The Gift of the Antagonist

A Mirror for Self Reflection

Working class jobs come with their downsides. One of them is that I am regularly surrounded by knuckleheads. Even worse are people like myself who have moderate intelligence and figured out that we get a way better deal collecting blood blisters and trading dirty jokes than the "more successful" office-bound flora. That means there's no shortage of underachievers who consider themselves smarter than everyone else and imagine they will leave us all behind someday once they get around to doing some really amazing accomplishment that's going to bring them fame and fortune. Month after month passes without appreciable results, and gradually the walls of age close in as their grandiose dreams dry up and reality sets in.

They get a lot easier to deal with once they hit their first Saturn Return and learn some humility, but until then they have plenty of energy in their 20's and 30's and wear their bad habits like merit badges (often the result of affluent parents). Needless to say it can get kind of grating to be around them. I got stuck with one of those guys last week and seeing his name on the schedule crushed my expectations of smooth sailing through the long days ahead. Here comes the entitlement train. Choo choo!

Immediately I started developing a strategy to try and make it a more pleasant experience this time. It wasn't a conscious decision either, but more of a reflex like the way one instinctively handles a heavy tool with care while hanging off a piece of scaffolding and nobody below wearing hard hats. This guy has always been very sensitive to criticism even though he makes a lot of mistakes, so I purposefully told him that I wasn't going to breathe down his neck and did my best to keep the commander voice to a minimum. I also had a few barbs to throw out to keep him from getting too lippy. Most importantly I promised myself to not let him get under my skin and did my best to answer all his questions honestly, even if that meant some brutal honesty, and to explain things the best I could so that he could make his own informed decisions.

This actually worked out really well and besides a few hiccups we managed to have a pretty good day. He tested the boundaries and I mostly took it in stride while letting him know when he started to approach the limits of appropriateness. It was a far more respectful encounter than our previous jobs together, and without the distraction of my irritation something fascinating happened; I actually began to learn from him.

While often presenting himself as an unmotivated slacker, I noticed that a lot of the other workers really like him and observed the way he interacted with the rest of the crew. He usually tells lots of jokes and uses physicality to draw people in, and it was like holding up a mirror that allowed me to finally notice how often I get absorbed in the work and neglect to acknowledge the humans around me as more than a means to an end. Studying his patterns helped me develop more of a rapport than usual, and suddenly I was trying to see through the eyes of different people and noticing how they saw me. It wasn't flattering.

My cerebral nature comes off as cold and aloof even though I try my best to yuk it up a bit and keep the mood light. Part of this comes from hiding a side of myself from view. It can be lonely not being able to say what you are really thinking a lot of the time because you know people can't handle it, but that doesn't mean I can just treat them like things to be talked at until they go away. We all crave interaction and respect, but most of all we want someone to try and get out of their heads enough to understand us. Even if I can't expect that in return it doesn't mean I shouldn't try my best to share my powers of perception with others so that I can do a better job of meeting them where they are.

The reason I bring this up is because of other remarkable conversations I've had this past week, specifically with hardcore liberal friends who were recently convinced I must be some sort of Nazi Fascist Redneck for admitting that I found MAGA more appealing than the Deep State Suicide Squad. They woke up the day after the election to a very disappointing result, but unlike the on-screen meltdowns flooding the global bandwidth, something inside of them has begun to recognize that all the media-stoked panic was silly and a lot of stuff they believed in turned out to be shameless propaganda.

At first I thought they might be afraid I would be assigned as their prison camp guard and the uncharacteristic humility was just a way of scoring a few brownie points before the gates slam shut, but then my ultimate realization kicked in. The polls were completely wrong. The media was completely wrong. Their perception of who their enemy was turned out to be totally off the mark, and now they are starting to notice it. More than that, they are now searching for a better model of reality and are actually trying to understand where people like myself are coming from instead of shouting epithets at us in order to rack up virtue signal awards from their now-rapidly disintegrating totalitarian support network.

That's not saying they still can't be worked up into a fear state once again and set right back on the path of censorship, lockdowns, and reeducation camps. My guess, however, is that after so many people we all know have died suddenly it will be more difficult to jump-start the mass formation psychosis again. Now it's just a matter of how much denial they are able to tolerate before acknowledging their betrayal and moving into the anger phase.

For people like myself who were able to resist their immense pressure to comply this is a profound learning opportunity. Not only are we brutally aware how fragile the "civilized" world is and how quickly the people we know and love can turn into monsters, but trying to see through their eyes as they snap out of the pattern gives us clues of what to expect on the next step of our own spiritual advancement.

In the Bible humanity was cursed by eating the apple and gaining the knowledge of good and evil, but I'm starting to think that's a clever metaphor for seeking certainty in a universe that our tiny meat bucket brains will never be able to understand. Carbon-based life forms simply do not have the capacity to sense or interpret more than a microscopic sliver of reality, yet our evolutionary training has installed a deep yearning for security and belonging. The human experience is the ultimate Catch-22, and the only way out is to do our part of keeping the great evolution project rolling along by preparing ourselves for the next leg of the journey where we will have fewer biological needs and a bit more of a clue.

The techno-transhumanist utopia that became the obsession of Western Culture has embraced the lie that the promised land of certainty is achievable with enough gadgets and biological tampering. Seeking freedom by holding on to our prison bars is the definition of madness, and there's a really good reason the world looks so insane right about now.

My guess is that you also know at least one person who is waking up from the spell and has entered a curious state of openness and uncertainty that you would probably have written off as unthinkable two weeks ago. This is an unique opportunity for those who can put aside their own egos aside and fire up their observation powers. Precious few of us are living without delusions. That only comes from picking up all the necessary lessons of incarnate life and indicates the very long journey climbing out of the pit is almost over. Don't get too cocky, because most likely you and I still have a long way to go.

Instead of told-ya-so's and doubling down on Edgelordism, now is a great time to observe the discomforting initial state of of liberation that our kin are currently experiencing. If you can safely do so you can try gently coax them into the light in the same manner that you would want to be guided out of your delusions, and imagine how it will feel when we are finally ready to leave our own cave allegories behind.

Disclaimer:

While this moment provides tremendous opportunity for healing and reflection, unfortunately there are also severely deranged people out there who have been broken by the mass propaganda campaigns and are not responding very well to the rug getting pulled out from underneath them. Instead of asking the obvious questions they are doubling down on their delusions which makes them very dangerous. If someone displays any sort of hostility I would highly recommend giving them a wide berth in order to avoid unnecessary conflicts until they have a chance to cool down. There are already reports of post-election estrangements, threats, and actual violence up to and including murder. If you find yourself disinvited to a holiday gathering by someone who is still frothing mad then don't despair. Instead use it as an excuse to congregate with like-minded people who are interested in replacing our broken culture with something meaningful. Mental illness and cult psychology are curable but it requires Saint-like patience and a long term approach. Take care of your own needs first and only consider reaching out to someone in that state if you're absolutely sure that you have the time and energy to do so.