public posturing by the leaders on both sides is what makes the whole thing so incredibly effective.
Is slavery wrong? Absolutely. Was the issue of slavery the biggest factor in tearing a nation apart? I do not believe so. The highly charged issue of slavery was used by both sides as the flag to rally the troops around. This deliberate framing and manipulation of our natural response to percieved injustice continues to be a very useful strategy in controlling public opinion and response. Neurologically, the part of our brain which responds negatively to rotten food is the exact same area of our brain which responds in moral outrage to percieved injustice on both sides of the coin. It is fairly easy to manipulate this basic biological response and those that rule us are masters at knowing exactly how and when to push this psycho somatic button.
I have to laugh ironically at the idea that the Federal Union Government's moral imperative was trying to free the oppressed. Being native, with my roots and ancestry deep in Indian Territory and with elders who passed down the memories of what actually happened; I know way too much about what went down during the Civil War in what is now the state of Oklahoma. You can verify for yourself how the Federal Union Government pulled all their troops from all their forts out of Indian Territory and refused to protect the neutrality of the tribes during the Civil War because the tribes refused to give up their promised by treaty sovereign status and lands. Which of course the Feds wanted them to do because it would allow the Feds to turn Indian Territory into a state so that it could be quasi legally opened up for a massive land grab by non -native americans. As a result of this atrocious blackmail, the Federal Union Government directly forced many tribes to sign treaties unwilllingly with the Confederacy just so they could survive. By the end of the Civil War, Indian Territory was in ruins; the Feds moved in and forced the tribes to give up much of their lands and sovereignty and the state of Oklahoma was born. And the Federal Government wins again! All in the name of justice and freedom for all. Hip Hurrah!
I'm aware of this history. I have but a smidgeon of % of my "blood" which is native, but I feel much more culturally and socially identified with native Americans ("indians") than I do with mainstream white bread Americans. The history of exploitation, abuse and genocide of native Americans by white racist colonizers is plainly horrifying.
I was born in the USA, or, rather, in lands claimed by this government. But I am not an American. Nor would I want to be an American. The American government disgusts me. It has always been abusive, dominating, oppressive and anti-democratic.
I absolutely agree with your last sentence James. It always amazes me that so many on both sides seem to believe there ever truly was a 'free' america.
Thanks for asking Marta. I am by no means an expert on the entire history of the Civil War. I just happen to know alot about a certain part of the drama which points directly to multiple underlying agendas on both sides. I would be happy to share more about the parts I do know about but am a little hesitant because I do not want to 'derail' the orginal topic of these comments. These things are obviously all connected at the root of course and I would love to get into deeper discussions.
Maybe Charles can comment on how he feels about going off topic? Also don't know if it is possible to message you directly through this site. If so, we could continue the converse privately maybe? I'm open. Sadly I don't feel comfortable publicly posting my email.
Hi Rainbow, I would love to know more, if you feel like sharing. It's wonderful to me to open up what used to be clear-cut good vs bad and find the complexity and nuance and humanity. My email is martalettofsky@gmail.com. Feel free to email me if you wish. And no pressure!
Thanks so much for this articulation Charles, we share your concerns for the unseen and unacknowledged scorn and vilification applied to those of us who simply wished/wish to choose our own medicine. We have recently distilled our expression of this time into a song titled, We are here together. Some of your readers may be interested in this perspective linking the intransigence, scorn and punishment shown to us as being related (albeit considerably smaller in scale) to the intransigence, scorn and punishment given to another Australian, Julian Assange:
We are about to go visit interstate family members for the first time in two years. There is much trepidation about this, esp because for them the matter of Covid is all over and our subjection is nothing to speak of, despite more infections in Australia now than at any other time, the rise of Sudden Adult Death Syndrome in one of the most vaccinated countries on the planet, and the fact our interstate family members all got Covid after their many jabs and so far we haven't got the disease despite being unvaccinated.
Healthy people are suddenly dying in our community at an alarming rate and yet no one dares make the connection or at very least, asks a question. Family members who have questioned our sanity, our intelligence and our morality for not going along with Uncle Pfizer and co's novel synthetic biology programs are reluctant to see us, yet our 9 year old misses his grandparents, uncles, aunties and cousins, and we feel we need to say goodbye, possibly forever, so we journey north this week. Because there is "nothing to see here," we feel it is only a matter of time before the next great authoritarian push is asserted and we are all divided more intensely again. So it's time now to say goodbye, quietly, respectfully and with love, to those who have scorned us. We feel too vulnerable in their presence, emotionally and biologically.
We have now witnessed which community members, and indeed Australians, would most likely have gone along with the Nazi program back in the late 1930s, and which ones would not have. This has nothing to do with a line between those vaccinated or not, but rather who was pro mandate and who wasn't; who saw human rights abuse and who said "nothing to see here," or worse, "punish them!"
While this has sharpened our sight about who we can trust, we nonetheless live in a constant state of foreboding, which we know is affecting our son. His participation in our household's music (sense) making is trying to direct this grief into creative expression, so it can be processed and made into, rather than fester. We often open to his lightness and dance and sing and joke together, but he often gets pulled into our heavy hearts and our adult planning for a darkening future.
Our song, We are here together, merges from the grief and corruption into determination, hope and play, and then a call to others to collectivise our resistance and determination.
Jul 4, 2022·edited Jul 4, 2022Liked by Charles Eisenstein
This is so sad. You have absolutely hit the nail on the head here; "This has nothing to do with a line between those vaccinated or not, but rather who was pro mandate and who wasn't; who saw human rights abuse and who said "nothing to see here," or worse, "punish them!".
The whole discussion about whether to resist or find an alternate or parallel reality hinges around the notions of individual choice and/or collective responsibility. If we walk away or stay silent, how does that serve or not serve our evolving humanity? I don't think its a question of either being part of the resistance or the alternative, but of being able to act with integrity and honesty and speak our own truths, however risky or hard that might be. Staying silent is an option that supports the power agenda, as we know from history. In my early days of isolation and not knowing what was 'truth' or what was not, it was those who questioned the narrative who helped me find my own centre, my own truth.
The argument is not about vaccination or not, but about the use and abuse of power. Thank you for your sharing, for your courage and generosity to walk away with love, such a powerful, and sad, action.
Beautiful that creativity is being used to channel the emotional roller coaster. I have also been on an emotional roller coaster. Started writing a children's book series to heal my inner child. Glad your son has a healthy outlet.
Beautiful piece, Charles. It helps me feel less alone since you captured exactly and with extraordinary empathy what so many of us are struggling with.
"Partly it’s a matter of PTSD: I don't feel very safe among these people."
This. You nailed it.
I'm looking forward to reading your new book.
I also recommend the work of Paul Levy and his book "Wetiko: Healing the Mind-Virus that Plaques Our World."
Beth, just bought that book. Is coming this week. So anxious to read it. Another good one is The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil by Philip Zimbardo.
This is a very important topic and I think will become even more important as consequences from the vaccine become more evident. There's a desire I feel in myself to wish to be vindicated, and I remind myself that the vaccinated include my daughters and friends. Behind the most vehement rejection is really a fear that we're right. My Course in Miracles says to speak to the hidden fear and guilt, not the manifestation. I look at this in Reversing the Reset. Thanks for talking about this!
A very thoughtful piece of work. To think these humiliations are past is not true for many of us. Some of us remain in a hellish limbo knowing that we will be denied life-saving medical treatments because of our refusal to take the covid product/jabs, which are medically contraindicated in too many ways to count. This is happening everywhere...even to infants who need organ transplantation to survive. Those who have played by all the rules, who have worked very hard to stay well and alive many years now are told, no...you cannot have a graft unless you submit to our medical and emotional tyranny, submit to pharma’s poison. There’s no recourse...these people face a united front that wishes them dead and has the power to make it so...and is purposefully letting people die as we speak.
But we can maintain our health with the right procedures. Many home remedies such as MMS and DMSO. My daughter is writing a book about it as we speak which will be released soon . Her Telegram channel is Teejay if you are interested. Also Amanda Volmer is a great one to follow.
I'm really glad you started this conversation, Charles. This topic has been on my mind so much, and on the minds of everyone I know who (wisely) exercised bodily autonomy around the investigational Covid-19 vaccines and was subsequently shunned and shut out of society. How do we move on? And what do we do with all these people/friends/family/colleagues in our lives who agree(d) with our exclusion from society and from more private spaces?
It has been stunning to discover this past year just how many of my friends (former friends, really) are actually fine with the notion of medical apartheid, up to and including proposals that the unvaccinated be fined, or placed under house arrest, or even removed from our homes and confined somewhere else if we won't comply. It has certainly been challenging to lose so many relationships in my life. I have had the feeling of standing on constantly shifting sand since late 2021 when vaccine passports were introduced in BC. I was unfollowed by 100 poet friends and colleagues on twitter in a 24-hour period after I posted my photos from the first rally I attended against vaccine passports.
But it has also been important - crucial I would say - for me to discover this. It has made me much stronger, much harder to kill, much more aware. I have a clarity I did not have a year ago. I am at a point where I am not only ready to let them all go (the old friends and relationships), but I need to let them go for my own safety and personal security and mental health and emotional well-being.
