You’ve time-traveled for a long, long time. You lived through famines, plagues, wars and the occasional inquisition.
You’ve even witnessed Oswald not shoot Kennedy.
Maybe.
You’ve witnessed heretics burned at the stake, volcanoes crammed with virgins, and a mass sacrifice on Roanoke Island.
You've seen so much crap that very few things can surprise anymore.
At least that's what you tell yourself.
Forbidden City
You’re in Tienanmen, China, and the last emperor is about to be taken to the forbidden city to receive the message from the heavens and be crowned as their supreme ruler.
But back then you didn't know that he’ll the last emperor China will ever have. Nobody did.
That dynasty had ruled for over two hundred and seventy years as million upon millions of souls lived for the sole purpose of serving them.
The young emperor is now at the temple of heaven. He’s barely a child, yet they say that the fortunes of the entire earth and universe depend on the Son of Heaven.
How can you expect so much from a kid?
He’s so young and impressionable that he would believe in anything he's told, and now he’s waiting for his big moment.
“So when do I get to speak to the heavens?”
The Manchurian Candidate
His family claimed the mandate of the heavens in 1643, and since then millions upon millions of poor souls fell prey to the same ridiculous joke.
The way to win is to spend your life serving the ruling class and sacrifice this ephemeral life on earth for a promise of riches in the heavens.
The oldest con in history of the world. Rinse and repeat.
But you keep your thoughts to yourself, you don’t want to upset the balance, you’re merely the watcher.
“So when do I get to speak to the heavens?” Asks the kid emperor one more time.
Blank stares everywhere, everyone is hesitant. The empress takes a deep look at the kid and tells him:
The dirty secret everyone in the family knows, and everyone else in the empire ignores, is that...
She pauses. The suspense is killing me.
“You see, we don’t really talk to the heavens.”
Hysterical laughter irrupts across the place.
It’s all a damn joke. It always has been.
You think about the millions upon millions of people who let their entire lives revolve around those fables for centuries without even daring to question them.
Almost three centuries of brutal tyranny and for what? A celestial phone line that has never existed?
But no one will ever believe that their rulers lied to them, because you know, sociopaths are notorious for their brutal honesty.
You keep watching, generation after generation, civilization after civilization… And you watch them all of them succumb to the same.
A Sci-Fi story that defies every single law of the universe, and which main premise is to promise the bliss of imaginary certainty in exchange for servitude.
Locked Inside a Holy War
For the glory of Rome, For Mother Russia, for the Third Reich, for the Fourth Reich…
The title may change from time to time but the song remains the same, the song always remains the same.
Some may even call it a Modus Operandi.
The truth is, all those rivers of blood were never spilled for God, nor for the country, nor even for that piece of fabric hanging on poles that everyone seems to be so excited about.
“We did it for Antarctica!”
― “No, you didn’t. You did it for the ruling class. Just like any other generation before you.”
But you can’t say that. You keep your thoughts to yourself and watch.
That’s all you can do, keep watching.
You watch country after country, century after century, and everybody keeps getting enchanted by the same damn hypnotizing song.
Each of them so sure of their realness, and none of them will ever entertain the thought that they have been lied to.
They read and read about all sorts of past civilizations whose entire existence revolved around a damn lie yet somehow, they all believe themselves to immune.
They all believe themselves to be the anomaly despite all signs to the contrary.
Until it’s too late when the rivers are filled with tears and silence drowns the screams.
“In reading The History of Nations, we find that, like individuals, they have their whims and their peculiarities, their seasons of excitement and recklessness, when they care not what they do. We find that whole communities suddenly fix their minds upon one object and go mad in its pursuit; that millions of people become simultaneously impressed with one delusion, and run after it, till their attention is caught by some new folly more captivating than the first.”
― Charles Mackay, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, 1841.
Unpaid Employees of the War Division
Fake news is not a new phenomenon, it wasn’t sprung out of thin air in the past year.
Where do we even start? Brian Williams? Jessica Lynch? The Incubator babies in the Gulf War?
Nah, we must be the anomaly. Surely, we must be the only civilization in human history who hasn’t been lied to.
Cough, Cough.. Tonkin.
Either that, or fake news is a more propagated phenomenon than we previously thought.
Whatever you choose to believe don’t let that damn song affect your life and make you hate other people.
