thesoulpatch-blog1

[thesoulpatch-blog1]

Disaster

I’ve been reading a lot about the events taking place on the Gulf Coast. Category 4 Hurricane Harvey has left Houston and surrounding areas completely submerged. The flooded area in Texas is the size of Lake Michigan. That was something I heard a few days ago, so it’s most likely larger now, because the rain has not stopped. The storm’s steering currents died down once it made landfall, and thus it has no directional guidance. It is essentially spinning like a top, wobbling around and continuing to pound the Texas and Louisiana coastlines. In short, it’s really shitty down there right now.

Today I read about a Houston Best Buy that was under fire for charging $42.96 for a 24 pack of Dasani water just before the storm hit. Best Buy claims it was an honest mistake, and that employees priced the cases by tallying up 24 individually priced bottles of water, but that’s beside the point. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has apparently received more than 500 complaints in regard to price gouging before and after Harvey hit. Hotels, food, gasoline, and other necessities were being overpriced for the sake of making a few extra bucks on every poor sap who was stocking up their emergency provisions. Price gouging in the face of disaster is illegal in Texas, and the AG claims he will be pursuing these cases against the perpetrators to honor that law.

According to the Gizmodo article I read, Paxton was on air with a CNBC host who started an interesting conversation. The host acknowledged the immorality of price gouging in times of turmoil, but questioned the Texas AG on whether this law should really be enforced. His point was basically this rhetorical question: Can’t people charge whatever they want for goods and services in a capitalist market, regardless of morality?

Of course, everyone’s heart strings are being tugged by these photos of destruction and stories like a mother drowning while keeping her toddler afloat until help arrived, or the police officers killed on duty when the storm hit. Our immediate, thoughtless reaction to such a question as the CNBC host asked in a time like this is something like: “Fuck you, you can’t rip off people who could be at risk of death.” In fact, the last line of this particular article reads: “Nothing, not even the lives of hundreds of thousands of people, should apparently get in the way of making a buck.” The tone of that line is clearly facetious. But people, this is capitalism. This is our economic system. This is the backbone of all the luxuries our nation is fortunate enough to afford. This is oppression. This is the few taking advantage of the many. This is normal. It’s true; apparently, not even the lives of hundreds of thousands of people should get in the way of making a quick buck. But that is certainly not specific to the disaster in Texas. 

We don’t want to acknowledge this type of thinking as rational, but the CNBC host is probably just trying to stay consistent. Reality is that in our capitalist system, you do in fact have every right to charge whatever you want for whatever you’re selling for whatever reason. Consider the price of Epipens. Mylan, the drug company that owns the rights to the Epipen, has inexplicably increased the price to $609 from $94 when Mylan acquired the rights in 2007. An Epipen is used to fight severe allergic reactions, usually in children, and is often used in a literal matter of life and death. How is someone paying $609 for their child to survive a bee sting any different than paying $43 for a case of water when disaster is about to strike? The only difference I see is about $560.

Everybody is so butthurt (I only use the term because it so accurately describes the childlike whininess that everyone indulges in) about every little tiny thing they can find that they don’t like. Doesn’t matter if you’re the Neo-Nazi or the radical leftist or anywhere in between, you’re butthurt about something someone else is doing. If you’re a moral, consistent thinker, you should be able to take a step back and realize that the problem isn’t Best Buy overcharging for water. It’s that we live in a society driven and controlled by entities with the power to rip you off. It’s naïve to believe they don’t. It’s happening to you every time you make or spend a dollar. You’re getting ripped off, because that’s what keeps capitalism afloat. You are not of the 1%, and thus, you are the cow, not the farmer. Don’t get angry at the companies, or the politicians, or whatever Donald Trump is. Be angry at the system, and be angry at yourself for participating so voluntarily.

I could dive into a long convoluted explanation, citing hundreds of examples just like the Epipen, but I encourage you to learn these things for yourself. Become angry at the whole evil that is our economic system. It’s not all of us idiots participating that are at fault. Most of us don’t know any better. It’s not the welfare bums’ fault. It’s not Best Buy’s fault. It’s not immigrants. It’s not either political party. It’s you. It’s all of us, but as far as any individual should be concerned, it’s their own damn fault for participating in a destructive society while all the information to be aware of that is readily available. That’s how we do away with finger-pointing and actually progress as a society.

To hopefully drive home just how far your head may be up America’s luxurious ass, have you any clue about the disasters happening in India and Mumbai? There’s very little coverage. It is hurricane season here, but it’s monsoon season over there, and our pansy-ass tropical storms ain’t got shit on that. Since monsoon season began in June, over 1,000 people have been killed by massive flooding. Nearly 40 million people reside in the affected areas. In terms of just population and number of people affected, that’s like if our Harvey flooding had completely engulfed all of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Arkansas. Geographically this is impossible, but my point is that Southeast Asia is dealing with way more people displaced by floodwater, and 1,000 dead compared to our current tally of 20 deaths due to Harvey. It’s like a nonstop tropical storm that goes on for three and a half months over there, and they’re not even through one whole week in Texas. In short, it’s way shittier in Mumbai than in Houston right now. And, sidebar, as the climate continues to change, these storms will get worse and more frequent all over the world, so like… Be concerned about that as well.

If you’re actually a compassionate person who cares about people affected by hurricane Harvey, you have to care about both of these disasters. But what I believe is that as Americans, we’ve been so desensitized to suffering and oppression and unfortunate circumstances that we don’t actually give a shit about either disaster. We might send out our obligatory tweet, or send some money to the relief fund, but then it’s right back to living lifestyles which perpetuate situations like the one where Best Buy rips off horrified people over a case of water. You know damn well that when the next Xbox comes out, you’re charging it to your Best Buy credit card because new video games on a payment plan are way more fun than advocating social justice for the afflicted. And those are the types of choices you as an individual, and therefore, we as a society make. And all of that starts with you. Giving a shit is changing yourself. Giving a shit is denouncing anything and everything that is hurting so many millions of people around the globe. Giving a shit in our world is actually pretty fucking hard.

In short, everything is bullshit that usually smells and tastes fine, but when it doesn’t, we just complain about it and keep eating the bullshit until it feels better. Stop eating the bullshit. Stop being a capitalist. Stop defining as an American, or white, or liberal, or vegan, or anything other than just your average human. Start being the divine, self-aware being that you exist to be. Please, please, please, stop eating the bullshit. I know it doesn’t taste as good as you say it does.

[thesoulpatch-blog1]

Disaster

I’ve been reading a lot about the events taking place on the Gulf Coast. Category 4 Hurricane Harvey has left Houston and surrounding areas completely submerged. The flooded area in Texas is the size of Lake Michigan. That was something I heard a few days ago, so it’s most likely larger now, because the rain has not stopped. The storm’s steering currents died down once it made landfall, and thus it has no directional guidance. It is essentially spinning like a top, wobbling around and continuing to pound the Texas and Louisiana coastlines. In short, it’s really shitty down there right now.

Today I read about a Houston Best Buy that was under fire for charging $42.96 for a 24 pack of Dasani water just before the storm hit. Best Buy claims it was an honest mistake, and that employees priced the cases by tallying up 24 individually priced bottles of water, but that’s beside the point. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has apparently received more than 500 complaints in regard to price gouging before and after Harvey hit. Hotels, food, gasoline, and other necessities were being overpriced for the sake of making a few extra bucks on every poor sap who was stocking up their emergency provisions. Price gouging in the face of disaster is illegal in Texas, and the AG claims he will be pursuing these cases against the perpetrators to honor that law.

According to the Gizmodo article I read, Paxton was on air with a CNBC host who started an interesting conversation. The host acknowledged the immorality of price gouging in times of turmoil, but questioned the Texas AG on whether this law should really be enforced. His point was basically this rhetorical question: Can’t people charge whatever they want for goods and services in a capitalist market, regardless of morality?

Of course, everyone’s heart strings are being tugged by these photos of destruction and stories like a mother drowning while keeping her toddler afloat until help arrived, or the police officers killed on duty when the storm hit. Our immediate, thoughtless reaction to such a question as the CNBC host asked in a time like this is something like: “Fuck you, you can’t rip off people who could be at risk of death.” In fact, the last line of this particular article reads: “Nothing, not even the lives of hundreds of thousands of people, should apparently get in the way of making a buck.” The tone of that line is clearly facetious. But people, this is capitalism. This is our economic system. This is the backbone of all the luxuries our nation is fortunate enough to afford. This is oppression. This is the few taking advantage of the many. This is normal. It’s true; apparently, not even the lives of hundreds of thousands of people should get in the way of making a quick buck. But that is certainly not specific to the disaster in Texas. 