I don't feel I will ever be able to have anything other than the most superficial relationship or interaction with any of the hypnotized. I simply cannot ever trust them to not be duped again. Even if the mandates have been temporarily relaxed, these people are still in the grips of mass formation. Their powers of critical thought are offline and may not ever really come back online.
So I am focusing on and participating in the development of parallel structures and systems and networks of friends and mutual aid.
That people are "still in the grips of mass formation" and "powers of critical thought are offline" has been carefully cultivated for decades. The influence of media, starting with radio, then television, cannot be understated. We are a brainwashed, compliant people by design.
More than anything, what Covid has brought me to is the idea of parallel institutions. I had small regard for most institutions going into 2020, but I did have *some* regard for them. The press, the FDA, the CDC, the schools, what have you. Now, I have almost none. Not in a vindictive or angry manner, but in a calm manner of, "if I follow their advice, my life will likely be worse."
I find myself torn between two ideas. The first being, one has a duty to pay attention to it all, to engage and fight for what is right! To stand up in the face of tyranny and be courageous. To take a stand.
The second idea being, simply, not not engage. I have ceased paying attention to the mainstream narrative. I do not follow the news or the latest trends. I am trigger-happy quick to shift my focus from any of the mainstream insanities that occupy the airwaves. I focus on reading books, on learning, on growing, on staying healthy, on keeping a financially sound household.
And I suppose this sounds admirable in some ways, but in others I also question whether I am abdicating some duty I have as an American, to stand up for certain principles and to fight back against tyranny! And yet, in a very Randian sense I am selfish. The mainstream BULLSHIT makes me feel bad. Reading a 100 year old book and going for a run feels good.
At any rate, thank you Charles. I read everything you write.
I have the same vacillation
Me too. However I read an article this week saying that full blown totalitarianism set in (in Russia & Germany) when people stopped speaking out. So this compels me to keep going in my own small way.
Same here with the disengagement. It's my self preservation. We need less macro focus if we hope to rebuild community. The less I hear about the world's problems the more I can be available for my neighbors, the animals, the trees, etc. Community happens in a very small radius and that's where our energy can actually make a difference.
Yes. And as more of those small community circles happen, they expand and eventually overlap, and this is how real change is possible. The only way we are going to be “saved” is from the grassroots up. Not the other way around.
Thank you…I agree on this perspective whole heartedly …the grassroots/small scale simplicity has become the bottom up approach needed for a true decentralized parallel society to evolve…I’m so ready.
I think we need to listen to what our hearts need most in these times and act on that. Simply being IS powerful, when we are in alignment with what is true for us. The clarity and intention with which we move forward in the world will ripple outwards and impact others, who will impact others, and so on. By our actions, we change our immediate world and those we are in contact with, and through the vast mycelium network of human thought, the essential goodness is passed along, variously halting at some junctures and intensifying at others, but everywhere having an impact.
At the same time, I think we need to be careful to resist the temptation to insulate our lives from others that walk a different path. I really love something that Mattias Desmet wrote in The Psychology of Totalitarianism, where he spoke of The Art of Full Speech as a direct remedy for the mechanistic scientific paradigm that enables dominance and control. Full expression of our humanity, including both our certainties and uncertainties, our hurts and vulnerabilities, as well as our truth, is the only way we can remove the pin that the whole terrifying, totalitarian, technocratic mindset depends on for its massive cogs to turn. It's the only way to stop the masses dehumanising the minority and so prevent them carrying out heinous acts such as those inflicted on minorities by past totalitarian regimes. It’s the EMP to the digitalised world-mind – the only way the whole machine can come tumbling down or the global t.v. screen can short out to black (whichever metaphor you prefer).
So I am with you – I too am going off-grid in the physical sense with my family, seeking self-reliance as far away from the tentacles of the system that we can get. But I think all of us who do this need to keep speaking with integrity from our place of truth, as tempting as it is to shy away – even if it’s uncomfortable and awkward and irritating and frustrating. Speaking our truth in the midst of disconnect and discomfort is how we bring the whole thing down. We don’t have to shout – we just need to stay in our truth as much as we can. As with many things in life, it will probably involve lots of falling over and getting back up again and starting over.
I am a novice at this, an introvert stumbling along. But I feel intuitively that if we see ourselves as conduits for what is true and beautiful, and not purveyors/missionaries of it, it could be vitalising, not draining. As conduits we need strong, off-grid roots, away from technocratic social and physical engineering. So let’s celebrate going off-grid in whatever way we can – whether that’s in a physical, social or spiritual sense of the term.
Seems we feel the same on this issue. I am in Australia and have lost my scant regard for the consensus bureaucracies and pretty much all politicians. And like you no longer listen to any mainstream media. I have struggled with my mind telling me I must stand up and speak out but my gut instinct is to not. This would not be following my bliss! Haha. Is this a cop-out? As an introvert I tell myself that by sincerely attempting to interact with my fellows in a positive non judgemental way (hard) and striving personally to remember that everything in my sphere is God makes a difference.
I want to join this Aussie thread. I am in WA. Isolated, not allowed to leave the State until a couple of months ago and still living under a State of Emergency whilst our Premier travels the world promoting tourism! I have moments of activism, writing, sharing, promoting healing and even assisting the Informed Medical Options Party at the last election. I have joined the Parallel Movement and like their pledge. (It is fairly new and I haven’t connected with anyone yet -https://www.parallelmovement.org.) I think my main is to be relatable to others in community and honour Self and although I am more focused on Self and much less on volunteering for the environment and other issues than at the same time last year I am OK with my stance. I feel I am following my heart, spend a lot of time in spaces of gratitude, love and compassion but still capable of being really angry and letting the perpetrators of injustice know. I have noticed I am avoiding the C 19 and vax issue with new people I meet, or if comes up and it seems we hold different view points I have said “OK, let’s not go there “ but make a mental note to address underlying issues like Charles has raised. The right to protest (protect forests or protect our right to stand up to big corporations) is common ground I have met some of my Green friends I felt alienated from. And I don’t know if I can believe anything that government or the MSM tell me. For example the sunrises and sunsets are so vividly orange, pink and a deep red that I never remember seeing before. Can it really be volcanic ash or is it Geo-engineering chemicals ?
In US. Same here.
Monique I would like to be in touch, what way is best?
Sam, I feel that interest in and desire for a parallel society, I think it's a completely healthy response to what has happened. I just started a podcast called "Creating a Parallel Society" that I'm hoping to have Charles on one day! If you're interested you can find it by going to my Substack. Thanks for your comment here!
As Buckminster Fuller says "you never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete ". There are many parallel health initiatives arising as well as more and more folk wishing to live more off grid... myself included. I often feel like I am already in a different reality as I am choosing not to engage with MSM and with people who ooze the fear, scarcity, divide and rule and other programmes. I guess its a form of energy preservation.
I totally relate to this - and have the same thing around wanting to just let it be and move myself on and when to stand against tyranny - it's a bit of a dilemma...so my decision is to dance with what comes to my door and trust that standing in my truth will lead to right action if any is to be taken.
Is this Martine from GB ?
yes Craig - I recognised your name too - small world huh? Where are you now?
Ha, cool. We have been on Stewart island since we left the bay in 2015 or so. Our daughter Teal who we had on Gabrielle and Alan’s land in 2014 is 8 now. How time flies.
Substack has some great writers and thinkers, far better insights than the mainstream.
nice to connect in such an awesome forum Craig!
Indeed I will read you around 🤔😉
I relate so well to what you are saying. I have found myself frozen at times to move forward fully in my own life, yet completely going “off grid” seems irresponsible as well. We struggle with balance. At least we struggle together.
As i am someone keen to go off grid and connect more closely to the land, I am curious to ask... what prompts your comment about it seeming irresponsible?
I was using the term in quotes as a metaphor for insulating myself from all or much of what I'm learning is going on in the world on multiple fronts. The virus/"vaccine" issue was just the beginning. Yet, as a mother, grandmother, wife, neighbor, citizen of the world, it seems irresponsible to "see no evil", just because I feel so powerless to confront it. And with so much coming in from so many directions, the impulse to "hide in a bunker" (more metaphor, sorry!) is strong. But not stronger than my sense of responsibility to others, nor my curiosity, frankly. :)
I think tuning out is actually a form of activism. It takes extreme effort to create your own bubble and home life in a way that aligns with your ideals. I kept my head down during the whole pandemic but didn’t over isolate…now people are slowly waking from the dream of shattered promises from the “authorities” it’s a good time to shepherd folks further into the light. Luckily some “activists” (like Eisenstein) took the time to keep the fire of wisdom burning while the storm raged outside.
It's always tricky to know when conditions require activism and resistance. But the saying is true: first they came for the gypsies... We are in a very perilous moment as techno dictatorship becomes quite real for 1.4 billion Chinese, has recently spread to Hong Kong (actively and aggressively) and probably Taiwan next. Then Laos? And after that who knows as China expands its Belt and Road initiative, its global public health agenda (China had exported its surveillance tech to over 80 countries even before the pandemic), and then eventually its central agency control with its absolute tech control of entire populations (as happened in the last two years in Hong Kong). It's hard to over-state how important these developments are for world history. This is a very delicate moment requiring deep study and smart activism.
