Scavenger Hunt #46 - 4 - something BLUE

“If you figure a way to live without serving a master, any master, then let the rest of us know, will you? For you’d be the first person in the history of the world.”

I had to let this one sit for a while. And the more I think about it, the more I want to envision a world without pain. Without sorrow, or war. Without waking up in the morning and carrying with you every stone that's been thrown your way, every harsh narrative that chains you to the ground. And I how I wish that that world existed without the pressure of it to exist.

Because that's how wars are started. The pressure to be the best, to become whatever we imagine heaven feels like. And in our anxiousness, we assume that heaven is not already with us, in every stone, in every loss, in every smile after a fall. We do not trust ourselves to be happy because of these things. My life has gotten to be good, actually, despite a ton of terrible things happening to me lately that have left me feeling like I should be more depressed than ever before. But I don't. I'm happier and more clear-headed than I've been in years, and therefore something must be wrong.

It can't be that easy, can it? There is impending doom, I feel it in my bones.

Or so my foggy conception of fate and life tell me. But it haunts me. Even as my new smile is turned forward I have to press my back and curl my fingers against the fog of doubt. And that is when someone, or something, can creep in.

This film is an illustration of a process. That very word is embedded into every frame, every line of the script, and it is no coincidence that conversion is known as "processing" in The Cause. And the process is the same for nearly every major organization, be it religion, the mob, capitalism, or primary school: somebody tells you who you are, how things really are, and you accept it even as your inner world resists. No, they don't tell you. They suggest to you, in such a convincing way that it seems you've thought of it on your own, until you are supplying your own lies about yourself in order to please the maker of your misery. Until you believe it is not misery at all, but an unequivocal truth.

Another organization has this talent of reconception: abusers. And, truthfully, there is very nearly no going back from it. Unless they,

Slip up.

Play the game a little too well. A little too convinced of their own powers over you, they forget that abuse is only a matter of convincing someone that their exterior world is set in stone and that to survive that way must be followed. They never think twice about the interior world, even if they say it is their only concern. And that interior world...

It crafts daring escapes. Like wondering what it would be like... to punch the gas to this motorcycle to which you've stupidly been given the keys.

That world I've been thinking about? It doesn't exist, and it never will. The pain is worth it. The struggles are real, but they are yours. Nobody can cipher it out of you, can take it until it becomes theirs unless you let them. Our masters do not have to be men. They can be our very selves! Your feelings are valid, and they are precious. Priceless. There are more things in heaven and earth, my darlings, that are dreamt of in their philosophies. And they are all in you.

Now fucking punch it.