We don’t want to acknowledge this type of thinking as rational, but the CNBC host is probably just trying to stay consistent. Reality is that in our capitalist system, you do in fact have every right to charge whatever you want for whatever you’re selling for whatever reason. Consider the price of Epipens. Mylan, the drug company that owns the rights to the Epipen, has inexplicably increased the price to $609 from $94 when Mylan acquired the rights in 2007. An Epipen is used to fight severe allergic reactions, usually in children, and is often used in a literal matter of life and death. How is someone paying $609 for their child to survive a bee sting any different than paying $43 for a case of water when disaster is about to strike? The only difference I see is about $560.

Everybody is so butthurt (I only use the term because it so accurately describes the childlike whininess that everyone indulges in) about every little tiny thing they can find that they don’t like. Doesn’t matter if you’re the Neo-Nazi or the radical leftist or anywhere in between, you’re butthurt about something someone else is doing. If you’re a moral, consistent thinker, you should be able to take a step back and realize that the problem isn’t Best Buy overcharging for water. It’s that we live in a society driven and controlled by entities with the power to rip you off. It’s naïve to believe they don’t. It’s happening to you every time you make or spend a dollar. You’re getting ripped off, because that’s what keeps capitalism afloat. You are not of the 1%, and thus, you are the cow, not the farmer. Don’t get angry at the companies, or the politicians, or whatever Donald Trump is. Be angry at the system, and be angry at yourself for participating so voluntarily.

I could dive into a long convoluted explanation, citing hundreds of examples just like the Epipen, but I encourage you to learn these things for yourself. Become angry at the whole evil that is our economic system. It’s not the welfare bums’ fault. It’s not Best Buy’s fault. It’s not immigrants. It’s not either political party. It’s you. It’s all of us, but as far as any individual should be concerned, it’s their own damn fault for participating in a destructive society while all the information to be aware of that is readily available. That’s how we do away with finger-pointing and actually progress as a society.

To hopefully drive home just how far your head may be up America’s luxurious ass, have you any clue about the disasters happening in India and Mumbai? There’s very little coverage. It is hurricane season here, but it’s monsoon season over there, and our pansy-ass tropical storms ain’t got shit on that. Since monsoon season began in June, over 1,000 people have been killed by massive flooding. Nearly 40 million people reside in the affected areas. In terms of just population and number of people affected, that’s like if our Harvey flooding had completely engulfed all of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Arkansas. Geographically this is impossible, but my point is that Southeast Asia is dealing with way more people displaced by floodwater, and 1,000 dead compared to our current tally of 20 deaths due to Harvey. It’s like a nonstop tropical storm that goes on for three and a half months over there, and they’re not even through one whole week in Texas. In short, it’s way shittier in Mumbai than in Houston right now. And, sidebar, as the climate continues to change, these storms will get worse and more frequent all over the world, so like... Be concerned about that as well.

If you’re actually a compassionate person who cares about people affected by hurricane Harvey, you have to care about both of these disasters. But what I believe is that as Americans, we’ve been so desensitized to suffering and oppression and unfortunate circumstances that we don’t actually give a shit about either disaster. We might send out our obligatory tweet, or send some money to the relief fund, but then it’s right back to living lifestyles which perpetuate situations like the one where Best Buy rips off horrified people over a case of water. You know damn well that when the next Xbox comes out, you’re charging it to your Best Buy credit card because new video games on a payment plan are way more fun than advocating social justice for the afflicted. And those are the types of choices you as an individual, and therefore, we as a society make. And all of that starts with you. Giving a shit is changing yourself. Giving a shit is denouncing anything and everything that is hurting so many millions of people around the globe. Giving a shit in our world is actually pretty fucking hard.

In short, everything is bullshit that usually smells and tastes fine, but when it doesn’t, we just complain about it and keep eating the bullshit until it feels better. Stop eating the bullshit. Stop being a capitalist. Stop defining as an American, or white, or liberal, or vegan, or anything other than just your average human. Start being the divine, self-aware being that you exist to be. Please, please, please, stop eating the bullshit. I know it doesn’t taste as good as you say it does.

[thesoulpatch-blog1]

Divinity

The world’s gone crazy, but everyone knows that. Humanity seems to be on an unbreakable cycle of going crazy just to find a resolution that only eventually leads to more craziness. Empires rise and fall, groups of people kill other groups of people and then stop when they get what they want, and every morning, Donald Trump unleashes a tweet storm that will pale in comparison to the storm he unleashes tomorrow, and CNN will still be shocked and appalled every time.

You won’t find answers in this place. Take into account that gravity, the most stable, constant, and observable force we have on our planet, is only just a scientific theory. You can’t technically prove it. We assume it’s true because no one can disprove it. Side bar: the same is true of the theory of human evolution, and misinformed people refute it anyway. Not really part of my point but it still blows my mind. Anyway, if gravity isn’t for sure, then I would suggest that nothing within our realm of understanding is.

Your place in the cosmos is microscopic. You’re born at a particular time in a particular geographic location and you have an undetermined period of time to make happen whatever you want to make happen. And that’s the simplicity of life. The complexity comes with thoughts affected by things you can’t control. To ponder our existential purpose is futile, because God is a slimy bastard and played this cruel joke where we were made to be just smart enough to ask real questions, but far too dumb to ever touch any of the answers.

I believe God is the only thing that can ever tell us how to live our lives correctly. Only the forces that created us know our purpose. But we have never and will never find any direct line of communication to the central forces of the universe, so we’re shit outta luck. We just have this big floating rock and whatever we can find on it.

I don’t know how to solve the world’s problems. I don’t know how to end poverty and war or make politicians tell the truth. I don’t know how to ensure equal value for all human life. I don’t know how to separate peoples’ emotions from their decision-making. I don’t know what form of government or economic system is the most equitable. I don’t even know what I can eat for lunch without doing some sort of long term harm to my body. There’s too many factors in everything we can ponder and we don’t have the mental capacity nor the reliable information to weigh all of them at once. The only way for real progress to be made is if we can all stand together and put our respective ideology away to agree that none of us know anything. We’re just watery, gelatinous matter that evolved into a supercomputer thought process we weren’t prepared to handle.

You can’t save the world. Nobody can. Any individual in history with real power to save the world only held that power because of their willingness to destroy. Every noteworthy system of government in history is corrupt and immoral. The person at the helm of those governments has always had to share those qualities.

I guess where I’m going with this is that we all need to say “fuck you” to anyone telling us what this life is or isn’t. Your existence isn’t something you asked for. There aren’t rules and regulations. There’s just some funny motherfucker we call God allowing our tiny little sector of the universe to run rampant. Your existence is whatever you can make it. Even though we are small and powerless, we are the only divinity this planet has ever seen. We are the closest this place can be to God, at least for the foreseeable future (and we’re talking millions of years; long enough for us to evolve further and observe the universe much differently). Whatever you believe God is or isn’t, you must know that we are divine creatures. We have the power to make changes to the world and creatures around us. We can make drastic differences in each other’s’ lives just by starting a conversation. That power is yours to harness.

Humans have this tendency to use their own divine power to manipulate how others’ use theirs. It’s how Hitler made millions of Nazis kill millions of Jews. It’s how our education system convinces children that their only productivity will be someday making money to pay taxes and stimulate the economy. I’m aware that I won’t ever be sure of anything in this life except this: I am, and therefore, I can. I believe that’s the meaning of life in six simple words. Life is simple. Food, water, shelter, and what you do with all that extra time are all that truly matter. Do something that you can be proud of every chance you get. Create something great or destroy something evil so that you can leave behind a legacy that outlives your watery, gelatinous body. If you’re living according to your own convictions while respecting the non-evil convictions of others enough to not stand in their way, I believe you’ve lived the life that was intended for you. Hold your middle finger high to anyone trying to flex their authority to make you submit to them, because we don’t know anything, and they aren’t exempt from that.

[thesoulpatch-blog1]

Contentment (Sorry, It’s Been A While)

Are you content where you are? Are you on a path to eventual contentment? Or do you just go to work every day, then come home and fall into your default evening routine, just to go to bed early and do it again and again without ever really thinking if there’s any other way? I don’t mean to be presumptive. I would really like to know how people answer these questions in their head. People just seem so miserable to me everywhere I go, but it’s like they aren’t aware that they don’t have to be.