What a beautiful response. I love thinking that it is brave enough to stay in the liminal space between tensions as a form of activism in itself. Sorry if I’ve read a lower interpretation into your words. They are beautiful as is, and I thank you.
I hope you are right about people slowly waking up. I am not as optimistic, surrounded here by suffering people, plenty intelligent but still immersed in trying to carry on within the old paradigm.
This waking up is dicey stuff. The required frameshift is at first absolutely overwhelming. And who has energy or time to spare these days ...
If I am at all inclined toward conspiracy theories this is mine: our ability to live has been molded and forced toward corporate reward and government overseer control.
It’s nearly impossible to break out of this unless one is healthy and has resources to spare and a bit of land in a community that still has good air and soil. And I think also a larger wider perspective that embraces a spiritual perspective — ‘there’s far more to all of this .. ‘
If our civilization fails, and it clearly will someday and that day seems to be now, I take comfort in the many beautiful souls stepping forward in ‘nonaction’, in kindness and love and kinship. Here is where alchemy happens.
Thanks for saying that. It is a form of activism! It has not been easy! I haven't seen many people waking up to it yet! I keep waiting for signs!
Yes, my conversations on this topic have generally turned to parallel institutions as the path forward. A critical mass of people, particularly the professional managerial class, will not wake up and acknowledge the evil forces that drove the Pandemania. And, even if there is some hope of awakening, it’s on them. There’s nothing we can do to show them the light, other than trying to be our best selves.
Yes, parallel institutions. Some have existed in business with success for as much as 60 years. My husband of 3 1/2 years has been trying to wake up the professional managerial class for more than 2 decades. And he had great success for the 5 years he was a chief executive using his collective intelligence workshop model. In 2007 he left the corporate world to write and speak about these solutions. And they certainly do not limit themselves to "business," but rather to society at large. Like many, he lost work and opportunities due to his carefully thought-out decision with regard to "the vaccine". If interested, check out his two latest articles on Substack. (and you might like his first, which was written beginning in May of 2020, The Mismanagement of Covid-19)
https://rodcollins.substack.com/archive
I spent the first half 'fighting' and protesting and calling. Then I decided that the bullshit will happen in one form or another forever so I am going to focus on making my life and my families the best it can be. And I let my joy radiate out to those around me. I hike, play tennis, read, spend time with like minded friends and enjoy every minute of life.
I suppose the time to fight with come again but my goal is that even when it does, I can keep a calm and tranquil mind through it all
Beautiful! I too spent the first half fighting. I went to rallies to protest, wrote letters in anger, and mourned the loss of friends who rejected my views (and me for having them). Then I started connecting with others who were like minded and found an entirely new community of friends. I still occasionally write letters, but I write them with a view to solutions, rather than protesting. I got a local bar to drop their vax mandate and successfully advocated for an exemption so my daughter could go to her camp. That forest fire may still be raging (especially here in Canada!!), but I'm making my own refuge in the meantime, and doing more to prevent and prepare than I ever was when I was in the anger/despair phase of this journey. (though don't get me wrong, I'm hardly a ball of light - I still get upset and angry easily! I just don't live in the upset for quite so long)
My lowest point was when my 26 yo son told me he got vaccinated. For a while my hair was falling out and I was very traumatized. I have accepted what happened and moved on. But it still hurts. These days I just try to get on with life and be satisfied with my lot. My greatest hope is that the majority of people will see sense and reject boosters.
I still get upset too and have to ban myself from the phone/ computer when I feel my mood going down. I think before I felt like I had to feel the anger often to feel the seriousness of the injustices but then I realzied that was only hurting me.
I hope Canada isn't as bad as we've heard, I really feel for all of you there.
That's a respectable position, but as with Candide seeking to tend to his own garden, what about the forest fire heading your way? If awake and compassionate people don't join in the struggle to push back these forces of control, who will?
I think it's possible to bridge the two worlds. We can only tackle the forest fire if we see a clear path to action, and for me I only see clear paths to action when I'm not stuck in fear or anger. My choice right not is to run for mayor in my own city to try to effect change in this society. But I can't control whether I'm elected or not, so I'm also tending to the parallel society that can thrive no matter who is elected. Gardening, connecting with others, sharing our ideas and finding joy in music or nature are just a few of the ways I think we can create in parallel the society we want even as we continue to be alert to ways we can participate in the larger one we live within. I think how we live in both works will be different for each of us.
Collectively supporting writers on Substack is important to me. Historically, the pamphlet writers were a strong push back.
I am in the same place as you are. We all live on the same planet. How do we create the new while at the same time putting a hand out to our brothers and sisters who are struggling under the weight of the old that is crumbling?
Indigenous people lived off the land, in harmony one might add, for thousands of years before colonialism arrived in the Western Hemisphere. We all saw how that went. Grow your own food, and yes, resist, and be active in your community, etc.
Buckminster Fuller - if the old castle is collapsing, don't try to fix it - build a new one! (or words to that effect!)
In the really big, big picture: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gG0bXuHEf4
I wish I could disengage. I can easily relate to the value you find in old books and creative endeavors, but I am finding it hard to look away. So I obsess about everything going on in the world. I read the media ( sometimes), but mostly to confirm my view of their manipulation and duplicity. Sometimes I push back with a letter to the editor, which never gets published, but helps me consolidate my thoughts. I used to get letters published all the time. I spend a lot of time online. Mostly I am trying to figure out what is really going on. Wish I could put it all aside and immerse myself in a great book. Maybe I will work on that.
Maybe time for a (re) read of Man’s Search for Meaning. Which one of my mentor’s referred to as “required reading for the Human race”.
that is my position exactly. And I am a former journalist. When the outrage I felt from early on in pandemic started eating me up, I made the decision to step back somewhat. To stay informed from a distance, and accept that the mainstream story I was being told was not reliable. And to see that my taking an angry position was the other side of the coin that my righteous friends family and colleagues were taking. I decided that connection was more important than conflict with my family, and concentrated on that. My poor tongue - I have to bite it often, even now when I see what I think are the effects the vaccination and boosters are having on weakened immune systems. I am just so thankful that I found Charles's voice early on in pandemic, someone who could speak so articulately to the questions popping up.
THIS is how they win.
It's hard to find the others right now! I wrote a poem about this very thing-- scroll down to the bottom of the link to read. Maybe you'll find encouragement :) https://trixielittle.substack.com/p/look-away-from-car-crashes-poetry
“Forgive them father, for they know not what they do."
It's important to keep in mind that forgiving someone does not mean that things go back to whatever they were previously--that is a different choice altogether. We can choose to forgive someone and also choose to not have a relationship or contact with them going forward. Often people think forgiveness means that everything returns to whatever "normal" was, but this is not true.
I think the covid madness has shined a light on a lot of ugliness--in a lot of different forms--in the world. Many have experienced this in various forms of persecution--like the woman in the ukulele group. In my opinion, it is important to find like-minded people that won't shut you out like this going forward.
I find myself quite lonely much of the time now, although communities like this are helpful. I have a few long term friendships, my husband and two daughters with whom I can share, but my larger community and other relatives and 2 previously close friends have rejected me. And I’m not ready to risk sticking my toe back in that same water, especially as it remains as cold , murky and shark filled as ever. Purposefully so. No apologies. No extension of reconciliation. Pandemania indeed.
I don't know where you live and the demographics seem to vary widely in different areas, but there are many people like yourself--out there and waiting to connect with others--you just have to step out of your comfort zone and find them. I have made quite a few new friends in the past 9 months by doing this. It's so heartbreaking to hear the stories of people being dropped like a hot rock by those closest to them, but don't let that stop you from moving forward and finding something worth having.
I agree with what you are saying, but it is so difficult. I live in WA state where like-minded people are few. It takes quite a risk to speak up and find them. Sometimes, it just feels easier - but not easy - to say nothing and get along.
I live in New Mexico near Santa Fe, a "liberal bubble." The local newspaper ran at least 3 vaccine propaganda pieces every day. I used to write letters regarding the environment, local politics, etc. and they would publish them. Once they grabbed hold of the covid narrative, they refused to publish any letters that did not agree with it. My liberal friends avoided me. Some called me an idiot when I tried to show them evidence that supported my views. Not easy to forgive. There are some like-minded people, but they live a distance from me. I'm 80 and don't like to drive at night. I have to stay overnight if I meet with them. I was a member of the local opera guild for more than 45 years. They had a party at a member's house and asked that everyone be vaccinated! I did lose my head, burnt that bridge, and told them I would never contribute or associate with them again. My husband died 5 years ago. I would miss our old life under normal circumstances, but given the exclusion I have suffered, the loneliness is amplified. Thank goodness I love to read and swim, two things that are done happily alone.
Suannee, that is terrible. I am sorry for your loss on every level. I am glad you have things that bring you joy. We are all needed now more than ever. The Universe gives the greatest challenges to the bravest souls.
I'm not sure I'm brave enough. I was invited to a fund raiser for our esteemed governor. I wanted to go and write her a note with both my opinions and scientific proof that her authoritarian, useless, job-destroying rules were hurting rather than helping anyone. I chickened out and cancelled at the last minute.
I hope you find your community. We all need someone to hug.
Beautiful response - thank you! I so relate.
