A New Game: Building and Hope

Been pondering the word “hope” lately.

Honestly, it’s been really hard to hold on to. I’m really trying, and some days it’s there and there’s fire and passion that comes when connected to it. But most days it can feel like, “what’s the point?”

Mindset isn’t everything, and there is only so much “red pill” or whatever to pretend the outside isn’t real, or it’s just a simulation, or whatever. It’s there, it’s part of the equation and we can’t block our ears and lalalalala it away.

Doesn’t mean mindset isn’t important, it’s necessary or else the pain that’s all around will swallow us whole. Without it, it becomes easy to be manipulated or to want to just give up. Hell, it can be even with it. I see it all the time and I feel it. I have to continually check myself because it is that easy. Am I successful, not always-and probably even worse than I know. That crap is sneaky.

I get lost in rabbit holes describing how we’re not far away from becoming a dystopian hellscape that makes Orwell look like an optimist, and how there’s nothing we can do about it. It’s pretty easy to believe. I can’t logically see how it doesn’t happen at this point. One party has let their dark side completely consume it and the other is fine with it so long as they’re still receiving bribes and insider trading.

I’ve actually considered imploring those around me who are the most vulnerable to start planning how they intend to defend themselves and to start becoming proficient as hell with that because in my mind, the only answer is to take them out.

Not a bad idea to keep things in the back of our minds and have a plan, but it’s also me letting the “man” win to focus there.

Even stuff like the last sentence which I should probably delete, I’m not going to because I want to share the pattern here.

When I feel like I need to gear up and take on the world like I’m Frank Castle. That’s the feeling that comes through for me right now. The visual of just going through and fucking shit up and kicking ass feels intoxicatingly powerful. Sticking it to the man, making him feel the pain that the oppressed feel and rubbing his face in that ish. Vanquishing the evil. Bringing it to it’s knees and face to face with the lesson and breaking him with it.

Yeah, that feeling is addicting.

And yet, let’s go back in time and explore those instances in life where I gave into it and took on the “man”.

The feeling when I went in.

The feeling when I threw my punches.

How short that feeling lasted.

The feeling when I realized that no matter how hard the punch landed, you were outpowered, out muscled, outmaneuvered.

The feeling when I realized -far too late- that the backup I expected ran for the hills. They were right there to pump me up to enter the battlefield but when it came their moment to support me, they chose self-preservation and left me there to take the punishment.

The feeling when it became clear I was on my own.

The scars I continue to carry that remind me of the pain and punishment.

How it’s taught me to shut up because it’s no longer worth it. Because I’m tired of taking the world’s abuse no matter how much I KNOW I was right. Mostly.

How I’ve learned to believe that it doesn’t matter how right I was, and sometimes I started to wonder if I was really right in the first place.

Regardless, I took the fight to them outmanned on their turf, playing their game by their rules. They’re a hell of a lot better at it than I’ll ever be.

But that doesn’t mean be discouraged. It doesn’t mean that I just let them win.

I have to play a different game, one they don’t know how to play. They know how to win the games where I fight fire with fire. They know how to manipulate the system they created to isolate, ostracize, manipulate, and destroy.

Don’t play with them. Create my own game, and find those who want to play and bring their own spin to it, and who are just as excited about it as I am.

A new one where the possibility for building hope can be shown. Not told.

A game where others can see what I see.

A game where I don’t even concern myself with “the man” and I just do my thing.

Build castles, landscape, village, and ultimately create the world I dream of. One where we, the players of this game come up with our own rules of engagement.

This isn’t as easy as it sounds. The first instinct is to build a fortress because there’s still fear that they’re going to come and blow it all up. Yeah, they possibly will, especially if they decide to see it as a threat. But if all we’ve done is fortify it then what was the point in the first place? If that’s all we had, we’re still letting them in our psyches and indirectly letting “the man” create the rules again.

Build the world we want independent of them. Maybe they do destroy it. Just build it again. And again, and again. Keep doing it our way.

Let ’em throw the whole cavalry at us. That’s how we know we’re winning. Because now we’re affecting “the man”. Keep building. This will inspire people to keep building beyond me. And us. Build, build, build!

What is the world I want to create? Stop letting my head see how it’s impossible, or buying in to how I have to fight a longshot battle to earn my space to be acknowledged and my voice to be heard. That’s BS, for me and for anyone We all have a right to that space, no matter what. Sometimes we just have to stand in it anyway and just use it to build.

Coming back to the start, and revisiting the idea of losing hope, because the feeling of losing it is where we started in the first place.

It’s really easy to abandon hope and acquiesce to fear or it’s offspring hatred and outrage. We’re often mistaken about hope, however. Makes sense because we do what we learn based on what our senses and logic tell us.

Hope isn’t a thing that we can wait to be given.

Hope also isn’t a thing that we go and fight to take.

Hope is created.

Hope is built, sometimes from scratch.

Hope isn’t a response or reaction.

Hope is a choice.

Choose hope when everything tells us not to bother.

Choose hope when everyone thinks you’re nuts.

Choose hope when logic determines it to be pointless.

Choose hope when it may be dangerous.

The bastards can make it difficult and scary, but they cannot win when we keep building and rebuilding hope.

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