Contentment is ultimately a choice, though it’s a choice that gets harder to make as your circumstances get shittier. There are some living deeply in poverty, perhaps with violent battles being waged right outside their homes, who must still find a way to rejoice. Some of us scream and shout and almost bust a vein over spilled milk. It just seems to me that we have something messed up here.

I was struck in a particular way by our new White House Communications Director’s recent interview with the New Yorker. The basic details of this scenario are that unknown members of the White House staff keep leaking information to the press and then reports come out to criticize Trump and his administration with info from the inside, and we know Trump and his administration don’t take kindly to criticism. Enter Anthony Scaramucci, a former Goldman Sachs employee and hedge fund manager, as the new communication’s director brought in to tighten the bolts on the White House machine and locate all the faulty, “leaky” parts that need removed.

The premise of this hiring makes sense, as this guy has blindly and aggressively defended Donald Trump since the election (prior to which he said he hoped Hillary Clinton would be the next president), and The Donald gets along best with his blind defenders. But take into account that Sean Spicer – and we’ve all seen some of the ridiculous falsehoods Spicer was okay with promoting as truth and obvious truths he promoted as lies – had a moral dilemma with the addition of Scaramucci and chose to resign as a result. Everyone in America should’ve raised an eyebrow at that point.

I’ll just get to the quotes from the interview with Scaramucci, and all of these came out of his mouth:

“Reince Priebus — if you want to leak something — he’ll be asked to resign very shortly. … Reince is a fucking paranoid schizophrenic, a paranoiac.”

“I’m not Steve Bannon, I’m not trying to suck my own cock. I’m not trying to build my own brand off the fucking strength of the president. I’m here to serve the country.”

“What I want to do is I want to fucking kill all the leakers and I want to get the president’s agenda on track so we can succeed for the American people.”

The interview happened July 27th, and Donald Trump praised Scaramucci’s handling of it, saying he ‘loved’ it.

I don’t feel I need to explain how disgusting it is to have a senior White House official speaking this way to a reporter, about his coworkers, in a public setting, and having the president himself respond with approval. Especially when these leakers are only leaking information that the American people are usually pretty upset to hear about. Trump’s administration blatantly wants to be able to operate shadily behind closed doors with only people who can be trusted to keep quiet. If that is achieved, the next three and a half years are even more frightening than the last six months.

But the alternative, barring some sort of social awakening for which we missed the opportunity long before November of 2016, was Hillary Clinton. And in that case I imagine shady dealings behind closed doors with only people who would keep quiet would’ve hit the ground running on Inauguration Day. So I have no ideas to offer for a political solution here. It’s all fucked. They’re all fucked and those of us still adhering to the ideology of these fucked people are also all fucked.

The ideas I have are social. Economical. Maybe spiritual. And they start at the place that I began this rant: Are you content where you are? And not just content in the sense of feeling fine with where you are in life, but I mean if you die in ten minutes, and there’s no time to do anything but call your parents (you probably won’t even do that), can you accept what your life was? Can you rest easy leaving behind whatever it is you’ve created and destroyed in your time here? Have you even made an impact, or are all those ideas to do so just thoughts that will never come to fruition? Did you even try to make something of this life? Or are you right where you’re supposed to be? Do you feel that your choices have led you here, or your submission to authority? Now my questions are getting more presumptive. I believe it is usually the case that we do not choose our paths according to our free will. We follow the guidelines of society. We fear stepping outside of them into alternative lifestyles because then our peers shame us. Because everyone is a drone and the divinity of our emotions is managed and manipulated to make it emotionally difficult to chase whatever outside the box plans we want to have for ourselves.

My point to connect the politics with the hippie shit is this: why the fuck are we powerless individuals doing anything we’re “supposed” to do under the guidelines of a society led by gross, vulgar people like Trump, Clinton, and Scaramucci? The NRA had a recent controversial ad criticizing liberals for violent protest, making protestors out to be the horrifying members of society that we need guns to protect ourselves from. I’m not a supporter of violence. I believe we have these supercomputer brains so we can logically determine solutions, and not to develop better ways to hurt people. But when I read an Anthony Scaramucci interview and then hear about someone throwing a few bricks through windows, I think, “Well… Yeah.” If there’s an argument for more guns, it’s more likely to be that we need protection from the people to whom the NRA makes multimillion dollar campaign contributions. *Cough* Donald Trump *Cough* *Cough*

We’re broken. People, society, institutions, the planet. It’s easy to see that whatever we’re doing with this place is not natural, but by our own design. Look at how much forest floor is now covered with buildings instead of trees. What I expect people to do is keep doing the same shit. Go to work, buy Chipotle for dinner, and watch Lip Sync Battle and whatever else you have on your DVR until it’s time to fall asleep. But it’s these actions, the “normal” actions we’re “supposed” to be taking, that allow for such gross people to be in charge and continue breaking their own rules with little to no consequence. Go publicly call your boss a ‘fucking paranoid Schizophrenic’ and see if your other boss ‘loves’ it.

What I want people to do is nothing that’s expected of them. I do not condone violence, but it will happen as more and more people realize that their entire life has been defrauded. Better reactions than violence are to seize the means of production, create something that will outlive you in others’ memories, unify people to love and trust each other, and live in ways that others must rely on you as you rely on them. Your freedom, this value that the constitution vows to protect, has been taken by the very power structure pledging to preserve it. So take it back and break the rules as much as you can. That’s the only way we’re ever getting anywhere worthy of contentment.

[thesoulpatch-blog1]

Please Just Be Nice

I set out on this blog to try to define spirituality and apply it to the real world. There’s an evident lacking of the soul everywhere you go. But I think the most annoying part about spirituality—the thing that makes it so easy to forget about—is that it is completely and utterly intangible. Who the hell knows what spirituality is? We’re all just these weird intelligent apes, and our consciousness is a big joke. We’re just smart enough to be self-aware, but so unfathomably far from being smart enough to understand the universe we live in. There are dimensions we can’t transcend, and several more we aren’t even aware of. We can’t perceive them. It has to be a joke being played on us by the universe. If you can’t understand the humor of it, you’re probably really sad. Spirituality is just the word we use to define the things beyond our understanding, but from a human standpoint, they truly cannot be defined.

I think the important part of all that is to find humor in what you can’t know. The universe is synonymous with whatever God is. We can’t really understand either one because they are the same thing. God has given us just a little piece of heaven by allowing us to live and breathe, and I’m pretty confident that it’s the only heaven that exists. If this is all the heaven we get, do you think we’re doing what we’re supposed to with it? Regardless of political, religious, or whatever ideology you try to live by, there are human beings that you have hateful thoughts about every day. There’s no room for that here. You’ve brought hell right through the pearly gates with every judgment you make. By embracing anger and ill-will, you diminish the meaning of getting to be a human. You crush the essence of spirituality with hate, and hate comes in all forms, not just blatantly.

It feels to me like most humans can justify thinking less of another human. We base this on things like drugs, shitty jobs, going to college or not, what you wear, where you live, diving deeper until we get to things like religion, sexuality, or skin color. There are stigmas in the air wherever we go, and we all have them in our heads. If we want racism or homophobia or Xenophobia to end, we have to end ALL hate. No more discrimination; there can only be empathy. That must be universal. We can only reap what we sow. I believe we live in a society that conditions us to behave in hateful, selfish ways. Being selfish is the way to succeed on Earth right now. There is no such thing as a human being that is better or worse than any other human being. Some humans make poorer decisions than others, but no one makes the right decision every time. We must empathize. Not criticize.

I guess my point (and this seems so futile) is to love until you die. We are smart and powerful beings who can do more for this world than anything else on it. And here we are, a couple million years into our time, and we kill each other over oil and emit way too much carbon dioxide. I would assume that most humans who aren’t rich or powerful desire changes to the big picture. Donald Trump was elected by proposing an agenda for the everyday American, preaching that they had been forgotten in Washington. Realistically, that problem is all-inclusive and worldwide. Once we have the means to be cozy in our lives, we forget about everyone but ourselves. America isn’t screwed because of Washington Elites, it’s screwed because we allowed normal fucking humans to take powerful offices, and they submit to their own desires first. You and I are no better than those monsters. We were just never fortunate enough to hold power like theirs.

