Where ignorance is our enemy, we must naturally poise ourselves to confront all individuals and institutions which seek to curtail the understanding and education of the population. Though let us not come to regard them as ‘puppet masters’ or by any other title which overstates their authority, knowledgeableness and intention, when they are naught but children in mind and spirit who lacked the proper guidance and are seeking their security from this life in whatever way they can manage.

Ignorance takes on a variety of forms which do not always resemble stereotypical stupidity. Oftentimes it will appear like a disregard for and demonization of knowledge, yes; but it may also appear as the tendency to disrespect the abstract and the unknown—an ignorance found even among our highest ranking scientists. And in the most dramatic of cases ignorance manifests as the ability to decimate thousands of innocent lives without any care for their humanity. This form of ignorance is often attributed to ‘evil’ and written off as an anomaly, yet no individual who contains a thorough and integrated understanding of the value of human life could willingly carry out such reprehensible acts and therefore it must be seen as relating to a lack of proper understanding. Sure, we may be tempted to write off some such instances as a problem of pathology rather than as a problem of education, especially when it brings relief to be able to say that these individuals who commit atrocities in our midst are structurally unlike ourselves, but I say we wait until after we have actually managed to pay proper mind to the education we provide to our population before making the call of what is and isn’t blindness, and what is simply a species living in darkness. Let’s first stop traumatizing our children before thinking we can successfully determine who is and isn’t actually afflicted with illness. That is why we are fools; and that is why my hope has not left me: because I know that humanity has not yet been given the chance to live among light; humanity, as a whole, has not yet caught a clear glimpse of itself in the mirror.

Awareness occurs on the localized level among individuals who, by sheer force of will, have gone against these standards of ignorance to confront their weaknesses and know themselves, and so it shall not be claimed that we are utterly lacking in real-world examples of success; but that awareness has yet to take over large populations, and in the event that that occurs we will surely enter a new age in which the old laws no longer seem relevant and new ideals seem suddenly feasible.


Even as I eagerly seek to remove the target off of human nature and reframe the war in our midst as one of knowledge and ignorance, I will not attempt to deny or exonerate the failures of our nominal leaders. The child who behaves as a fool shall be tried as a fool and the world must file its disgraces for the better of us all, though it must not be overlooked that such children lacked a suitable teacher, if they ever had one at all.

And that isn’t to insinuate that our history has been utterly devoid of suitable leaders. It would be irresponsible of me to make such a blanket statement in an attempt to bolster my point (especially when the concept of leadership spans beyond the realm of politics to include an array of fields and disciplines). However, it is reasonable to think, when inspecting the primitive systems in place, that our worthiest leaders have achieved their positions not so much as a result of such systems but in spite of them.

Those on whom we rely for guidance cannot be expected to aid the population when they, themselves, are consumed with their own unmet needs—not unlike the way in which the parents on whom we depend, as children, are often so dependent on us for their own sense of worth that they cannot possibly be for us a true provider, let alone a role model. I am not here to summarize the corruption in our midst. If you do not already see the trouble that we are in then this venture simply isn’t for you. Fortunately, the masses are not blind to the failures of our lawmakers who so often perceive themselves as operating outside of the laws which they, themselves, look to enforce upon the population. Yet why is it taking so long for us to conclude that so much of what we feel we must accept as a fact of life is not an innate part of existence but the product of mismanaged resources and misprioritization? It is time we stop blaming ‘nature’ when we seek to tame this ‘nature’ in every other aspect of life.

Our current way of life cannot sustain itself indefinitely, and the signs of an impending collapse are already showing. This standard of reality is not something that we are forced to accept. This standard of reality is not something against which we are powerless. It should be fought as any war and protested as any fault. So why is this not happening? Why have we settled for sickness? The masses gather to protest the likes of injustice and inconvenience all the time and in every corner of the globe, though little is being done to protest or counter the negligence and erosion of the human spirit which represents the gravest and most consequential injustice of all. So sinister is the nature of this process that we are deprived of the sense to even recognize our loss.

Sadly, the majority of individuals alive on this earth would appear incapable of reflecting upon the extent of their deprivation and only wish to be left alone to their fantasies after a long day at work and a nice cold glass of lethe. It is simply enough for them to believe in their freedom, and they don’t actually have to exercise it. We’ve no time to paddle or steer the boat when frantically attempting to dump out all the water and prevent submersion. And it’s such a harrowing idea, as we are kept in this perpetual mode of amortality: fighting forever to keep a life that hardly seems worth keeping (as it currently stands). It brings to mind the Maslowian pyramid which dictates that certain preconditions are often required for us to be able to tend to the spiritual dimensions of our person, as if it is some luxury only to be pursued by those of us who have managed to achieve a degree of physical and material security. Yet is this really a fundamental characteristic of existing on this earth? Is this really something we must accept as natural and ineluctable? That is what we’ve told ourselves... mostly as that’s what we’ve been told by those on whom we are forced to rely for our knowledge and security.

I have to think that so much of it comes back to our inability to conjure up an alternative scenario within our minds, whereas our current way of life is such that deprives us of the initiative to even question our circumstances. Nothing breeds complacency quicker than a perceived lack of options. This has been understood by politicians and religious leaders for millennia, who have put in great efforts to limit the perceived options of the masses through threats and misinformation that will force us to perceive all things outlying our standard and authorized mode of practice as being inherently flawed, dangerous or ‘sinful’—whatever that means. They have found a clever way to package up failure and inaction as victory, leveraging whatever semantic strategies they must in order to make it appeal to all of the varied demographics and their respective voids. For those who value intelligence, they will say that it goes against all sense to seek beyond that which is readily conceivable (or available) to us! To appeal to the timorous types who value their peace and security above all else they will pitch it so as to appear like the only safe option available, while everything else is as a violent oppressor coming for their throat! And for the more imaginative and spiritually-inclined types they will tie it all into some sick fairytale involving eternal stakes to where the population is unable to refuse without the threat of punishment and existential failure. But a weed by any other name...

It isn’t enough to see with clarity, when so many who have acknowledged the problems that plague our humanity remain skeptical, if not outright opposed to the idea that such problems are capable of being surmounted, leading thence to nihilistic resignation from which they are able to convince themselves that the goings-on of society do not concern them, or that society itself is their enemy. There once was a time when I, too, felt that way; though over the years I have come to see society less as some antagonistic hive mind and more as a gut being punished for the cravings of the tongue.

The revitalization and reclamation of our collective spirit is not at all beyond our means, nor is it unfathomably complex. It is simply the case that those who bear the greatest empathy and understanding commonly want little to do with a landscape so sick and resort to living out their lives in the margins of the page. Oh what a miserable fate it is, seeing as the people most qualified to lead our masses and raise our children seldom have the stomach to stick around and stand where they are needed.

Then let not the minority of us who grasp such catastrophe be silently passive—and least of all antagonistic—in our dealings with this sorry sphere, for do not we all share a common enemy in ignorance?