Why are we only tending to the symptoms and not the disease? Why are all the people who (supposedly) stand in favor of empathy and health always these **** whose interest in ‘love’ and ‘healing’ seems as no more than a thinly-disguised means of dissociating from uncomfortable thoughts and escaping a painful reality? Where are those, like myself, who are more active and militant when it comes to confronting these matters? Where are those who understand that healing this society will require us to go beyond the reactive and seek prevention? You want to save the rainforests and the polar caps? Then perhaps you should look beyond online petitions and social media posts which, if we’re being realistic, do virtually nothing apart from misleading others as to the steps which are necessary to take for the true healing of our sphere. It promotes a false sense of accomplishment. It promotes a false conception of influence. It makes a mockery of the power which we hold as individuals. Most so-called activism and social justice within the modern world is little more than virtue signaling and I’m honestly not sure that it’s helping anyone or anything on a grand scale—hence why I have sought to distance myself from the term and will often use ‘humilitarianism’ to imply something that is overall more focused and strategic in approach. Note that I am not saying to abandon these ‘traditional’ bases altogether, although it hardly makes sense to guard the jewelry while the main entrance is open wide and lacking suitable defense.

Mark my words: if you truly wish to help stop animal cruelty and child abuse and climate change or whatever be your protest, you must turn your attention to the foremost root of the problem—which, I would argue, relates to mental health (although you must know that I use this term to refer to more than just psychiatry and prescription meds and whatever else society envisions when hearing the term). We should instead be focused on getting emotional intelligence normalized within our society and having it upheld by our leaders who must make it their priority to keep us in touch with ourselves. Healthier people make healthier decisions. I am going to reiterate this a lot, because apparently it isn’t getting through to a population which persists in hating on its gut when it has become fat and bloated and diseased, while we ought to shift our attention unto the mouth: to the site in which the disease is entering. It is mandatory that we trace all things back to the root, breaking all down to its smallest indivisible particles, before dedicating (or wasting) our time and howls and charities to tackling it. Then will we see that nearly all problems that we face have a common point of origin.

Consider it within the context of illness, since while illness is often frightening, disorienting, and can easily leave us feeling overwhelmed and powerless—especially when our intent is to overcome the ordeal—it is often the case that a single deficiency is associated with dozens of symptoms, and by tackling that deficiency, a seemingly disproportionate amount of issues will clear right up. I say this merely to remind everyone that, while, modern society is evidently riddled with symptoms and sores, it would be wrong to assume that the issues are as multitudinous as the symptoms themselves. Some of the greatest changes in nature will require only the slightest behavioral shifts on our part; and if enough individuals commit themselves over a long enough period of time and with enough aggression then I have no doubt that the plates will fall into place.

Though it surely won’t come as easily as asking nicely, and I ain’t in the business of forcing anything upon others—not only as it undermines the agency of the individual, which is something whereof I care deeply and seek to uplift in all my dealings, but also because the use of force benefits no one in the end, creating for perverse and unnatural outcomes in psychology. Think of it as forcing medicine into the mouth of a child: it is liable to end in spit and shit and wailing fits and doesn’t actually change the way that the child approaches the matter of its well-being. Rather, it creates for negative associations which are liable to develop into grudges and neurotic complexes that are to be taken out on those who will one day come to rely on their guidance. We must not normalize cruelty, deprivation and suffering in our thoughts and our behaviors. Cruelty doesn’t work. It never did work and it never will work. Yea, there are those among us whose idea of success is akin to wealth and obeisance and I expect that they would have otherwise to say about the worth of force, though I am not so shallow as to rate peace by decibels and deference, opting to base my understanding of the health and success of the human population on its actual psychospiritual dimensions in the long-term, and I can confidently tell you that cruelty has never bred health.