Once you realize that being human means fucking up all the time, living life gets way more fun. You can forgive others for fucking up without even blinking an eye. You can go without dwelling on your own fuck ups, just learning from them and moving on. Humans have more control over their emotions than they want to believe. You get angry or sad because somewhere in your brain, you’ve justified it. There are instructions in your own psychology that explain to you when to be upset about something. As humans, we have the power to rewrite those instructions in our head. I grew up around some angry adults. Their first response in the face of any adversity was to yell and behave irrationally. Even as a child, I knew that people like that were crazy. But look out into the world, and deep within yourself, and it starts to make sense how people end up so bitter and miserable. We don’t care about anyone but ourselves. It is the natural, animalistic instinct within us all to get our own first. But we’re not just apes; we’re by far the smartest creatures on the planet. We can use our superior brains to overpower our animal instincts if we take in and apply all the knowledge we can. That’s what is divine about us. That’s what should let you know that our species brings a little piece of God into this world. It’s what tells me spirituality is real, even if I can’t ever comprehend it.

In an evolutionary perspective, we are just another animal. Our DNA is read the same as that of a rat. But we know we aren’t just animals. There’s something special about humans. It’s not our ability to make money and buy nice things. That’s what we built our entire society around, and I hope to see those ideals begin to crumble in my lifetime. What’s special about us is our divine ability to make change for ourselves and others. At any point in your life, you can drop it all and move across the world. Get a new job. Go without a job. Run off with a significant other. Disappear into solitude forever. Join the Peace Corps. Join ISIS. Do a bunch of drugs. Try to cure cancer. There is nothing that can physically stop you from any of that. At any moment, you could take a 180 and do whatever the fuck you want, whether it’s productive or not. You are divine. We all are. The only thing that really stops us is that idea of productivity. If you’re not eventually making money on your plan, then what’s the point?

The only success in life is contentment. We’re sold that heaven is up there, waiting for the good people, but if you don’t live life a certain way, you don’t get to go. We get conned into being miserable at work for 40+ hours a week because maybe there’s a heaven waiting for us; maybe it gets better someday. To be blunt, it doesn’t. You just die. Dying is the worst thing you’ll have to do in your life. It’ll probably hurt. You’ll probably be terrified. You’ll think of all the people you can never see again. You’ll be more vulnerable than ever. And that should scare the hell out of you. So much so that it changes the way you live your life. We’re all going to die and then it’s just over. So why didn’t you ever take that 180 and go the direction you really wanted to? It’s probably because it would have received too much criticism, it seemed impractical, or just wasn’t as “successful” a life as you thought you had to live.

Stop degrading people because they choose to use their divinity differently than you. We’re all allowed to do whatever the fuck we want; this place belongs to none of us. It’s just our playground. Most of us are not educated in a way that even allows us to properly use our divinity. By negatively judging a person, it does not matter why, you have perpetuated the toxic lifestyle that makes people as fucked up as they are. People who are capable of understanding this have to fight to create a world where everyone can live by it. Let your emotions take a back seat to your concern for others’ contentment. I know only like 6 people read this, but I would say this group, including myself, consists of Americans more entitled than we should be. We have much more than we deserve. We have all the means of being content. So become content first; do whatever that takes, even if it means a 180 in your life. But that’s all you get. If you want to ever feel any better than content—happy, perhaps, you must bring contentment to others’ lives where it is lacked and fulfill your soul. In every scenario you’re in, you’re probably affecting someone else in some way. Try to imagine being the people your actions affect, and your actions will take a shape that benefits all those around you. That’s all empathy is.

To wrap up, just be nice to each other God dammit. Finding humor in the very things that terrify or upset us is the key to life. I don’t care who stole who’s boyfriend, who’s a drug addict, who hasn’t showered in a week, who cut who off on the interstate, we’re all just people. The humans who are most coveted in the hearts of others are those who can look past all the bullshit and be universally kind; maybe even laugh about adversity. Let your soul win out before your desire for Earthly pleasures, and we’ll start changing the world before you know it.

[thesoulpatch-blog1]

This is just one part of a weekly podcast that a couple friends of mine do. I strongly recommend checking out all their content on newcult.org or on the New Cult Youtube channel, but this episode really spoke to me and I hope it has a similar effect on you.

[thesoulpatch-blog1]

We’re Probably Fucked

It’s been a tough, tough week for the Trump administration. Trump asked National Security Council Head Michael Flynn to resign and he complied. This came after reports that Flynn may have illegally discussed Russian sanctions with Russian leaders when he visited the Kremlin during the transition period. When asked, Sean Spicer denied that he had done this because it was requested by then-president-elect Trump. Spicer also adamantly denied that the sanctions were discussed when asked about it last month, and this guy has had no shortage of other lies spewed out of his mouth in the White House press room. But let’s not hold that against him; he’s just doing his job as Donald Trump’s puppet. If it is true that Trump directed Flynn to break the law, Trump may very well be guilty of treason for putting the interests of Russia before the interests of America. This is grounds for impeachment, and a crime serious enough to remove the Vice President and many other officials in the administration from office upon impeachment as well. 

It was Flynn’s job to brief the president daily about all possible foreign threats. His removal came two days before Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came to visit the White House, and it was likely that Trump was not provided all of the information he needed for this meeting amid the chaos within Flynn’s department. Their news conference seemed to portray that, because Trump’s answers were his usual non-specific, passive answers and Netanyahu’s were graceful and convincing. Netanyahu is perceived around the world as a master manipulator, and it would come as no surprise if he dominated the meeting between the two. Israel’s greatest enemy is Iran, whose greatest ally is Russia. Trump claims he will maintain excellent relations with both Israel and Russia, but I think the knot of alliances there tells the tale of how impossible that will be. This is without even touching on the contrast of American/Russian interests in Syria, Iraq, and other Middle-Eastern nations. Unless, of course, Trump is completely clueless and submits to the demands of both countries without much considering the consequences. It seems as easy as waving a check in his face to get him to comply with anything. 

Flynn’s resignation also came just days after North Korea launched yet another successful ballistic missile test. These missiles are almost definitely being tested to carry a nuclear bomb, and are rapidly getting more and more advanced. By the time North Korea attempts an attack, most likely beginning with South Korea or Japan, their missiles may be untraceable, and thus unable to be shot down by the massive amount of U.S. defense systems put in place for this exact reason. The U.S. has tried for years through many different presidential administrations to put enough pressure on Korea to stop these tests, but has failed time and time again. There seems to be no right answer in how to stop their speedy progress. Trump certainly doesn’t have the answers either.

My point: the world is a pot that’s about to boil over right now, and Trump is a pot that boils over when you make fun of his tweets. He is an extremely dangerous person to be leading America through these times. But we got exactly what we deserve. Our narcissism, action in self-interest, and lack of empathy for everyone around us grew and grew until it embodied itself in our president. There are somehow still people who support this nutcase, some probably because the economy is creating the illusion of massive growth, but that’s a whole new piece of writing for another day. But others still support him out of sheer ignorance or intolerance. In order to really believe in his policies thus far, you have to be in denial about climate change (trust me, the scientists know more than us), believe that non-American people don’t deserve the same rights as us, or maybe you just really liked The Apprentice. I mentioned that Trump may have entered impeachment-worthy territory. Calls for his impeachment are coming from all around the globe, and petitions in America are reaching some pretty staggering amounts of signatures. But this doesn’t even begin to address the problem. We’re still fucked. 

Regardless of your stance on Trump, this is your fault too. Maybe you didn’t vote. Maybe you think America has always upheld and acted on the values in the Constitution until recently and didn’t investigate that. Maybe you’re willing to say you just don’t fucking care. I heard a man in a restaurant yesterday saying “I don’t want to hear about Trump anymore, I just want to get back to my life.” Well, buddy, this is the life we made for ourselves and now you have to face it. There are so few genuinely good people in the world. We are doused in corrupt Evangelical ideology no matter what religious views we hold. We’re good so that we can call ourselves good, and hope that people see it. Be good because it’s the right thing to do. The band I play in was banned from performing at a house because of our “religious and political overtones.” What was said was that if you don’t believe in love and compassion, whether you call it Jesus, Allah, or something else, you’re fucked. We also mentioned that we were in a gentrified neighborhood, and the house we were in was stolen from a poor family just over a decade ago, and they probably didn’t like that either.  I’m not angry that we were shamed for this. I’m not even surprised. But it saddens me. Those people really are fucked. You can’t talk about anything real or meaningful unless you create your own platform to do so, and that’s exactly what we’re intending to do. It’s what I’m trying to do with this blog. I don’t give a shit about playing at that house, because we can play shows in our own house. But billions of people in the world don’t have the means to create their own platform to speak from. No one hears about their problems; no one wants to. Fuck you for allowing that to happen. I’m not innocent; it took a long time for me to come around to the reality our thoughts and actions create for others. I still struggle with this. It’s a long road to recovery when you’re surrounded by bullshit that encourages you to forget about others’ problems and indulge in your own. 