I'm sure that in some areas it's more difficult to locate others like us than in other areas. It is a risk but remember that there are most likely quite a few other people that are in the exact same position as you--afraid to step out and make connections. I promise you that they're around--you just have to find them. I know that this can be challenging but worth the effort.
Thank you Kelly. I live in Texas…an open State. But lost a very close friend who dropped me abruptly, a plant based support and social group that I started in 2017, and my yoga group. I also had retired from a career in end of life care in September of 2019 so lost those wonderful relationships as well. My new husband and I planned to travel all we could for the next 10 years since we were 67 and 69 when we married in late 2018. Virtually everything we planned slammed doors in our faces. We are resilient and have made other plans, but at our ages have little hope to experience many places in the world we’d hoped to explore. We also moved across town into a new community in the middle of it all. My question for you is “How?” How did you reach out without getting your arms cut off? I find many delightful conservatives who are more aligned with my values on the health freedom subject, yet come up empty with more holistic (probably a poor term, here) thinkers who I previously found to be more on the left. Which was my home before so called progressives pulled them clear off the Left coast into places I simply cannot go. We are about to attend a libertarian leaning conference out of state and I’m sure I’ll find those I can to talk to there. It’s here at home where people mostly mind their own business that I feel the losses most. I realize that I am Not alone in this group.
I have found it interesting that so many of the alt health people have acted so afraid and then crazy in this--you'd think they'd feel equipped to deal. My 16 year old daughter was supposed to go to France on a school trip this month--she's not going for other reasons--but she said that she wouldn't go because of the requirements--what happens if you test positive when you need to re-enter the country? It stinks that you can't enjoy what you've worked for by traveling. I got involved with others by looking into home schooling. My daughter started school this past year--after she and my 13 yr old son stayed remote the prior year to avoid the madness--and she couldn't tolerate the masks. Both kids had medical exemptions but had to do a shield--my son did that but she refused and did the mask. She was getting severe headaches so I took her out of school. Connecting with some people in that area, I got involved with people against the school mandates--which has led me into politics--which I've always avoided beyond voting. I consider myself as libertarian but now hold office in my local Republican party which we just successfully re-organized into a grassroots party and got the establishment out. Most of our adjoining parties in my area have done the same.
I relate to what you share. Living in WA state, there are so few here who are unvaxxed, and so few who recognize the oppressive and discriminatory climate. It can feel very lonely. Online communities help, but aren’t the same as close friends who genuinely understand what you are experiencing.
I hear your loneliness, pain. I live in a highly vaxed state still restricting access for the vaccine-free in many places, lost my job, hard to
Find work for unvaxxed, lost a large social circle. Yet, I’ve found a new community here (while maintaining relationships a few open minded friends triple and double vaxxed friends), a few I’ve developed new friendships. Maybe on various comment threads you can find others, maybe there are activist groups near you you can connect with. Hard to
Imagine a single state without activists! Staying healthy is more than just avoiding covid (or whatever else comes down the pike). We need each other. Reach out
Yes, I agree.
I too lost my job. Was a substitute teacher; got terminated Oct 19, 2021. Our governor just a few days ago made a permanent mandate that all government workers must be fully vaxxed. Spoke with a friend today - a nurse - who believes that I as an unvaxxed person am more at risk of spreading covid than she is and stated that unvaxxed get more severe covid. It felt so hurtful to think that she does not see us as equal.
But, I have recently reached out to find more friends who are kindred spirits, and that helps.
Thank you for your kind post.
That is hard. And goes to show how indoctrinated and corrupt the medical system has become when a nurse actually believes you are more of a threat.
Would you mind explaining how you “reached out”? Most of us are so beaten up we don’t want to risk drawing even more fire in the process. I mean, posting an ad “lonely and unvaxxed meet here”?
Thank you Glenda for the laugh! And being able to laugh at horrible things is a time honored method for survival. I have been fortunate that two groups were started here locally almost at the beginning, to help folks who did not agree with the covid mandates band together for support in a very blue county and state. Lots of these grassroots groups have started around the country. Maybe you could investigate and start your own? You may be surprised to find how many like minded souls there really are near you who have been afraid to speak out. My own old community of 30 plus years evaporated practically overnite, but now I have a whole new community full of folks I normally would never have connected with pre-covid. It was very sad to lose so many old friends, but now I am having fun re-inventing myself with a whole new crowd! At 63 most folks never get a chance to do this.
Glenda, I cannot speak for teacherlori8, but I can speak for myself. I actually started getting to know my neighbors here in the apartment complex where I live. I go walking with a really wonderful older woman who lives next door. We didn't start talking until this year, though she has lived next door for years. She has been vaccinated but could not care less that I haven't been. I know it might sound strange, but ask for people to come into your life, and I promise you that as long as you are open, they will.
I highly recommend seeking out medical freedom groups in WA. WA, like we here in OR, and also CA, NY and NJ has been fighting children's mandates for years, and a large community has formed around that issue. Amazing people!
I live in Wa state also. Have you checked out the Free WA group? There are many off shoots of this at least on the west side of the mts. Our own local group called Be Brave WA helped me alot not to feel so isolated, especially at the beginning. To walk into a room full of people once a week with no masks and no social distancing and, well just acting normal. went a long long way to preserving my own mental health.
Our group just had a fourth of july party last nite and it was really great to be with these folks that I normally would have had little in common with before covid. To just be with people that I know are not going to turn on me based on what the talking heads are telling them, even if we disagree about some things, has been a huge relief.
It's difficult to navigate these days, it's like a walk down a corkscrewing path through a series of funhouse mirrors. There are those who shout at anyone not in their church of conventional fear, and others who shout about how the conventional view is all about intentionally depopulating the world. Scientific thinking and heart-centered intelligence seem very rare these days.
"The room is swaying like a boat, but I'm still afloat..." -Pat Fish, "The Human Jungle"
I agree. I find myself walking a tightrope on all sides really. I don't agree with everything in any of the groups I am part of these days, but I need people and so I try to let the stuff I don't feel in alignment with slide over my head. Frankly I would rather deal with folks I have religious and political differences with than folks who want to force me to have a medical proceedure against my will or require me to wear a mask with every interaction I have with them and basically feel afraid of my very existence. I can tune out rhetoric I don't believe or smile and nod and be polite; but it is hard to tune out palpable disgust and fear. And while certain folks might want to invade my brain with their own brand of propaganda ; I am far more afraid of the folks who want to invade my body and believe they have the moral right to do so!
As am I. I still remember watching the Watergate hearings on TV, and seeing Sam Ervin refer to William Pitt's statement about the King of England, saying to the witness, "... and you are now saying that what the King of England cannot do, the President of the United States can!"
Here's the quote:
“The poorest man may in his cottage, bid defiance to all the forces of the Crown. It may be frail, its roof may shake; the wind may blow through it; the storm may enter; the rain may enter; but the King of England may not enter; all his force dares not cross the threshold of the ruined tenement.”
~ William Pitt
http://libertytree.ca/quotes/William.Pitt.Quote.A246
I say that my skin is just such a threshold, and that this would apply no less if I were a woman faced with laws against abortion. I say no, the state may not enter.
It's remarkable to me that what the King of England could not do in the 1700s, and what Sam Ervin ridiculed as the contention by the opposition that the POTUS could, the vaccines-über-alles crowd now assert that they can. If that's "progressive," it's progress entirely in the wrong direction.
I resonate with your thoughts and feelings, Glenda. Unlike your situation, however, I lost my husband and 2 teenage step daughters during the beginning of pandemania. What was suppose to be a “break” to give each other some space to eventually regroup went from 3 weeks to 2.5 years and finally a permanent break altogether, ie divorce and the girls fearful of my existence. I envy/admire that you got to keep your family, that your love and bond were strong enough for to stay in tact. But like you, it is this type of community here that keeps the fire lit under me to keep moving forward. Communities like this are who I lean on for support and understanding. This community is a much more emotionally available, bonded, and accepting family that I have EVER had, and I feel so grateful to be a part of it. I have finally found a warm and cozy home.
Oh, dear Cristy, my heart goes out to you. I am grateful every day that at least my biological family is in this with me at least on the "virus" issues, but am sad that my step-family is not. I agree, this community feels closest to my heart, although of course we would all have divergent views in some areas. But I feel we could address them with respect and love. I would so appreciate meeting with all of you here, "with skin on". That is what I am missing. And I pray your daughters will one day grow into independent thinkers and meet you Rumi's field.
Completely spot on; people cannot fathom why I am leaving California permanently. They tell me that most restrictions are gone, so I should stay. Unfortunately, many friendships are permanently destroyed, as I cannot share a life with people who have such a different worldview as mine.
