I remember when I was a young lad. I yearned to be “old”, an adult. Free and unencumbered by the embrace of family and the restrictions of society. I knew, once I got there, the “secret” would be revealed and I’d have it made. Adults knew everything and I just had to get there and then, everything would be alright.
How wrong I was. There ain’t no Oz, Dorothy.
We all fall into the lie, the rut, the easy road of thinking that there is some magic way to be, to succeed, to happiness, to ruin, to heaven or the grave. There ain’t. The real truth is, we live, we fail, we succeed, we know a little, we don’t know so much - know mostly nothing at all.
Yet, the puppet masters play their games and behind the curtain make it seem that there are some secrets we “the people” need to learn and if we just do X or Y, if we just become or act like A, B or C - we’ll walk the yellow brick road and have it all.
Life, our education is all about rejecting this bill of goods. Not buying the snake oil. Refusing to put our heads on the pillow as commanded and live a waking life, asleep. Reject the narrative driven by so much self-interest and good intention. Be that religion, science, your teachers or your own family. We must all, one day, wake up to the fact, finally see, that you are being conned. He not busy being born, is a busy, dyin’
Man’s original virtue is dissent. His necessity to say, “No”. - Oscar Wilde
I wrote last time about how we are so bad at deception. This doesn’t mean we should just submit to this, shrug our shoulders and say - it is, what it is. No. We may be a Sisyphus but we still can struggle in our chains. It’s our only virtue and salvation, that struggle for justice and truth. Even if while the leg irons rattle.
I was first drawn towards journalism because it stood up for the principle and virtue of the 4th estate. Protecting people and calling out the emperors, telling others they wear no clothes. I tried my best but eventually became a poet. You have less people to answer to - actually nobody. And that’s suited me fine, even though nobody heard my cries from the cattle car, “the fire! the fire!”. Those versed in WW2 will know what I’m talking about.
A poet at their best, calls out the bluffers and the marketing mailing stuffers. They call out the con men and their bright packaging of everything. A poet stands there and like Dylan says that even the President of the United States, sometimes has to stand naked. It’s a call for equality, a pulling back of the curtain to show, to really paint the true picture that we are all so very equal. All in this struggle together. All the rest is made up.
If a judge didn’t wear his wig or robe, nobody would obey them. - Voltaire
I think of how much of our world is made up of many Oz figures, Frank Morgans, pulling levers and writing algorithms, hoping to rule the world before their curtain is pulled back. Before they are called out for the hubris, the ego puffed, hollow marshmallows, they are.
Example. ChatGPT. It isn’t a sentient, thinking, conscious being. It knows absolutely nothing. It’s just conning you with words, a trickster. A poet without a soul, a mouth without a brain. Pull back the curtain and it is just like the wizard, caught with its pants down. This joke of mine illustrates my point very well.
Examples. I watch Youtube every day. Got to stop. It is just an endless series of referrals to “experts” that shout out the magic secrets to everything. Make a million before your 23! Add 20 years to your life by doing this! Don’t buy anything, the world is going to hell tomorrow! So many, who know so much about what never will happen. But yeah, all experts. In education, you just publish paper and format it nice, stylize it, put in some references and write in the correct register and you are all-knowing. Haha. Dust in the academic solar wind.
I watched this Munk Debate about mainstream media. One of the arguments pro MSM is that media is still doing a good job and all those thinking they aren’t following facts and the truth, are conspiracists. That there isn’t a room out there where they all meet to decide on the messages they’ll send through society. Yet, there doesn’t need to be collusion, if these barons are all on the same wavelength, if money, not truth is pushing the message. The evidence is there for all to see - MSM is biased, is pushing agendas. Journalism has changed from news to opinions (dressed up like the news).
One more. Pharma can cure everything, just let us get ahold of our serial number, your RNA. A tweak here, a tweak there and we are set. Hey, if not, we got a pill for that! We know what we are doing, trust us. And yet, pull back the curtain and they are a bunch of hacks, profiteers, just making things up that diet, exercise, sensible living for the most part could do otherwise.
The wicked leader is he who the people despise. The good leader is he who the people revere. The great leader is he who the people say, we did it ourselves. Lao Tze
My point is … pull back the curtain. Learn to say “No” and be virtuous. It’s the only way to really live and be alive. Don’t trust anyone. Think, dig deeper, doubt. That’s what being a grown up is - it is not taking the easy road and just swallowing the lies and living the lies and settling for “everything will be alright so long as I keep following the instructions”. No.
Read Pinocchio. Be Walt’s version, not Collodi’s. Cut those strings, the strings that falsely bind you to the puppet masters that know nothing superior to you, that have only gained their control over you by entitlement and inheritance and money and naught else.
The worst way to defend our freedom is to let our leaders start taking away our freedoms! It is exactly during times like these [a national crisis] that we need more freedom of speech, a strong and critical press, and a citizenry that is not afraid to stand up and say that the emperor has no clothes. Michael Moore
Once I became an adult, I soon found out that adults didn’t have the key to the universe, even the city. The shit, they cried, they were confused as hell. Becoming an adult wasn’t about entering some secret knowledge society - no, it was about learning how to handle the adversity and beauty of life, in truth and authenticity and sincerity. It was about saying No to all the slick Willys out there and pulling back the curtain to let the light in and live in truth.
Word.
Here are some poems and posts where I use the same phrase in my writings, a constant refrain.
Pulling Back The Curtain