So here we are. The threat of nuclear warfare increases by the day. The global economy is on the brink of collapse. Innocent people are killed by the political agendas of our country and others all of the time. And we still go to work every day. We still pay our taxes. We still give our paychecks back to the corporations that enslaved us. When anything gets in the way of our ability to enjoy ourselves, we bitch about it on Twitter. We ban the band that made us think about that for a few minutes because those thoughts are fucking terrifying. Let me assure you: those thoughts are real. They are eminent. And just as our asshole behavior has embodied itself in an asshole president, the loneliness and sorrow associated with being an asshole will become reality for all of us too. Hide for as long as you want. But The Spirit knows what is right, no matter how hard you repress it. Let your soul consume you instead of the bullshit of the world. You are only in control of your own actions. People don’t take into consideration what this really means.

Don’t waste your energy being angry at those who oppose you. Use it to brighten the darkness. Respond to anger and opposition with unconditional love. Emotions are much more of a choice than we tend to believe. Donald Trump is delusional because he chooses anger over love. Almost everyone is just as delusional for the same reason. You’re going to have to give up your cushy American lifestyle soon. You can choose to do so, or you can see it taken from you and be left with nowhere to go. Don’t burn all your bridges. We’re all going to need to rely on each other. And as it stands, I’m scared as hell to be relying on you people. Surround yourself with people you can trust, and if you don’t have any of those, allow me to extend my hand to you. I know that drastic change always seems impossible. It’s human nature to grow accustomed and assume things will always be a certain way. But the timeline of history lets us know that nothing will ever be permanent. That includes your job, your house, your family, and your life. It also includes the American empire, capitalism, and the system of beliefs that currently dominates our society. So before you brush me off as crazy, and I very well may be, consider the end game for yourself. Where are you going? How easily can that plan be thwarted? What do you do if everything falls apart? What happens to you if I’m right? We don’t ask enough questions. So start asking them everywhere you go, because I think everything we believe and act on is a lie, and that’s why our souls are dead. It’s time for the revival.

[thesoulpatch-blog1]

The Muslim Ban

It was a statement of Trump’s campaign that struck both fear and excitement around the nation in December 2015: “Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what is going on.” The statement was altered and clarified many different ways before Trump was elected, but what seemed clear throughout the process was that we had an eventual president calling to ban an entire region of people based on their religion. It was all on the grounds of making America “safe again.” Even Mike Pence, the Vice fucking President, condemned this idea when it was first proposed. Americans are quick to be fearful of the Muslim people because of the “radical Islamic terrorism” which endangers each and every one of us every day. Right? A lot of people like to talk about this topic without a full understanding of all the variables in the equation. So let’s dig into the justification of this Muslim ban, which has recently been deemed illegal by federal judges and overturned, at least for now. And it is a Muslim ban, because that’s what it was called through the entire campaign, and that’s what Trump asked his advisers how to implement legally. Don’t let recent statements persuade you to believe it is anything else. He called it a Muslim ban up until he couldn’t do so legally anymore. On that note, let’s talk about the Middle-East. 

There are 7 countries affected by Trump’s anti-immigration executive order. Yemen, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Somalia, Sudan, and Libya make up the lucky bunch. This list includes some of the poorest and most oppressed nations in the world. The most heartbreaking member of the list must be Syria. Syria has been continuously demolished by its own civil war for years now. There are a wide range of estimates, but it seems there have been anywhere from 400,000-500,000 civilian deaths in Syria, possibly even more. This is just the body count of the innocent. This does not take into account the soldiers who have fought and died for either side. Here in America, it’s difficult to imagine the real emotional toll of living in your apartment with all your kids one day and then having it collapse on top of you, killing everyone you love the next. We still cry because two buildings fell down fifteen years ago. But issues like this are what the Syrian people are facing every day. It’s easy to toss this out of our minds and go to work every day when we attribute this violence to the bad people who live in caves and praise Allah, but in Syria, that is so far from the case. These killings are not religious, they are political. Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad is not the only person terrorizing these civilian areas. They are facing just as much wrath from Russian and American bombings. We are terrorists to these people, and they’re the ones who actually live in danger of ISIS. But ISIS doesn’t come close to being the biggest problem. 

Syria is not alone. All seven nations included in the ban are under their own threat of violent terrorism, and it’s not all radical Islam doing the killing. The U.S. dropped somewhere around 3 bombs a day in 2016, sprawled out all over that part of the world. Under Obama, many of these bombs were being shot from drones, his weapon of choice. The Intercept released ‘The Drone Papers’ in 2015, revealing the process the government must go through to justify and go through with a drone strike. Unfortunately, it’s about as simple as that last sentence. They identify a target, sending a portfolio on the potential target up through the chain of command, eventually to be seen by the president. When speaking publicly about these strikes, the Obama administration has stated that they are only used in the case of an imminent threat. There is no clear legislature that defines what an “imminent threat” or even an “assassination” is, so there is no one checking the executive branch on the grounds of these killings to ensure their legality. Once the president has approved a strike, it is my understanding that the military has 60 days to conduct it. Then onto step two: blow the motherfucker up. Now let’s use some common sense here. Bombs don’t just kill one person. But all the justification we need to drop a bomb is that it will kill one target whom one branch of government has deemed imminently dangerous to our nation. The victims of this drone policy, or rather this assassination policy, were found to be about 90% innocent civilians. A November 2014 study revealed that in targeting 41 “imminent threats”, drone strikes killed 1,147 people, and didn’t even take out all 41 targets. Many dead innocents were children. This policy is encompassing of how the U.S. approaches our issues in the Middle-East. We are able to brush off human lives as “collateral damage,” even if we don’t achieve our primary goal.

Trump’s first military move as president was a raid in Yemen. There is a flood of inconsistency with this story, as the Trump administration refuses to acknowledge that they didn’t kill the guy they went for, and has done everything they can to deny and repress reports of innocent death. At first, it was reported to be wildly successful; killing targets, finding intel, and at the expense of only one Navy SEAL. This was what was included in CNN’s initial report. We came to find that as many as 30 civilians were killed, many of them children. One was an 8 year-old girl that I’m sure you’ve heard about by now, Nawar al-Awlaki. She was shot through the neck and bled out over the course of two hours. Imagine living like that. We put on North Face jackets to leave our precisely 69 degree houses and bitch about the cold to everyone we come in contact with that day. That little girl got shot in the fucking neck and got left there for two hours to die. She wasn’t even the only child to suffer a deadly fate that day. That’s life for millions of people around the globe, and we are perpetuating that way of life in the Middle-East every day. Tell me again about how sad you are, emo kids. Americans know nothing about struggle. I would expect a Muslim from one of these travel-banned nations to be offended and enraged by an American just talking about how to handle the problems in their home country. We don’t know anything about what it’s like to live like these people we look down upon. We’re so entitled and airheaded that we consider computer documents that might tell us something about al-Qaeda to be more important than the lives of those children and our own soldier. Trump denies that this mission was anything but a success. We have no right to tell them they can’t flee here because some Americans might get hurt by a terrorist who slips through the cracks.

So how did we get to be so ignorant and hateful toward an entire people, who think, breathe, and consciously exist just like the rest of us? We sold our souls to the devil (the devil, of course, being Dick Cheney). Let’s get this 9/11 thing out of the way; you can call it conspiracy, an inside job, Bush did it, whatever, but the facts are that the government was uncomfortably selective in what the 9/11 Commission could report to the public, a lot of FBI and CIA data was destroyed, and the official government report does not address dozens and dozens of issues that contradict what the 9/11 Commission says happened. I don’t know what the hell happened, but America absolutely needed it to happen to convince the public that we needed to invade. It wouldn’t be our first staged terrorist attack to advance a political or economic agenda. Check out Part Two of the first Zeitgeist movie if you really need convinced. You should probably just watch the whole thing; it might (and should) change your life. 

