My dysfunctional, delusional and conspiracy-soaked parents told me all the time as I grew up, isolated and disallowed from having school or friends, that I needed to beware the world, that I must never trust others, that people were liars and crazy and that one day I would understand.
Now I do understand. After long-since having buried them all, I now know the truth they said would be so blessed and would “save” me. I now know the book they lived by was a book of ancient fairy tales with some good moral lessons and a lot of death and brutality. I know that they reason I was kept isolated was because they were mentally ill and in denial, I know that I was raised in a cult, not kept safe out in the wilderness. There will be no “second coming” there will be no “paradise” or apocalypse, I am not chosen or special other than the fact that I control my own life and destiny. And I know that THEY were the lying, crazy world that I must not trust. And there are so, so many like them still out there, to various degrees.
Honestly, taken in a vacuum it’s almost a biblical story in itself. That the hardest lesson is the one you have to learn on your own as you abandon literally everything you thought you knew and hoped for. That the real world is dark, and vast and cold and we live profoundly lonely lives, brief flashes of life that are gone in an instant as we cling to a mote of dust caught around a spark in the dark, and maybe we can choose to make our world better or we can choose to make our lives better or we can make the lives of others better and that’s it. We don’t get better options and they’re not mutually exclusive. If you’re not doing those things, you’re wasting time.
Remember being told not to believe everything you read? Remember being told to be skeptical of what you read in the media?
I definitely was. The people that told me that almost certainly voted Trump though. (They’re not nut job supporters, but lifelong R’s.)
My dysfunctional, delusional and conspiracy-soaked parents told me all the time as I grew up, isolated and disallowed from having school or friends, that I needed to beware the world, that I must never trust others, that people were liars and crazy and that one day I would understand.
Now I do understand. After long-since having buried them all, I now know the truth they said would be so blessed and would “save” me. I now know the book they lived by was a book of ancient fairy tales with some good moral lessons and a lot of death and brutality. I know that they reason I was kept isolated was because they were mentally ill and in denial, I know that I was raised in a cult, not kept safe out in the wilderness. There will be no “second coming” there will be no “paradise” or apocalypse, I am not chosen or special other than the fact that I control my own life and destiny. And I know that THEY were the lying, crazy world that I must not trust. And there are so, so many like them still out there, to various degrees.
Honestly, taken in a vacuum it’s almost a biblical story in itself. That the hardest lesson is the one you have to learn on your own as you abandon literally everything you thought you knew and hoped for. That the real world is dark, and vast and cold and we live profoundly lonely lives, brief flashes of life that are gone in an instant as we cling to a mote of dust caught around a spark in the dark, and maybe we can choose to make our world better or we can choose to make our lives better or we can make the lives of others better and that’s it. We don’t get better options and they’re not mutually exclusive. If you’re not doing those things, you’re wasting time.
You.
Do.
Not.
Have.
Time.
To.
Waste.
Beautifully said