What’s been hard is many social and business connections that collapsed because of my vax status, we share similar views and values on other things, sometimes many other things. Even my state aligns with many of mine. But not in the jabs. It’s one thing I’ve liked about living where I do. So it’s been very confusing for me. I think you can probably relate.
yes yes and yes - always to your clear thinking and expression of what many need voiced Charles. Like you, I don't enjoy my own indignance and disdain being rarked up in some of these conversations - however, I don't find that with your writings. What is important is that we don't take on the role of victimisation...no matter how tempting - we are certainly not victims! Yet I know of many dear friends who are, quite understandably, stuck in this mode. I feel for them because they are in pain and disbelief - feeling unacknowledged, unheard and desperate for some sort of vindication that we were not wrong in making our 'unpopular' choices and having our 'questionable' counter-opinions. In the case of say the ukelele group, I would simply not be able to attend because it would not feel good or right to my soul to be treated with such disdain and patronisation. But if making that choice left me feeling bitter, disgruntled or angry at missing out, I would need to find another way to reframe it that felt right for me and didn't put me back in victim mode. The way I look at it is, I have moved on...I am now freeing myself up to find more aligned friendships, groups or interests that don't result in me feeling like a bad or inadequate person. There is nothing wrong with the remorse felt around that - as in your analogy Charles, it would be akin to sadness at leaving a less-than-ideal relationship but knowing it is ultimately for my higher good and joy to come! Whichever side of the fence we are on, to be truly self-sovereign is to be true to self, to let others be true to themselves no matter how much we may disagree and to be willing to move on from what no longer serves. And to take note of where there is any resistance...this is the edge to work on. If I am acting ONLY out of opposition or resistance, there is no peace in it. I have to find my own peace, my own coming to terms...my own higher knowing. Sure, we want accountability, we'd like acknowledgement (which we may never get) - but are we going to be miserable and angry forever if someone doesn't give it to us? Like everything - and you do this so well Charles - we need to be able to hold the paradoxes. Keep up the great conversation - it is so refreshing and something I can totally get on board with!
I couldn't agree more! Although in the case of the ukulele group, I'd say keep talking to them, stay true to yourself and be there for them too. (Of course keep boundaries and don't become a doormat.)
The best way out of this is if we finally agree to disagree. I'm not sure if this is possible. And to be honest, I'm an introvert and I usually remove myself from these situations. I'm also dreaming and hoping for a parallel society where people are free from pandemania. I was thinking about what Mattias Desmet said that the way out of mass formation is to continue to speak out and ask questions.
Right. I suspect it's harder to dehumanize someone you're in an ongoing conversation with. Probably not impossible, so I guess it's still a good idea to retain situational awareness as you continue the conversation. There are some pretty bad stories about what people are able to do to family and friends when taken by Mass Formation Psychosis.
yes, definitely use discernment in these situations. Check out Mattias Desmet latest interviews, he talks a lot about this.
I just want one person to reach out to me and ask for a conversation. Just one. And then I will have hope. So far ... none.
Same here. In the beginning, I was sharing important information with everyone I knew. Nobody wanted to know it. One even asked me to take her off my email list. It has been a solitary and sometimes, lonely experience. Not a single soul has reached out to engage me in any conversation regarding this topic.
It's astonishing how even highly educated people don't want their boat to be rocked! What is at the root of this reticence to examine one's beliefs?
Same... just one acknowledgement, one approach, a simple act...
This
Charles, the element of your writing that gave me the greatest hope during the pandemic was the sense of being free of the need to demonise an 'enemy'. Reading the venomous comments of people on each end of the covid spectrum and finding them to be the same was disconcerting, particularly when I recognised the tendency in myself. I remember reading People Of The Lie at uni and here was my very own opportunity to practice the art of taking a stance without demonising those who stood elsewhere. For a long time I felt such rage at the unfolding manipulation and the blatant stirring of fear, the potential vaccine damage being done. I wrestled with that, but then, like the hulk, I found that instead of fighting the rage and trying to subdue it, I could be angry all the time in a low level, sword-sharp clarity kind of way. That residue anger enables me to hold boundaries quite effortlessly and without a sense of loss. Healthy rage is something that interests me coming out of the last two years, as does, the positives that might have been experienced by the encounter with the virus. I know someone who had chronic pain disappear while they were ill and who was somewhat enabled having recovered. Our tendency to make war against everything, including a virus, means we are not engaging with an experience which might be for the good if we were less frightened and better equipped. The western health service, whilst good in many ways has also made people helpless, relying on experts instead of having the knowledge to take responsibility for their own health.
I like the "low-level anger" idea. It reminds me of how subjected people around the world (for example the people of India, humiliated for years under British colonialism) patiently held their low-level anger until the right moment arrived to express it. Perhaps the 33% who have refused either all vaccines, or the 2nd vaccine, or the boosters, are waiting for such a moment.
I spent two years being angry. It was bad for my health. I minimize my contacts with friends, family and others who have a problem with my views. Most of the time I don't challenge people unless I think they may listen, but sometimes the ire still leaks out as I tell them the consequences of what they're doing will be. My granddaughter and her boyfriend got the vaccine last year and now they have Covid. I don't rub their noses in it, but I'm sure they know what I think. The biggest danger I face is that at times I hope they (not my granddaughter) get the consequences, not something that I'm proud of.
I did manage to have a conversation with a good friend who just retired here in the Uk and had all the jabs cos he had planned a road trip around New Zealand for 7 months and nothing was going to stop him, and new grandchild in Australia that he is on his way to see today. At the time I did suggest very strongly that he didn’t get the jabs as I was concerned for his safety. When I reminded him of this and told him of the abuse I had received, he said he thought I could die if I didn’t get the jabs. Still no contrition, but to be fair he was not one of the abusers. Next month we traditionally go camping to the same place (25years) and like the ukelele lady I am torn as to to go. It was here last year that I got the most abuse especially from 2 people who were actually in charge of teams of jabbers. I’ve known these people for over 25 years as part of a summer community and now I have lost that. I’m quite a lively member of this grouping as a prolific philosopher, talker and musician and have been told many times what a contribution I make. Last year I had to leave after 4 days. This all makes me stronger in some ways but I now find myself mentally constructing a new identity to survive if I do go. This is going to get all the more complicated when my friend in Aus returns in 4 weeks who says he doesn’t want to talk about it. Talking about stuff is what I do. I realise I sound a bit like a victim but right now that’s how I feel.
David, that is hard, but if part of your authenticity is talking about things, you are doing no one a service by being silent. Be you with no apologies. I am a very communicative person myself, and I have reached a place over the past two years where I have found more of my voice than ever. I will not stay silent so others may stay comfortable. I will speak from my heart, but I will still speak!!!
I have come to what I feel is a healthy place with regard to the rejection I experienced not only because of my vaccine status, but also because of my stated views. First, by deeply and completely putting myself in their shoes I can honestly see how they saw my views as a grave threat to them personally or else their loved ones. And from that place how could they do anything but distance themselves from us? The second way I find peace, when I think of how friends could get on planes, or go to restaurants, or put their kids in camp while my family could do none of those things, is to remember that they paid an incredible price for that privilege. When I remember that I feel glad that I did not have to pay that price, and feel compassion for those that have paid it. I stop feeling excluded and start feeling grateful. This has only come from a huge amount of internal questioning and reflection, but it means I no longer see this as an abuser victim situation, so I feel there is no need for me to forgive anyone. I can be at peace knowing they simply have a different way of seeing the world than I do. Of course, I can still go through clouds of anger and sadness when I'm triggered, but as long as I stay calm through the emotional storm, I come out feeling peace again on the other side. Thanks Charles for your reflections.
Thank you for this wisdom. I've been working on empathy too. One of the things that helped me early on to make sense of the dissent was to see the bottom line was we were all trying to keep ourselves safe, some by being vaxxed, others by being vaccine-free. The hardest bit was that others were not willing to engage in that 'common ground' level of discussion.
This is a beautiful comment. Thank you for sharing.
Thank you Sarah. I'm not there yet, but I think its the best place to be.
Well-stated, and wise - thank you, Sarah.
Thanks for articulating my feelings. The Covid theater awakened me to a phenomenon that has occurred repeatedly in history. Scapegoating, witch hunting, crowd formation.... I had never experienced how it felt to be ostracized. It’s taught me to be more fair minded, choose friends more wisely, and to be prepare it could happen again. Ignorance was bliss, but civil society can change in an instant.
Totally. I'm so tired of conspiracy theories making so much fucking sense! Innocence may be lost, but wisdom can be gained.
LOL
Yes, thank you for putting into words exactly what I have thought and felt.
Seems to me, it's not a question of forgiving vaxxed friends who avoided us. Forgive? Who am I God? Rather, this is an opportunity for me to reflect on times in the past when I isolated others from my circles. And then, to forgive MYSELF for those instances. Covid is an opportunity for self-reflection and choosing a new direction. An opportunity to look in the mirror and forgive the guy looking back.
Well said. I think that this applies to many of us, leftists who have seen the "pandemic" more as a "pandemania." The response to covid has helped me see how I was myself a proud left-leaning liberal with a superiority complex, judging the lowly rightwingers as, at best, selfish conspiracy theorists, somehow believing that government, however imperfect it was, was the only force to protects us from the evils of capitalism, even as I proclaimed the evils of corruption and revolving doors between the corporate and governments worlds, and I was so proud of my awareness of corporate media's manufacture of consent, and other concepts routinely spewed out in my too many years in academia.
The only crack in my liberal armour was my complete and radical lack of trust in big pharma and the whole of industrial allopathic medicine complex. That was maybe the crack that shattered my liberal bubble when the covidian mobs started to form, who knows? In any case, I now look back at my previous proud stance as a member of the enlightened left and do feel shame, as my past behaviours are mirrored everyday in my many colleagues and acquaintances who have embraced the covidian narrative and have relegated my views to the dung heap of rightwing conspiracy theories. I should never forget that past self, be grateful for the covid madness to have shed light on the tenuous nature of that self, and move forward, forgiving myself, and continue to struggle ahead along new yet unknown paths, hopefully more accepting and free of ideological labels.
