The Price of Entertainment

A Recognition of Our State of War

“I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.” - Albert Einstein


I believe we are now in the midst of that battle with our eyes closed. It is only through deep searching of my self and study that I see. I was awoken out of desperation and I hope that many of you who feel the same air of strife building up won't hide away in this time of need. Because I hardly know what to do other than take a stand and teach others to do the same thing.

I've learned that I cannot change the world on my own, but I've had to carry my own burden on my own. I've put too much hope in the idea that there would be more men who prescribed to the Ideals that I had been taught in the service; Integrity First, Service Before Self, Excellence in All We Do. I've put too much faith that men will stand up and do what is right in our time of need.  They have failed us all.

Part of my struggle has been me trying to understand why much of the world has been turned upside down, inside out, around, and through, whatever it has been that I once believed made up reality. I know exactly what I've done and who I am. Much of my problems have been also in trying to reconcile that. Living in a broken body has forced me to face many thing, most especially my own mortality and the limits of my own strength.

I turned back to the ways of my ancestors, feeling drawn to the natural beauty of the world.  I had once tried to escape through entertainment and video games.  That combined with drinking helped me fight back the nightmares that plagued me by placing them in scenarios that I could control. However, it became an addiction because it was my only tool that I could use. That war within myself became my primary focus. Escaping it became my primary purpose.

Growing up I had always been told about the "War of the Soul" between God and The Adversary. Stories of Angels and Demons, principalities and powers, beyond human keen, with us caught directly in the middle. I had once been told that it was literally real and then turned away from those beliefs. Now, after studying many religions and faiths, I understand that it is simply a different vision of the war of the self within.

I was talking about mythology with a Jehovah's Witness the other day, and telling him why I've been drawn to the myths and legends of my ancestors as opposed to the Biblical Word I grew up with. To me the stories are all trying to tell us the same thing. The Nature of Man. That's it. But one thing that bothered me was the disdain that was shown towards the actual myths that I was talking about. He had just watched Thor: Ragnarok, and he was excited to hear some of the stories that our ancestors believed. He commented about how ridiculous it is to believe that "nonsense."

The other day I made the public claim that I'm an "Alchemist." I can find no other term that best describes my spiritual practices that isn't cluttered by dogma and the mystical crap that I like. As much as I love abstraction, I love to have practicality as well to balance it out. I approach my spiritual practice with intent and observation, visualizing the invisible part of our selves a a chemical mixture to change and grow that which lay within. It's fucking science of the soul.

Which there is a ton of lore out there. So much so that Hollywood has made entertainment of the things that used to be stories to teach us about our own humanity and what is important to us for wholeness. I worship the Norse god Tyr, not because I believe he is real, but because I understand the principles of War and Honor and Law, and have dedicated myself to the understanding of those in a spiritual context. Tyr, as far as I can tell, is simply another aspect of god. Jehovah, Allah, Brahman... whatever. Tyr was the Father God of All in European Lore, before Odin took his place. He appears everywhere in every mythos.

I won't get into those details, but I have loved reconnecting not only with my Norse ancestry, but my Celtic and North American Indigenous ones as well. And I have most especially loved studying and learning about the Warrior cultures of the world, especially the East, and their philosophies of energy and consciousness. I feel like my disability pay is for me to help contribute to a solution for the problems that plague our society today. I'm not rich in resources, but I am in knowledge and wisdom, and I would rather have that than gold or jewels.

Reconciling growing up as a teacher's son and the grandson of a wrestling coach and the great-grandson of a preacher, has been frustratingly difficult. But I have to say if it wasn't for the stories any myths that we tell ourselves I would have been lost as most. Worse so because I would have known better.

The price for our entertainment is that we forget how it reflects upon our deepest selves. How those are mind seeds that are planted in the soil of our psyche.  They can be weeds and poisonous, but also tools that challenge our growth in new and exciting ways.

Ragnarok is called the twilight of the gods because those ideal representations that they are avatars of are killed off by the illusion of the world, the terrible wolf within, and bitter death, herself. The illusion circles the world, the wolf is chained, and death is trapped in her abode until the finale. The gods cannot escape, with all their power, so what hope does mankind have?

What hope does a lone an broken soldier who was denied Heaven's gate have? I have the stories. I have experience in fighting away the darkness within. I have knowledge of what it's like to be overwhelmed with despair and hate and fear, the poisons that eat away at the mind and heart.  I have direct knowledge and experience in interacting with the muckymucks of the world and I find them lacking because they have no heart. No soul.

The price for spending our existence in entertainment is that we lose our humanity. I say that as somebody who once misplaced mine.