Francis Berger's Blog, page 131
March 14, 2020
The Only Distancing That Matters Now is System-Distancing
Social-distancing is a term used to describe the measures public health authorities and governments take in order to slow or stop the spread of a highly contagious disease. The term has become quite trendy during our current
birdemic
, and it has become one of the Establishment's weapons of choice during its swift and blatant imposition of totalitarian control these past few weeks.
Chances are you have been affected by at least one or, in most cases, several of these measures simultaneously in the past week or so. Very few people appear to like, understand, or support the rationale for these drastic actions, yet nearly all have passively accepted social-distancing as something that simply 'must be done'. Some people, many prominent, self-identified Christians among them, are demanding more social-distancing measures be taken.
Pundits and laymen the world over are stressing the necessity of social-distancing, but in my humble opinion the only distancing that truly matters in this place and time is System-distancing.
System-distancing involves measures taken to reduce or stop the spread of the evil System within one's own individual being and the hope that such action might help to reduce or stop the spread of the evil System in the greater world.
The extent to which people will be able to distance themselves from the System will depend on individual circumstances and individual outcomes will vary; nevertheless, I believe the effort must be made.
The most significant step any individual can take in this time and place is to sincerely acknowledge, once and for all, that the System, together with Establishment that runs it, is evil - meaning it is anti-God, anti-spiritual, anti-Truth, anti-Beauty, and anti-Goodness.
This simple acknowledgment doesn't seem like much, but it is incredibly significant. At its very core, it is the choice of good over evil; virtue over sin; truth over lies; courage over fear; reality over unreality; salvation over damnation; love over hate; and hope over despair.
Look at this way: The more we distance ourselves from the System, the closer we draw to God and Creation. Thus, this movement away is simultaneously a movement toward.
The Establishment has imposed social-distancing upon almost all of us; let's use the time wisely to distance ourselves from the Establishment and its System and close the distance between ourselves and God.
Chances are you have been affected by at least one or, in most cases, several of these measures simultaneously in the past week or so. Very few people appear to like, understand, or support the rationale for these drastic actions, yet nearly all have passively accepted social-distancing as something that simply 'must be done'. Some people, many prominent, self-identified Christians among them, are demanding more social-distancing measures be taken.
Pundits and laymen the world over are stressing the necessity of social-distancing, but in my humble opinion the only distancing that truly matters in this place and time is System-distancing.
System-distancing involves measures taken to reduce or stop the spread of the evil System within one's own individual being and the hope that such action might help to reduce or stop the spread of the evil System in the greater world.
The extent to which people will be able to distance themselves from the System will depend on individual circumstances and individual outcomes will vary; nevertheless, I believe the effort must be made.
The most significant step any individual can take in this time and place is to sincerely acknowledge, once and for all, that the System, together with Establishment that runs it, is evil - meaning it is anti-God, anti-spiritual, anti-Truth, anti-Beauty, and anti-Goodness.
This simple acknowledgment doesn't seem like much, but it is incredibly significant. At its very core, it is the choice of good over evil; virtue over sin; truth over lies; courage over fear; reality over unreality; salvation over damnation; love over hate; and hope over despair.
Look at this way: The more we distance ourselves from the System, the closer we draw to God and Creation. Thus, this movement away is simultaneously a movement toward.
The Establishment has imposed social-distancing upon almost all of us; let's use the time wisely to distance ourselves from the Establishment and its System and close the distance between ourselves and God.
March 13, 2020
What Are The Sources Of Your Thoughts and Motivations - Here, Now?
This question should always be at the forefront of our minds, but during times like these - times when the air around us drips with malicious psychological noise and demonic cues reinforced by the instinct to socially conform - it becomes imperative and indispensable.
To reiterate a point I have made countless times on this blog, we live in a world where the default setting is 'war all the time'. By war, I am referring primarily to spiritual war. As a result, everything we experience, either directly or vicariously, contains a spiritual element. These spiritual elements tend to play out in the material world through the attitudes, thoughts, and assumptions that fuel our actions and states of being.
The forces working against us aim to become the primary source of our thoughts and motivations. These forces appeal mainly to base emotions and false selves, and one of their objectives is to deaden our higher senses and stimulate our lower senses.
One trick is to get us to forget the spiritual in favor of the material in the seemingly rational name of well-being and survival. It's a devilish trick because it builds up a false sense of security - a false sense of security that is often only dispelled when the doom one has worked so hard to doggedly avoid becomes inescapable.