You have perfectly described my own reality as well - lifelong leftist and Dem voter in US (NDP/Green supporter in Canada). From the outset, I bought the official Covid narrative before the vaccines arrived. I was a mask Nazi, I would critique shoppers for going against the arrows in supermarket aisles or not standing on their designated crop circle while waiting in line. I mocked people attending Freedom rallies as "Covidiots" online. (I later apologized to many of these people individually since I too now attend these rallies.) But, like you, the one thing I didn't trust was Big Pharma. I did not want the experimental injections. I had discovered the FLCCC's early treatment protocol and decided to protect and treat myself that way instead of risk the investigational injections from Big Pharma. I gradually "woke up" over a year, bit by bit, falsehood after falsehood became apparent to me but not all at once. And now I am able to look back at my former self, see how ideology, political self-identity, and a large amorphous twitter gang I was part of had short-circuited my independent thought. I had rushed to judgment, adopted a position, mislabeled and dismissed a whole group of people and a whole set of information, without any critical examination whatsoever. Knee-jerk reactionism. And smugness.
It was a frightening self-discovery when I saw it - how easily and automatically I had let myself be inducted into the mass formation. I am stronger for this insight, now that I have exited the mass formation and can see it and see how effortlessly I slid into it... how treacherous that pattern really is. And while this insight should also help me empathize with my many (former?) friends and allies still in the mass formation... I am finding it doesn't. Now that I have awakened, I am impatient and feel everyone else should too. lol! Not sure what's next for me/us/society.
I really loved reading both this and oac's account above. I too was a lifelong leftist and cultural snob. I have to be careful not to transfer my natural snobbyness on to people swept up in the mass formation. It's hard. But life, as always, provides lots of opportunities to rediscover humility! :D
Thank you for sharing and for your courage to question. That's hard to do, when one is swept up by comforting beliefs. I wasn't able to question many leftist positions until covid either and now I'm so distrustful of any group and looking for the manipulation. I'm sure there is more questioning and waking up to do yet!
I completely understand your feelings of impatience and continued judgment even if you know that it is not productive. My own understanding of what it felt like to be a well-intentioned believer in the covid narrative is often not sufficient to be empathetic of the many that are still swimming in the sea of corporate propaganda, wanting to force us to plunge in.
Same here. I got off the leftist boat with Big Pharma too. I've seen way too many miracle cures of impossible diseases come food and herbs. And because I'm a deeply spiritual person, I had WAY more in common with the Christian right during the whole pandemic than ever before in my life! They kept saying they didn't trust the government and they had faith in God-- and I was like-- ME TOO!
Yes, that tentative alliance with the Christian right was absolutely eye-opening (I had previously been extremely close-minded toward that community!), even it recent events seem to be reforming the old divides. Regardless, I will never go back to writing off a whole group, having gained a better understanding of our common humanity hiding behind the stereotypes.
Very similar experience here. Thank you for naming it so well.
Very true, Joel. I too have reflected on my own past behaviors... how easily I embraced a narrative because everyone around me did, how quick I was judge others existing outside that narrative. There has been a lot of personal growth for me through this whole pandemania. I see that as a good thing. I feel I'm stronger and more in my power because of it.
OOOOOF. Good one.
Yes, especially since my co-housing neighbors still believe I put them at risk, by my continued stubborn refusal to get with the program. Until they lose their fear and forgive me, and “people like me”, my forgiveness of them goes nowhere but to soften my own heart.
This is beautiful. Seems like in doing so, it's also halfway to forgiving every other person on the other side of the aisle. Almost like silently extending an olive branch out in perpetuity through a practiced, intentional transcendence of the self. Certainly an excellent direction to go in :)
Michael Beckwith once said something like this: “thank you FOR GIVING me the opportunity to learn and grow.” To me, it’s not about “releasing” the other, forgiving them, it’s about the mirror Joel mentions, above. I have no other interest in the abusers, nor those who stood by them and said nothing.
Love Michael Beckwith. Some of the spiritual teachers have a great gift for dissecting English in a way that really drives home the meaning.
Joel, so well said. I have used this as one giant opportunity to notice when I am getting on my spiritual pedestal and judging others for not living up to my standards and then having the courage to get off of it, get back in the muck with everyone else, and forgive myself.
Wow, this is a deep insight. Thank you for this. Haven't we all sometimes isolated or neglected people?
This really makes clear to me the deep lesson pandemania brings us. I think we only just started to learn the lesson, and that's okay, because the lesson is worth it to take all the time that's needed.
I agree, Joel. Been doing that work. And it’s not always a mirror being held up for us to look into.
I think I am most vexed by the treatment of children during all this. That they were, and are, made to suffer so, is deeply disturbing. They are at once so resilient, and yet so impressionable. Taking faces away from their eyes by the masks hurts me to witness.
yeah, the masking actually bothers me more than the vaxxes. It's not rational -- objectively I think the vaccines are more harmful -- but the masking is what made me want to become a hermit.
The masking is the thing, people donning a visible sign of consent to the mind control. Even though the injections are causing, and will cause, untold harm, and those who submit their children to them are walking on the rim of a pit they will not let themselves see, the masks signal -to my eyes- unthinking surrender. Early in 2020 my father said, in response to my already deep worry about the children being shut out of the wider world, 'children are resilient.' Many adults, including me, do not have the required resilience to survive this indefinitely.
Some children have now known nothing but pandemania. And as you say Charles, this is going to roll on and on, swallowed by the amnesia wave, it is a fracturing down to the roots. Thank you for your writing and your voice and for your deep responsiveness to the tides of now.
It's more than the masks and shots. It's the fact that they no longer feel that the world is a sane place, with rules that make sense. That is the root of the mental illness we're seeing. The rules no longer make any sense, and yet we are being forced to follow them. Although a few parents truly believed the rules they enforced, most parents were not able to hide the fact that we didn't truly believe the rules made sense. I worry that during the pandemic, we actually taught our children how to follow insane rules. That really bothers me.
me too. And it goes beyond that. I realized in school that the point of the arbitrary, inane rules was not actually to "improve the learning environment" by banning baseball caps. It was to establish the principle of "you will obey the rules." To achieve that end, the more irrational the rules, the better.
"I am his mentor, Hypocris(h)ies(h). I put him through s(h)chool, where he learned to s(h)tand up for a princip(le/al) and s(h)it down on his(h) own s(h)tool."*
- Firesign Theater, _I Think We're All Bozos On This Bus_
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmWFrMq3qNY&t=781s
*(Yeah, I know, the phonetics are labored. Apologies.)
This makes me think about the quote from Theodore Dalrymple: „…In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, not to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is in some small way to become evil oneself. One's standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control…“
I know. This really bothers me, too.
Yes, its the insanity of the whole thing which in turn drives me crazy.
Paul, it hurts my heart what children are going through. Masks have bothered me so much. I am glad to see I am not the only one. Wore one for a few months, but every time I put it on, I felt heavy and dirty. I literally could not breathe. I stopped doing it, and did wonder if I would get yelled at or thrown out of a store. But nothing ever happened. It was all in my head. The first time was the hardest, but every time after that, I built up my courage muscle.
I think our future generations will look back at how we have treated children and weep.
Very good and thoughtful article. Thank you! I would add that we cannot simply move on. not just because the psycho-social damage remains. but also because the top down mandates and fearmongering are not over. by a long shot. It is is not a question of will it happen again, because it is still happening! WA state gov just announced that mandatory covid vax plus boosters is now permanent for many state employees. All our WA collleges are mandating vax and boosters for not just staff but also students. This is likely to become permanent also. The federal government just spent more billions of our non -existent dollars on monkey pox vax. When will that become a required vaccine? This is only just beginning, not ending. No matter how much we wish it were so.
This schism between the non-compliant and compliant is getting wider as the disowned and ostracized are being forced to create an alternative culture in the blue states or move to a red state. The entire socio-economic and political topography of our country is literally changing before our eyes. We are setting up the conditions for a civil war right now. And for those who doubt this, I suggest you really dig deep into how our first civil war actually started. It was not just about slavery as so many history texts and woke educators claim, it was at it's core really about state sovereignty vs federal government sovereignty. And at it's legal core that is also what the fight over Roe vs Wade is about.
If you remove the emotional and highly manipulated charge from these issues, including the vax mandates, you will see it is really about power and money and the control of resources, especially people. This is a baseline of human dynamics. We have simply tweaked it beyond all sanity.
On the bright side, the alternate culture is a lot funner than the one we are separating off from.
I'm no fun at all to be around. I'm incandescent with rage because I was seriously sickened and grievously injured by the Pfizer poison injections. All the love-and-light-talk in this comments section annoys me, despite the fact that I'm generally a spiritually oriented person.
It seems I'm the only commenter to this newsletter who's been covid-vaxed and been seriously injured by it. I feel like an alien among the rest of the commenters here.
Thank you for the rage. We need it. The love-and-light is only authentic if it fully incorporates the horror of what is being done to us.
And PS, I am very sorry that you were injured.