Americans were petrified by 9/11. It was the first “foreign attack” on U.S. soil since Pearl Harbor, and al-Qaeda isn’t a nation that we can just declare war on. But we sure tried. This is a tactic that Bush would not be the first to use. All over the world and all throughout history, leaders have stricken fear into their people in order to reduce their freedoms (see Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, etc.) Bush created or reorganized 263 government organizations geared toward protecting us from terrorism, all with a disturbing amount of power to overstep boundaries of privacy on the grounds that you may be a terrorist. It’s the same tactic as McCarthyism from the 50’s. Terrorism is the new Communism.

We went to war with Iraq because Bush convinced the public that Sadaam had weapons of mass destruction, and because he was sympathizing with terrorists, and neither of these things were entirely true. Dick Cheney once said in reference to Iraq’s imaginary WMDs, “If there is even a 1% chance … we must treat it as an absolute certainty.” This is a crucial ideological difference we should all have with this douchebag. You don’t murder millions of innocent people on a 1% chance that their leaders might kill millions of innocent people. Remember, we are the only country in the world to ever actually use a nuclear weapon. We are hypocrites. The government estimate is that we killed about 1 million Iraqis. Independent organizations have estimates ranging all the way up to 12 million. America is a terrorist nation. A War on Terrorism is a war on ourselves. Even Barrack Obama, the liberals’ knight in shining armor, doubled down and continued Bush’s intrusive national security policies, wreaking havoc on the same innocent groups of people. We are living in dystopia, and it’s time to get pissed off and stand up for these people. They are our brothers and sisters, no matter what they believe. A crucial element of the War on Terrorism is that the American people stay behind it, blind to what they’re actually fighting. 

Trump’s current foreign policies are the most clearly fear-tactical since Bush’s 9/11 aftermath, as he has needed absolutely no concrete evidence to support them. This Muslim Ban has been justified by the current administration as necessary for the safety of Americans. “… THE SAFETY OF OUR NATION IS AT STAKE,” tweeted the president after judges reversed the executive order. The reason wars between real nations are possible is because they organize armies of thousands of people and put them on a battlefield against each other. Terrorism is not organized in such a way. Terrorism is stealthy and secretive. Terrorism is a tactic, and you cannot declare war on a tactic. If we were truly interested in stopping worldwide terrorism, we wouldn’t be tallying 90% civilian deaths in our drone strikes. These are human beings we’re talking about. Have you ever met a human being that wouldn’t vow to destroy the people who killed their entire family, regardless of how they justify it? These people aren’t thinking, “It’s alright that so many of my friends and neighbors are dead, because they killed a man who posed a real threat to many more people.” Most of the time, we have no way to be sure if these men we’re targeting will ever be successful in killing people at all. These people see their civilization be destroyed by bombs, killing their families, ruining their lives, and when they have nothing left because we took it from them, they have no choice but to turn against us. On the anniversary of Sadaam Hussein’s execution in December, I read some takes from Iraqi citizens reflecting on that day. No one expressed support of Sadaam, all were willing to acknowledge that he was a corrupt, evil, tyrannical dictator. But most of them still preferred life under his rule to life in Iraq now. Even normal, non-radical citizens concede that America destabilized their country, and created more problems than it solved. They expressed feelings like despair and anger from watching him die. Under Sadaam, you were probably poor, but always safe so long as you didn’t speak out against him. Now, there is constant violence and the closest thing to a functioning government in Iraq is ISIS. 

This isn’t to say there aren’t some grave dangers to the world in the Middle-East. In the beheading videos of American journalists, ISIS members relayed the message that these executions were the fault of the American people and our president for continuing our onslaught in their home nations. This holds weight, and those men probably would not have been killed if the bombings had stopped. ISIS had one simple request: stop all military operations in the area. Withdraw all forces. This is too easy a solution though, because we should also have a moral issue with stepping back and allowing a radical religious group (of any denomination, doesn’t matter that they’re Muslim) to take over and force their ideals upon people at the threat of death. Christians will make a point to say that Islam is a violent and unforgiving religion, and the reason these groups are like this is simply because they’re Muslim, but that’s a load of shit. Read the Old Testament; it’s pretty fucking brutal. These people aren’t violent because they want to be. They’re violent because we’ve created an incredibly dangerous environment for them to grow up and live in. They know nothing but brutality and pain. Americans are hateful when their Wendy’s order gets messed up. You bet your ass they’d be violent if they lived in Iraq.

The solution for peace in the Middle-East seems it will have to be mostly political, but there will be fighting from outside forces. Hell, peace isn’t coming until at least a while after we’ve invaded Iran, which two former U.S. security officials have recently deemed “highly likely” to occur in 2017. Unfortunately, I am not the mastermind who can devise such a solution. It’s going to take many great minds working together and acknowledging all the facts, and our current world diplomats aren’t yet willing to make that happen. You may know that the Middle-East is the richest place in the world when it comes to oil. You may also know that U.S. businesses and elected officials have made some good money off of the oil we’ve obtained from these countries in which we’re fighting terrorism. Some of the great oil empires of the world lie in Iraq, Iran, and Syria. We’ve already helped to completely derail and destabilize two of those three nations, and the third is only a matter of time if we stay this ignorant. We’re putting profit above the lives of foreigners. We’re putting it before the freedom of our own citizens. But it stops working if we look over there and see what’s really happening. 

Ultimately, we’re far from finding the answers to solve these problems. All we can do right now is point out the issues to the people around us. These people don’t kill because they’re Islamic. The only difference that matters between Americans and the people of the Middle-East is that we’ve created a violent way of life for them. They have no choice but to take part in violence. We now have a president that advocated killing the families of terrorists while on the campaign trail. We don’t get to be surprised that he’s doing exactly that, especially when it’s been easy for the past two presidents to do the same with little to no public backlash. We can be disgusted. But we should first be disgusted with ourselves for not caring more for others. 

Most of us live in a bubblegum fantasy here in America. We are so self-involved that minor inconveniences trigger emotions that should be reserved for when our families get blown up. For that reason, it’s impossible for us to imagine our families actually being blown up, and thus impossible to empathize with the people our nation terrorizes. Just like the people of the Middle-East, we are a product of our surroundings. From 2003 to 2014, 80 Americans were killed by radical Islamic terrorism, 36 of those on U.S. soil. In that time, it’s nearly impossible to accurately count the millions of Middle-Eastern people killed by our activities and the resulting chains of events. Things like the Syrian Civil War are not entirely our fault, but implementing a policy to ban refugees from Syria and surrounding countries contributes to the hatred of America and the rise of more violent radicals. Not to mention the deaths of innocent people that could’ve been saved. These are people, just like us, and they want to live in a safe place without constant fear of death, just like us. The vetting processes are much more extensive than Trump will allow us to believe, and from 1975 to 2015, with over 300 million entries of refugees and immigrants from these 7 nations, three individuals associated with terrorism have entered. They killed no one. The argument that these people coming in may be dangerous is poorly grounded, but even if it was valid, does that matter? Do 80 American lives hold the same value as millions of others? Are we truly more important simply because we’re American? If you can really believe that, then I think your soul is already dead. 

We must awaken to the tyranny of our leaders. Public opinion does overwhelmingly oppose Trump’s ban, and that is reassuring. But I don’t think many of us are ready to open up to really addressing the problems the Middle-Eastern people face. If you want the suffering to end for these people, you must make changes to stop perpetuating the violence. Political activism is a great first step. Learn everything you can about the issues important to you. Get out and tell others about them. Go vote in every election. Pay attention to congressmen and track their records. Be aware of who it is you’re voting for, no matter the office for which they’re running. Chuck Schumer, a democratic senator from New York, publicly cried during a speech addressing the ban and called on Trump and his fellow Republicans to bring an end to this. Chuck Schumer voted in favor of the Iraq War. Chuck Schumer raised no questions during the Obama administration’s dirty dealings in these countries. Chuck Schumer is crying now without acknowledging that there’s blood on his hands, and that seems very representative of what the American people do every day. Our country is only a terrorist nation because we allow it to be. The government is only empowered because we allow it to be. Our leaders have created a society where mass murder can be justified, and that is precisely the reason The Spirit is dead. The People must now stand up to this, and I hope that something you’ve read here can inspire you to take part.

