Ring

Sometimes, and I will add the cautionary pejorative of sometimes actually referring to right now, one must do the very thing that scares him or her the most. One must stand up and stare into the eyes of the monster that we have created and ask for permission to engage. What I have found along the ruff and rocky timeline of my experience is that the answer is always yes, of course you can. Let’s get it on.

This is shadow boxing in a full length three dimensional mirror. It isn’t an ogre, demon or fascist wanna-be dictator we step into the ring with, it is us versus us. Me versus me and an I for an I. We invent a thousand reasons why we shouldn’t, could never or would not willingly do the thing we have established as impossible. Colloquially we call this foe fear. Poetically, the face of fear. Street slang has called it being chicken well before the debate of reasons for crossings or who came first. The vast majority of us simply do not takes risks. The furthest we travel from our comfort zones is demanded by law or in an actual emergency. We will stay on the couch, attached by powerful adhesives to the big screen, even as fires approach, bombs drop and people we should care about are rounded-up, incarcerated, tortured and abused so thoroughly that death seems like an upgrade.

You realize that all this is taking place as we speak, no?

You realize that the metaphor of taking responsibility for your own health, fitness and ability to separate fact from fantasy, information from propaganda and truth from lies is not a metaphor at all but a call to arms. A challenge. For, as has been suggested, should you not form an opinion of your own, one will be appointed to you. Should you decide to not speak up when faced with the persecution, restriction, abuse, segregation or other violations of our social liberties IN 21ST CENTURY AMERICA, you have lost that important battle with your soul. You have made the choice of no choice and decided that it is a bridge too far and you’ll just sit this one out, thank you very much and please grab me a soda on your way back. By doing so you become complicit, an unwitting ally of the party hell-bent of controlling you, your body, your money and your vote.

I will fight to the death on this. If you intend to use hate, fear, anger, racism, xenophobia, bigotry, deceit, the Bible, the Koran, military might, deception or despair as ways and means to push an agenda of white supremacy, patriotism and nationalism, you will have to go through me first to get at my neighbor, (who is of course a black, homosexual, liberal, pro-choice Muslim intellectual.)

All this suggested with a simple solution.

DO THE HARD STUFF. Get used to it, up your game, practice it like there is no tomorrow. Relentlessly. Get tough. Man up and Cowgirl up.

This morning we climbed one hill in class. One. I addressed the need to continually monitor awareness and presence. Know where you are, preform a situation report every ten seconds or as often as necessary to keep your mind in perfect sync with the effort your body is producing. Call on your soul and ask for a special favor. See what develops. We can build from the intel. Keep after it. Find a flow state that will align the three regimental divisions of your personal army, your body, your mind and your spirit (spiritual weapons and tactics).  They are unbeatable together. Their separation is the enemy, it is the battle we fight and the face of that devil whom we step into the good fight with.

I know this can be scary. In all actuality we should not have to do it. It is supported to be Paradise. But we have been assailed by greed, corruption and the lust for power. We must be strong. We need to practice, to be prepared and ready when the bell rings sounding the start of the next round.

Ring.