I'm so sorry to hear this. The betrayal of the people by those in power is brutal and rage seems like an entirely appropriate response. There must be so many people in your position. The first vaccine damage payout has just been given, I think. I know others who have been hurt who are trying to detox some of the damage by seeing alternative practitioners or by taking supplements. Please ignore this if it is unhelpful or intrusive or feels like way too little too late, but I understand that the protocol that was suggested to help with covid is also helpful to undo some of the damage of the vaccine - vitamin D, Zinc, Quercetin, NAC and Vitamin C. I find it helpful when I have been disempowered to find a way to take back the power and take some kind of constructive action.
I am so sorry to hear that. Truly. I am unjabbed, but I would not wish injury or harm to anyone at all, even Bill Gates or Klaus Schwab. Love and light only happens after you have traversed the depths of hell. I am certain there must be a way to reverse the effects. I believe in the power of the human body to heal. Find an alternative medical practitioner. Start with Zach Bush, MD.
yes, the damage can be reversed. Figuring out how is the entree to a whole universe of alternative medicine.
Seems to me that your feelings are completely reasonable. I used to go to a meditation group. After our session, we would sit and drink tea and chat. The leader would ask each member to share something from the meditation experience, and so many people would make some comment about being simply blissed-out by the whole experience, "so calm and peaceful". Then he'd get to me, and I'd say, "oh, my mind was racing, the thoughts kept coming, it was a struggle just to sit there for 30 minutes." I was surprised that he responded well to my comments, but some of the others just seemed shocked that I wasn't drowning in bliss. I'm glad you were able to break out of the hypnosis that so many vaccinated people are under.
Daphne, I love your comment! You had me laughing out loud.
First I need to say that I didn't even want to get vaxed. I only did so because I succumbed - to my infinite, eternal regret and sadness - to the intense pressure from both society and even more so from my family, one of my two sisters in particular.
Second, I used to be able to meditate, and one of the multiple permanent adverse effects of having been sickened and injured by the Pfizer poison is that I'm unable to do so any longer. When I try (and I do try) all that happens is that I hit a wall of ferocious pain in my head, which is so intense my breathing quickens, by blood pressure rises, my heart rate increases (physical pain will do that!) and I either go slightly unconscious or I just stop trying. Or both. I wish that were the worst of the lasting effects form the vax, but it's not. Damage to my brain, resulting in short-, medium-, and long-term memory damage is the worst lasting effect. There are others as well which I won't go into. (This comment is long enough as it is.)
Very sorry to hear about the hell you're going through. Your rage is justified for sure.
The FLCCC has a post-vaccine protocol that might be helpful: https://covid19criticalcare.com/covid-19-protocols/i-recover-post-vaccine-treatment/
My husband was seriously injured after the first vax, I feel your rage. Im still trying to move on from it, but its there colouring everything.
I hope you don't think me forward, but happy to work with you homeopathically to maybe provide some relief.
Hi, Nancy. Can you do that long distance? I live in the San Francisco Bay Area. Wouldn't you need to be able to physically examine me, feel my radial pulses, get a sense of my physical and emotional energy, etc.? (And no, I don't think you're too forward to offer possible help.)
I wrote a lengthy, detailed report describing my vax injuries, intending to post it at VAERS. I tried to post it several times but was unable to do so each time. However, I did finally post it to a survey about covid vax injuries and deaths that Steve Kirsch presented to his readers and the general public about a month ago.
You can find all the submissions to that survey here:
https://airtable.com/shr5NYfxwjBQ9IaaO/tblMin3hihwsR0HB2
My report is number 500, posted on May 30, 2022 at 8:10 p.m.
Click on "expand record (space)" - click on the diagonal arrows - to expand the record so that you can see and read the entire report easily, on one long page.
There's a typo in the second paragraph of my lengthy written report. I mistakenly wrote that I received the second Pfizer shot on April 19, 2022. It should say April 19, 2021, well over a year ago by now. Other than that, everything else I wrote is completely accurate. It seems to me to be understated, in fact.
Hi,
This is very insightful “Wouldn't you need to be able to physically examine me, feel my radial pulses, get a sense of my physical and emotional energy, etc.? ”
So sorry to hear you were injured and I know that in traditional Chinese medicine, acupuncture and herbs, this is exactly what would be necessary.
I’m sure there are wonderful practitioners near you if you were open to that and all the best on your healing journey 🙌
Thanks, Sara. I'm sure you're right. I used to be a therapeutic bodyworker myself and I'm familiar with the therapies you mentioned, as well as with homeopathy and various other holistic therapies. The real problem is I've lost all hope for this life, and I just want it to be over. I can't go into why that is here. I should write a memoir. Maybe that's meant to be my last therapy. Thanks for your healing wishes. Blessings to you.
Please reach out to me at nancy@baylighthomeopathy.com.
I've read your response to the survey and have a few more questions before being able to determine whether this is the best route for you. I'll be away til late Tuesday and will respond to you then. Meanwhile, all the best...
Thank you, Nancy. I'll email you on Wednesday.
Yes, and New York City just mandated covid shots for all schoolchildren.
Utter insanity. Countering a negligible risk in a population that has already been tested at 80-90% seropositivity by applying an intervention with very definitely nonzero risk of adverse consequences, some of them permanent and possibly life-shortening, seems insane if not completely brainless.
For some reason I'm reminded of a debate I recall about the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation, which claims that A. the wine and wafer transform, in fact, into the literal, physical blood and body of the Savior and B. there is no physical test that can be performed to verify this. You just have to believe us.
At least religion rarely pretends to be science.
"We are setting up the conditions for a civil war right now. And for those who doubt this, I suggest you really dig deep into how our first civil war actually started. It was not just about slavery as so many history texts and woke educators claim, it was at it's core really about state sovereignty vs federal government sovereignty."
Was it "just" about racism and slavery? No. Was it partly about states rights? Yes.
But those who do not understand that it was overwhelmingly mostly about slavery and racism have been misled by a disinformation campaign designed by Southern racists in order to try and perpetuate their institutional racism through Jim Crow style approaches.
The Confederate government (up to and during the war) was explicit in their writings and government documents that the war was about slavery. If you cannot believe them to mean what they said then I wonder what you can believe.
yes, the reason that "states' rights" was even an issue was because of slavery. That was the 'right' that the southern states wanted to preserve.
Charles, I must respectfully disagree because it was just not that simple. Please see my recent response to James R Martin for a more in depth discussion on this. I do agree that the governement leaders on both sides claimed slavery as the main reason and the moral high ground for the Civil War. And yes it absolutely was a factor,; but there were many convoluted hidden agendas behind the Civil War, on both sides, just as there in fact are with all wars.
I was speaking about the states' right issue. There were also (and forgive me, my knowledge is, as you say, not very deep) important economic issues. Northern industrialists and bankers had different economic interests than the agrarian South. I'm sure, as you say, there are a lot more complex reasons.
Understood Charles. I agree that the official legal reason given for succession was state's rights. Which leads back to my original comment which sparked this discussion. Which is great by the way. I have no problem respectfully disagreeing as I always learn a ton from engaging with differing opinions.
Governments on all sides always pick the most charged., self- righteous and simplest issue to focus on when they want to create polarization, conflict and war., for numerous nefarious reasons. Otherwise where would they get their soldiers? You cannot get folks to pay attention unless you push the moral outrage button every which way you can and you have to push it really hard to get them to risk their lives for an ideology.
In any case, "rights" or no rights, the USA has never been a democracy, not even in the sense of a 'democratic republic', with a representational form of democracy. So I'll not be doing any flag waving on the big national holiday tomorrow. All nation states are, in varying degrees, somewhat oppressive and anti-democratic, and were designed to be from the very beginning. See: https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/12/13/the-u-s-is-not-a-democracy-it-never-was/
James R Martin, I do understand your points and I even somewhat agree; but I encourage you to dig deeper. Both the Union and Confederate governments had multiple agendas for starting the Civil War. The powers that be on all sides always emphasize the most emotionally charged and morally righteous justifications for whatever they are selling. The fact that there is often a percieved social justice kernel of truth in the public posturing by the leaders on both sides is what makes the whole thing so incredibly effective.
Is slavery wrong? Absolutely. Was the issue of slavery the biggest factor in tearing a nation apart? I do not believe so. The highly charged issue of slavery was used by both sides as the flag to rally the troops around. This deliberate framing and manipulation of our natural response to percieved injustice continues to be a very useful strategy in controlling public opinion and response. Neurologically, the part of our brain which responds negatively to rotten food is the exact same area of our brain which responds in moral outrage to percieved injustice on both sides of the coin. It is fairly easy to manipulate this basic biological response and those that rule us are masters at knowing exactly how and when to push this psycho somatic button.
I have to laugh ironically at the idea that the Federal Union Government's moral imperative was trying to free the oppressed. Being native, with my roots and ancestry deep in Indian Territory and with elders who passed down the memories of what actually happened; I know way too much about what went down during the Civil War in what is now the state of Oklahoma. You can verify for yourself how the Federal Union Government pulled all their troops from all their forts out of Indian Territory and refused to protect the neutrality of the tribes during the Civil War because the tribes refused to give up their promised by treaty sovereign status and lands. Which of course the Feds wanted them to do because it would allow the Feds to turn Indian Territory into a state so that it could be quasi legally opened up for a massive land grab by non -native americans. As a result of this atrocious blackmail, the Federal Union Government directly forced many tribes to sign treaties unwilllingly with the Confederacy just so they could survive. By the end of the Civil War, Indian Territory was in ruins; the Feds moved in and forced the tribes to give up much of their lands and sovereignty and the state of Oklahoma was born. And the Federal Government wins again! All in the name of justice and freedom for all. Hip Hurrah!