[thesoulpatch-blog1]

You’re Insignificant And That’s Okay

In the greater context of the universe, we are nothing. Absolutely nothing. You are just a collection of atoms filling a minuscule portion of a much larger collection of atoms, occupying an even more minuscule portion of our entire universe. Maybe I've watched too much Cosmos, but I feel that the world hasn't seen enough of this information, and many who could see it would reject scientific fact because it didn't align with their ideology. In terms of space, time, gravity, and light, the human experience is extremely limited and uninformed. Reality is far beyond what we can perceive. I'm fascinated by the concept of a black hole. It is but a massive star, like all others in our universe, but with a gravitational pull so powerful that nothing can escape it, including light. Gravity so great it can disrupt the reality of space and time within itself. There may in fact be portals to other places in the universe, or perhaps even portals to different universes within these spectacular stars. Who can say that we aren't just a secondary universe created within a black hole of another universe? What if our universe isn't even THE universe?

 Makes you feel smaller, yes? Almost meaningless, I would hope. Because you are, and so am I. We are no more than the smartest apes on one planet in one galaxy out of 100 billion in our one universe, and there might be more of those. Do not search for your meaning in terms of the outside world. Do not assume there is a man in the sky who has absolved you of wrongdoing as long as you pledge your allegiance to him, do not assume that you are entitled to anything, and most importantly, do not assume that you matter in this place. The Earth is just one tiny piece of the greater void we're floating in. Our physical being is worthless. However, something spectacular and intangible happens within each of us.

 The Spirit is what breathes into us the beauty of life. It whispers to us in our darkest of times, begging us to see the light in all of this. This meaningless existence of ours is the greatest gift ever given. Is life not incredible when provided the means to be? As Americans, we're generally spoiled people. We get to experience life with Chipotle and Walmart. We find false fulfillment in these bullshit experiences while many go without the basic necessities of life in our own country and around the world. The greatest human experience of all is when your soul touches another; it is when you change a life, and that life changes yours. No matter how slight the change, this is a magnificent occurrence. Even those condemned to the greatest depths of poverty can understand this phenomenon, and feel the love of God when it happens.

 Money and possession are fake concepts. They do not exist to the universe, they only exist to us. But as humans, we control this planet, and are in position to say that we will no longer adhere to unreal ideas. I cannot tell you that we were created intelligently, or even intentionally, but what is undeniably true is that we are here. We exist. We live and breathe, like so many other forms of life on our planet and perhaps in the universe. Whatever forces conspired for our existence did not intend for us to disrupt the natural order. There is no other life force subject to income inequality and poverty. There's no such thing as a poor fish. There's nothing that can belong to a gorilla. You could say that these concepts are what separate humans from animals, keeping us more civilized, and to that I would ask you to look around. Are we a civilized creature? We are the most violent species to exist on Earth, and kill more of our own kind than any before us. The basis of this violence is nothing but false realities that we are forced to accept as the law. There are few true laws in nature, as the universe is infinite and constantly changing. Nothing is ever truly at rest; everything is always in motion without exception. This is one actual law of the universe.

 Apply these ideas to the things we talk about with each other every day. I would bet a hefty amount (it's all fake anyway) that your life has never been changed by telling someone what you get on your Subway sandwich, or that your favorite movie is Forrest Gump, but that's the kind of shit we love to talk about. Humans who came long before our time decided that our reality would be based around possessiveness. Maybe it was intentional to work toward the idea of a New World Order and enslave the human race, or maybe it has been a chain of honest mistakes by people trying to create a better world. Either way, if we want to continue bettering our planet, it's time for these concepts to go away. You own nothing. Nothing in the world can be quantified with monetary value. The Enemy is capitalizing on capital as the greatest killer of The Spirit.

 Now consider world politics. If money isn't real, and everything on the Earth belongs to everyone, then what the hell are these policies we're arguing about? We are deeply divided and sometimes unable to communicate based on our beliefs in this department. I believe this is orchestrated. Having some form of wealth allows for a select few to be the elites at the expense of all others. Keeping people talking about bullshit and arguing about issues related to money allows for the elites to stay elites, because we stay completely unaware of the real problems plaguing us. Money makes us feel good. Having more than our neighbors makes us feel good, as if we are doing well for ourselves. But the physical objects manifested before us mean nothing, and possessing them means nothing. We will all succumb to Earth's gravity one final time someday. When we do, we will lose everything that we once thought was our personal property. It will ultimately be given back to the universe when we lose it, so it was a waste of time to take it away from the universe at all.

 This ideology is what I believe will be the driving force in the upcoming changes of the world. The world elites have sided with The Enemy for too long, because they are able to replace their own souls with money and objects. The majority of us do not have that privilege, but that's okay. Because when the elites die, they take a wicked DMT trip on which I believe they must confront their demons, and meet face to face with their tattered soul. We all take that trip in our final moment. It should be a moment of bliss and celebration. You cannot achieve that if you have not invested your life's value in the right places. The People have been oppressed without even knowing it throughout all of documented history. But The Spirit has known. The Spirit has always known, and it is angry with us.

 It seems we are afraid to confront our own spirits, because we know of their disappointment deep down. We feel the guilt of our actions subconsciously. Humans are the most intelligent beings on the planet. Maybe we're the most intelligent in the universe. We know damn well what's right for ourselves, because we are good creatures who know goodness from evil. But when the rulers of the world distort reality, and teach us that we are a bad creature who knows nothing and needs guidance, we will not achieve our potential. When we are surrounded by evil that makes us feel good, we will not understand how to better ourselves or the world. Do not partake in this evil, my friends. The good feelings it brings are fleeting. It cannot compare to the greatness of embracing The Spirit and denouncing The Enemy. We're going to a much brighter place, but there's an ocean of darkness and bullshit to wade through first. We can only cross it together. You will meet your soul someday. I hope it loves you as much as I do.

[thesoulpatch-blog1]

Make Your Own Happiness

I tend to think like an American sometimes. I get bummed out and pissed off over minuscule things, even knowing how worthless I am in the grand scheme. It’s a natural response when you grow up as fortunately as I did. I listened to a pastor’s sermon on the radio the other day, and was exposed to a perspective I have not heard in a long time. I heard an example of someone, from whom I drastically differ, explaining the way to inner peace. I began listening skeptically. After all, I did end up changing the radio channel when a host listed the two well-known abortion stances as “pro-life and pro-abortion” multiple times. But I digress, the pastor had something to say that meant something to me. He described inner peace not as always being happy, but to always rejoice in the glory of God. Allow me to paraphrase: Bad things will come, for the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. When it is the latter, you don’t have to jump up and down, laugh and cheer, or even so much as smile. Cry, let it out, but rejoice in the glory of the lord, for with him you will prevail through your loss and hardship. He went on to mention our tendencies to blame each other for our own shortcomings and insufficiencies. He referenced the way the bible explains that God hates ideas; never does it say he resents any human beings. I wish I knew the bible well enough to know if this is disputable, but I’ll take the pastor’s word for it. God hates sin, not sinners. This was my favorite point to be made, because this is a concept that is necessary to apply to ourselves in the present.

I think there was truth to the first part of the sermon. I know I fundamentally disagree with this man because when he refers to God, he’s referring to a deity who looks like us that lives in the sky somewhere, but I understand God as the very essence of spirituality. God is what humanity has in common. But if we can put aside arguments about what God is, it is appropriate to say that we can thank God for our lives even in dark times. The pastor alluded to Job, the once wealthy man in the bible who lost everything, including his 10 children. Job did not celebrate his losses by any means, but his faith in the lord did not falter. He did not get angry, and he did not place blame. He simply acknowledged that God had given him the enriched life he was fortunate enough to live, and so God could not be blamed for retrieving it. He rejoiced in the fact that he was still breathing.

This is obviously an extreme example, but I think the message is applicable. How many of us feel genuinely upset or angry with someone, including whatever God is, for something that does not merit that response? I would imagine we all do it multiple times every single day. When we average Americans face our first world hardships day to day, we must rejoice in the fact that we are here on this wonderful day in this wonderful age. God has given us The Spirit as a gift and I believe it can only be taken away from us by evil. Let it live and prosper despite the fact that your steak is medium instead of medium well. Stop giving a damn about the meaningless inconveniences we face every day by remembering that they don’t matter and neither do you. Place your meaning elsewhere.