There is no us VS them, no conservatives VS liberals, no immigrants VS patriots, there is no conspiracy theorists VS sheeple…
Or whatever “us” versus “them” crap we’re being sold this time.
Thanks again for a powerful and necessary understanding. My favourite part, by far, is when you underline "Whatever you choose to believe don’t let that damn song affect your life and make you hate other people." Songs of hatred, songs of discrimination, racisms and sexism and all "isms" are literally dividing us, cutting us form each other with razors of ignorance and, most often times, fear. We can be brave and courageous, we can learn and educate ourselves.
Things change, life operates on changes. Let's be one, let us not forget that we are all connected because when we do forget, we start to lose sight of what we are as humans. Though we may be weak sometimes, we still have strength in numbers in this case and we can support each other through this tough passage of our history, the needle-eye of history...
All for one and one for all! Namaste :)
Oh man! Your comments are always poetic and at the same time full of wisdom.
Yeah totally, let's not let the fear divide for no reason.
Thanks a lot for the recognition and kindness, it is always greatly appreciated on this end. Namaste :)
As is appreciated on mine. :)
Very nicely written. "Cough, Cough. Tonkin." Hey, you boiled it down to three words. We are sold a bill of lies again and again, no doubt about it. Hate and division are false dilemmas. We deserve better and we can do better.
I couldn't agree more. We can definitely do better.
Thanks for the nice comment Tom!
Yes! Cough, Cough. Tonkin. is brilliantly succinct.
Even though you slam us, you have been receiving votes from Curie (on four of your most recent posts which qualified). Curie is a first stage project for authors with certain rep scores. Steem Guild picks up authors later and there is no overlap. Despite the fact that you have benefited from the work that we do, you have made bona fide threats privately to several members of these projects' staff. You have spammed me chronically for months now, even after I had told you three times to please stop doing so. Your language in public and private has been quite abusive to us.
I genuinely feel sorry for you. And hope you find what you are looking for.
Good post
Upvoted to counter asshole's flag.
Yeah me too!
Thank you!
Love the tone and subversive narrative of this post. Entertaining, thought provoking and fun.
Thank you! :)
weird how people are flagging this.
truly well written, superb post.
very thoughtful.
@dantheman - maybe somebody can look into who is flagging this and why... might be a good idea.
six of the flags are from the same person (different accounts), he has been making threats all day long in private messages and everything.
Thank you for the nice comment. Hope you have a great day! Don't worry about that :) It happens.
well your work rocks anyway.
curious, how is there an IM on steem?
I know there was a site with channels, IRC?, but I lost the link..
Thank you :)
Do you mean steemit.chat?
that's it,
been away a few months
thanks in advance!!
any info on the guild would be appreciated, if its open to members, etc...
Yeah of course it's https://steemit.chat/home
However there is no chat channel for the guild. you can find all the info here:
https://steemit.com/steemit/@donkeypong/steem-guild-an-update
But in the chat there is private messaging so..
Anyways, have a good day!
No matter how many centuries you time travel, no matter how much you see, how much history your learn.
You will never expect the Spanish inquisition.
Oh yeah, good times ;)
Interesting story and also very true! I like it very much!
Thank you @the-future I'm glad you liked it!
No matter we learn from history, or at least pretend it, it is always the same goddamned repetition all over the places and the time... And I honestly don't see how things could change :(
For some reason, I can see them change a little bit. It seems to me like that last movie who won the Oscars Spotlight just before people starting losing faith.
I guess the same way we lost faith in monarchy, tribal kings... There's a chance we see another thing like that.
I agree though, that it seems like the same thing repeating itself all the time.
"Us" and "Them" = "S&M."
Hahaha
Really potent message here. We must resist the propaganda.
Thank you Richard. Yeah or ignore or make fun of them.
No doubt we have this foolry going on throughout history and amazingly very few people question about such paradoxes....
Yeah that in itself is a paradox too :)
William Blake: For we have hirelings in the Camp, the Court, and the University, who would, if they could, for ever depress mental, and prolong corporeal war.
Little has changed, except, perhaps, that more are waking up to the fakery.
Yeah I would think so as well, I guess more and more people are losing trust in the fakery.
I'm curious, been away for a few months... what is steemguild?