Rainbow Medicine-Walker -
I'm aware of this history. I have but a smidgeon of % of my "blood" which is native, but I feel much more culturally and socially identified with native Americans ("indians") than I do with mainstream white bread Americans. The history of exploitation, abuse and genocide of native Americans by white racist colonizers is plainly horrifying.
I was born in the USA, or, rather, in lands claimed by this government. But I am not an American. Nor would I want to be an American. The American government disgusts me. It has always been abusive, dominating, oppressive and anti-democratic.
I absolutely agree with your last sentence James. It always amazes me that so many on both sides seem to believe there ever truly was a 'free' america.
Thank you for sharing. I'd love to read more of your thoughts about the Civil War from this more complex place.
Thanks for asking Marta. I am by no means an expert on the entire history of the Civil War. I just happen to know alot about a certain part of the drama which points directly to multiple underlying agendas on both sides. I would be happy to share more about the parts I do know about but am a little hesitant because I do not want to 'derail' the orginal topic of these comments. These things are obviously all connected at the root of course and I would love to get into deeper discussions.
Maybe Charles can comment on how he feels about going off topic? Also don't know if it is possible to message you directly through this site. If so, we could continue the converse privately maybe? I'm open. Sadly I don't feel comfortable publicly posting my email.
Hi Rainbow, I would love to know more, if you feel like sharing. It's wonderful to me to open up what used to be clear-cut good vs bad and find the complexity and nuance and humanity. My email is martalettofsky@gmail.com. Feel free to email me if you wish. And no pressure!
Thanks so much for this articulation Charles, we share your concerns for the unseen and unacknowledged scorn and vilification applied to those of us who simply wished/wish to choose our own medicine. We have recently distilled our expression of this time into a song titled, We are here together. Some of your readers may be interested in this perspective linking the intransigence, scorn and punishment shown to us as being related (albeit considerably smaller in scale) to the intransigence, scorn and punishment given to another Australian, Julian Assange:
https://artistasfamily.is/2022/06/25/we-are-here-together-assange-freedom-and-the-longest-night/
We are about to go visit interstate family members for the first time in two years. There is much trepidation about this, esp because for them the matter of Covid is all over and our subjection is nothing to speak of, despite more infections in Australia now than at any other time, the rise of Sudden Adult Death Syndrome in one of the most vaccinated countries on the planet, and the fact our interstate family members all got Covid after their many jabs and so far we haven't got the disease despite being unvaccinated.
Healthy people are suddenly dying in our community at an alarming rate and yet no one dares make the connection or at very least, asks a question. Family members who have questioned our sanity, our intelligence and our morality for not going along with Uncle Pfizer and co's novel synthetic biology programs are reluctant to see us, yet our 9 year old misses his grandparents, uncles, aunties and cousins, and we feel we need to say goodbye, possibly forever, so we journey north this week. Because there is "nothing to see here," we feel it is only a matter of time before the next great authoritarian push is asserted and we are all divided more intensely again. So it's time now to say goodbye, quietly, respectfully and with love, to those who have scorned us. We feel too vulnerable in their presence, emotionally and biologically.
We have now witnessed which community members, and indeed Australians, would most likely have gone along with the Nazi program back in the late 1930s, and which ones would not have. This has nothing to do with a line between those vaccinated or not, but rather who was pro mandate and who wasn't; who saw human rights abuse and who said "nothing to see here," or worse, "punish them!"
While this has sharpened our sight about who we can trust, we nonetheless live in a constant state of foreboding, which we know is affecting our son. His participation in our household's music (sense) making is trying to direct this grief into creative expression, so it can be processed and made into, rather than fester. We often open to his lightness and dance and sing and joke together, but he often gets pulled into our heavy hearts and our adult planning for a darkening future.
Our song, We are here together, merges from the grief and corruption into determination, hope and play, and then a call to others to collectivise our resistance and determination.
Sending much love from Djaara mother country
So sad. Yes, one of the themes I'm exploring for another installment is the idea that we have a window of opportunity now before the next assault.
This is so sad. You have absolutely hit the nail on the head here; "This has nothing to do with a line between those vaccinated or not, but rather who was pro mandate and who wasn't; who saw human rights abuse and who said "nothing to see here," or worse, "punish them!".
The whole discussion about whether to resist or find an alternate or parallel reality hinges around the notions of individual choice and/or collective responsibility. If we walk away or stay silent, how does that serve or not serve our evolving humanity? I don't think its a question of either being part of the resistance or the alternative, but of being able to act with integrity and honesty and speak our own truths, however risky or hard that might be. Staying silent is an option that supports the power agenda, as we know from history. In my early days of isolation and not knowing what was 'truth' or what was not, it was those who questioned the narrative who helped me find my own centre, my own truth.
The argument is not about vaccination or not, but about the use and abuse of power. Thank you for your sharing, for your courage and generosity to walk away with love, such a powerful, and sad, action.
Beautifully said. Thank you.
Beautiful that creativity is being used to channel the emotional roller coaster. I have also been on an emotional roller coaster. Started writing a children's book series to heal my inner child. Glad your son has a healthy outlet.
Beautiful piece, Charles. It helps me feel less alone since you captured exactly and with extraordinary empathy what so many of us are struggling with.
"Partly it’s a matter of PTSD: I don't feel very safe among these people."
This. You nailed it.
I'm looking forward to reading your new book.
I also recommend the work of Paul Levy and his book "Wetiko: Healing the Mind-Virus that Plaques Our World."
Yeah that's a good book.
Beth, just bought that book. Is coming this week. So anxious to read it. Another good one is The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil by Philip Zimbardo.
Thanks, looks great! Another good one that is related is an older book, "Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust."
This is a very important topic and I think will become even more important as consequences from the vaccine become more evident. There's a desire I feel in myself to wish to be vindicated, and I remind myself that the vaccinated include my daughters and friends. Behind the most vehement rejection is really a fear that we're right. My Course in Miracles says to speak to the hidden fear and guilt, not the manifestation. I look at this in Reversing the Reset. Thanks for talking about this!
https://thirdparadigm.substack.com/p/reversing-the-reset
A very thoughtful piece of work. To think these humiliations are past is not true for many of us. Some of us remain in a hellish limbo knowing that we will be denied life-saving medical treatments because of our refusal to take the covid product/jabs, which are medically contraindicated in too many ways to count. This is happening everywhere...even to infants who need organ transplantation to survive. Those who have played by all the rules, who have worked very hard to stay well and alive many years now are told, no...you cannot have a graft unless you submit to our medical and emotional tyranny, submit to pharma’s poison. There’s no recourse...these people face a united front that wishes them dead and has the power to make it so...and is purposefully letting people die as we speak.
yes, so sad. I basically have come to terms with not having access to emergency medicine in some situations. Better live free than live long.
Me too Charles. Better to live a quality life than a quantity of years.
But we can maintain our health with the right procedures. Many home remedies such as MMS and DMSO. My daughter is writing a book about it as we speak which will be released soon . Her Telegram channel is Teejay if you are interested. Also Amanda Volmer is a great one to follow.
I'm really glad you started this conversation, Charles. This topic has been on my mind so much, and on the minds of everyone I know who (wisely) exercised bodily autonomy around the investigational Covid-19 vaccines and was subsequently shunned and shut out of society. How do we move on? And what do we do with all these people/friends/family/colleagues in our lives who agree(d) with our exclusion from society and from more private spaces?
It has been stunning to discover this past year just how many of my friends (former friends, really) are actually fine with the notion of medical apartheid, up to and including proposals that the unvaccinated be fined, or placed under house arrest, or even removed from our homes and confined somewhere else if we won't comply. It has certainly been challenging to lose so many relationships in my life. I have had the feeling of standing on constantly shifting sand since late 2021 when vaccine passports were introduced in BC. I was unfollowed by 100 poet friends and colleagues on twitter in a 24-hour period after I posted my photos from the first rally I attended against vaccine passports.
But it has also been important - crucial I would say - for me to discover this. It has made me much stronger, much harder to kill, much more aware. I have a clarity I did not have a year ago. I am at a point where I am not only ready to let them all go (the old friends and relationships), but I need to let them go for my own safety and personal security and mental health and emotional well-being.
I don't feel I will ever be able to have anything other than the most superficial relationship or interaction with any of the hypnotized. I simply cannot ever trust them to not be duped again. Even if the mandates have been temporarily relaxed, these people are still in the grips of mass formation. Their powers of critical thought are offline and may not ever really come back online.
So I am focusing on and participating in the development of parallel structures and systems and networks of friends and mutual aid.
Ah this spoke to me very much. Thank you.
That people are "still in the grips of mass formation" and "powers of critical thought are offline" has been carefully cultivated for decades. The influence of media, starting with radio, then television, cannot be understated. We are a brainwashed, compliant people by design.