This leads me to my feelings about the second part of the sermon. God hates sin, not sinners. I believe we can find our meaning by remembering this phrase. God is love, God is the goodness of the human race, and God is what we all share. No one is deprived of God, for it’s a force that lies within all of us. We all have souls, even those who have slaughtered theirs. We tend to keep them secondary to our anger over meaningless bullshit though, and this is what needs to stop. We hurt and kill each other over some crazy shit, and usually have no regard for the emotions of others if our own are hurting us. Step one is remembering to rejoice in our unpleasant times. Place no blame; only accept that loss is synonymous with life. Our blame is usually misplaced, but if we can refrain from placing it at all, we will be aware of who truly did something wrong or hurtful. If it turns out that someone has done something wrong, we must remember not to condemn the person, but to condemn the idea. Don’t condemn the racist, condemn the concept of race. Don’t condemn the hateful Catholic, condemn the churches. Don’t condemn the rapist, condemn the exploitation of sex throughout our entire society. But most of all, do not condemn those who blindly support The Enemy. Condemn The Enemy itself and the ideas they perpetuate to keep so many people blind. Don’t judge your neighbor. Instead, adjust your own life to ensure you don’t embody ideas that you wish to condemn. It’s not to say those who commit acts that hurt others do not deserve punishment. But I believe we’ll feel appropriately punished based on the actions we must atone for when awakening to the truth. If Brock Turner someday becomes aware of all the suffering in the world and how he contributed to it, and accepts that people who did what he did are shitty people, he will feel as shitty as he is. This promotes change from within, and that’s ultimately what The People need to transform the world.

When keeping in mind that we live in a world that thrives on people believing false realities, it becomes easy to see how the world has ended up the way it has. Powerful people stay powerful by oppressing masses of weaker people, usually with financially based strategies, and that’s just how it is. They get away with it because they keep ideas floating around that cause us to think and act selfishly and stupidly, hardly ever concerned with what’s going on outside of whatever reality we’re convinced to adhere to. It’s beautiful. It’s genius. You don’t always have to oppress people with violence and theft. You can oppress them with ideas that make them kill and steal from each other. We see it every day, and the way to reverse this aspect of our modern age is to stop hating each other, and instead hating the ideas and people that divide us—The Enemy. We are no different from one another in any way that matters. For that reason alone, love until you’re not around to love anymore. Love everyone you come in contact with and be disappointed about those you were not fortunate enough to meet. Every human being is spectacular, but in a world where The Spirit is so threatened, it’s easy to forget why. If we can remember, our relations with each other will greatly improve, and our ability to unify and take the world back for The People will come to light.

[thesoulpatch-blog1]

Intro to Spirituality

Spirituality is a complex word. It means many different things at once and is a concept that all of humanity must bear. We will never understand what it means in our lifetime, and likely not even in death. To me, spirituality is what makes one human. The fact that every man and woman has a spiritual experience in their time on Earth is what lets me know that we are equals. We’re one big school of fish. We’ll never escape the depths we dragged our spirits into in the world we created. We see massive amounts of violence, poverty, and hatred everywhere we look. Those things bear weight on our souls each and every day. But our souls can be uplifted just as easily through love and compassion from our neighbors. We cannot forget what love can do. We cannot forget to continue doing the uplifting things we do every day. But our world is ultimately attempting to kill spirituality, and thus kill every human to someday walk on this sacred ground. I think the time has come to focus on thwarting that plan.

Even some of the axioms of our culture have hateful implications. We assume pink is a girl’s color and boys can’t play with dolls. We tend to be confused when women have short hair. For some reason, a cop playing basketball with black children is worthy of going viral, met with sounds of praise for a cop who just wasn’t racist. Oh, look! A cop who likes black kids! See, now it’s okay that Tamir Rice died, because this other cop isn’t a racist. The problem isn’t racist cops, the problem is a racist assumption being made in the first place. For example, the assumption that a 12 year old black boy out late in the city must be committing crimes and so you pull a gun on him. I once lived with a black man from the Bay area who referred to being stopped by the police as “getting a WWB (Walking While Black).” He had been stopped and accused of crimes he did not commit multiple times while just walking down the street, and multiple more when behind the wheel. If you deny the reality of police bias, you are contributing to the racism ingrained in our society and thus our brains. We have willingly accepted these hateful assumptions as truth, and it has ruined us in so many ways. Our spirits are starting from square one at this point in history, but we can better things for the future. It begins with forgetting everything we know. We have lived in a world geared toward killing the spirit and we have believed in it. It’s time to begin being skeptical of the things we know. We can and must begin believing in something new. Whether it be Christ, Allah, or anything else, we’re all talking about the same thing. It’s love and compassion, and we can’t make any progress if we don’t believe in that.

Whether we like it or not, one of the world’s most drastic changes is coming. It is a very dark place we will enter. Perhaps the darkest of dark ages. There is a pool of ignorance that our nation is drowning in deeper than we can fathom. We are fooled constantly by those who have benefited and profited from our lack of awareness of the world around us. Americans have no say in many of the things they claim to be passionate about. We are so entitled that we take that entitlement as inherent. Entitlement has bred nationalism of a spectacular degree. Even those on the rational side of the aisle are there for the wrong reasons. So where do we go from here?

Firstly, we go spiraling downward into the abyss we have dug ourselves. Only when we reach the bottom can we search for materials to build our way out. When we each hit rock bottom after spending so much time in the clouds, the time of enlightenment will be upon us. It’s easy in a time like this to place blame elsewhere. Establishment, billionaire class, immigrants, Republicans, Democrats, terrorists, poor people, and most importantly, anyone but one’s self. But the (hopefully) temporary struggle of humanity is the fault of humanity itself, and no one person is absolved of blame. This chapter of our world’s timeline is the result of the entirety of that timeline so far. I don’t have to tell you the specific actions necessary to save yourself, because if you’re a positive contribution to the world that will rise from the ashes, you’ll simply know the right actions when they are upon you.

Preventing this disaster truly was as simple as doing the right thing, but rarely does the right thing feel good. In order to rebuild a world that we can all share peacefully, we all must do the right thing time and time again. That means hardship beyond the hardship. It means that when you go from having everything to having nothing to having a little, you must share what little you have with those who still have nothing, whether they had anything to begin with or not. Your personal window of opportunity may open long before many others, but you can’t go through it until it is big enough for everyone to come with you. There are some that will not understand this. They will try to climb the ladder out of the abyss before we have built a sturdy one. And they will likely fall to their death. We cannot create a world anything like this one if we hope for it to flourish. A world like our current one can only lead to the same demise we’re about to experience.

In this time of hardship, we only have each other. Those who wish to be saved will join a community of love and compassion for your fellow human and your planet, knowing that is the only true security where we’re heading. Those who are left behind will choose another path, and it is with great sorrow that we must condemn them. The rapture is coming, but it’s not as simple as the godly people disappearing to heaven one day. Heaven is earned, and heaven is achievable only in our hearts. Those who do not strive for a heavenly life for all are those who will be cast into eternal damnation. The simplest advice I can offer to save oneself is to begin to live with unconditional honesty, integrity, and to ask yourself at every turn: “What would Jesus do?” The answer is not as simple as we’d like to believe. But if we can apply that question to every aspect of the world around us and answer it honestly, then we will prosper as a species. The kingdom of heaven is upon us. We must come to truly know our souls to achieve it. But you won’t do that thumping a bible.

We intend to link the political and social aspects of our world to the concept of spirituality. Humanity is hurting because humanity stopped believing in itself. But the world that caused that phenomenon is about to be killed by the spirit. The spirit is complex. It holds immense power. The spirit is truly the greatest creation of the known universe. Whatever the spirit is, it is the answer to our existence. It is why we’re here. You cannot keep it at bay forever, and the time is coming for it to break its chains. These are not chains that have bounded us, but chains we have submitted to. We accepted hateful assumptions to be inherently true and allowed them to shape how society treats its members. The oppressed will not stay that way. Those who believe in the spirit will rise against those who beg for the chains; those are the people who believe we are evil creatures. But the spirit is good and only good. If you want to live life, actually live it, you will embrace the spirit. You will condemn the words of anyone who claims we need controlled to be good. Control and false truths have raped us. We have collectively lost what’s made us human.

I believe that all major events can be connected to the battle between the spirit and our current society. I think this point in time has identified three important players: The Spirit, The People, and The Enemy. The Spirit is what I've rambled about this whole time, and I hope I have conveyed what I believe it can be. The Enemy is any energy, idea, or life force that beats down the spirit and discourages its existence. The People are simply the prize to be won. Our physical being. We can be taken by The Spirit and allow real freedom for ourselves and our descendants, or we can watch The Enemy prevail and essentially, or literally, enslave the human population. Be honest with yourself and others, spread love everywhere you go, and learn everything you can. Times are changing, and we can only fix this place by doing the right thing every chance we get.