The old adage of no atheists on a crashing airplane springs to mind.
Yet doom may not come, nor must it be impending for the trick to work. In fact, the trick is far more effective if doom never really arrives because the smug, false sense of security can be sustained right until the non-doomsday end, thereby diminishing the chances of any sudden acknowledgements of error or sincere cries of repentance.
No, the trick works best if you can be convinced that you are doing the right thing, the prudent thing, the practical thing, the pragmatic thing, the responsible thing, the level-headed thing right up until the very end, whenever that end may be.
Now doing the right thing is always critical, especially during times like these, but we must be able to intuit and confirm, to the best of our ability, that the right thing we choose to do ultimately originates from thoughts and motivations inspired by the right source. If it does, we have nothing to fear. If it doesn't, then there is little chance that the right thing is really right. On the contrary, we can be assured the opposite is true.
Right thoughts and motivations leading to right action can only emerge from the right sources. Action from the wrong sources may seem right, prudent, practical, etc., but they never are, particularly from a spiritual perspective.
A little something to think about if you have recently felt the urge to load up an a year's supply of toilet paper or some other seemingly prudent notion.
What are the sources of these thoughts and motivations?
Are you certain these sources have your best interest at heart? Do they focus on crucial matters of pressing importance?
Or are they literally making an ass out of you?
To reiterate a point I have made countless times on this blog, we live in a world where the default setting is 'war all the time'. By war, I am referring primarily to spiritual war. As a result, everything we experience, either directly or vicariously, contains a spiritual element. These spiritual elements tend to play out in the material world through the attitudes, thoughts, and assumptions that fuel our actions and states of being.
The forces working against us aim to become the primary source of our thoughts and motivations. These forces appeal mainly to base emotions and false selves, and one of their objectives is to deaden our higher senses and stimulate our lower senses.
One trick is to get us to forget the spiritual in favor of the material in the seemingly rational name of well-being and survival. It's a devilish trick because it builds up a false sense of security - a false sense of security that is often only dispelled when the doom one has worked so hard to doggedly avoid becomes inescapable.
The old adage of no atheists on a crashing airplane springs to mind.
Yet doom may not come, nor must it be impending for the trick to work. In fact, the trick is far more effective if doom never really arrives because the smug, false sense of security can be sustained right until the non-doomsday end, thereby diminishing the chances of any sudden acknowledgements of error or sincere cries of repentance.
No, the trick works best if you can be convinced that you are doing the right thing, the prudent thing, the practical thing, the pragmatic thing, the responsible thing, the level-headed thing right up until the very end, whenever that end may be.
Now doing the right thing is always critical, especially during times like these, but we must be able to intuit and confirm, to the best of our ability, that the right thing we choose to do ultimately originates from thoughts and motivations inspired by the right source. If it does, we have nothing to fear. If it doesn't, then there is little chance that the right thing is really right. On the contrary, we can be assured the opposite is true.
Right thoughts and motivations leading to right action can only emerge from the right sources. Action from the wrong sources may seem right, prudent, practical, etc., but they never are, particularly from a spiritual perspective.
A little something to think about if you have recently felt the urge to load up an a year's supply of toilet paper or some other seemingly prudent notion.
What are the sources of these thoughts and motivations?
Are you certain these sources have your best interest at heart? Do they focus on crucial matters of pressing importance?
Or are they literally making an ass out of you?
Nautical Disaster: The Best "Dream" Song By A Canadian Rock Band
I suppose songs dealing with or describing dreams could be a genre all to itself. If it were, I would posit The Tragically Hip's Nautical Disaster as the best "dream" song ever written or, at bare minimum, the best ever written by a Canadian rock band. Yet as the title states, Nautical Disaster is more nightmare vision than dream, and the dreamscape the lyrics paint is both devastating and haunting. Though many debate the actual disaster being recounted in the song, lead singer Gord Downie apparently indicated the song dealt with the doomed German battleship Bismarck. What makes the song so eerie and unforgettable is its transition from dream to the waking world and the seamless metaphorical connection of the disaster nightmare to the end of a relationship.
The song features no chorus and can essentially be read as a prose poem or a short story, one packed with a number of memorable images and similes. Accordingly, the narrative effect remains even without the music.
I had this dream where I relished the fray and the screaming filled my head all day.
It was as though I had been spit here,
Settled in,
Into the pocket of a lighthouse on some rocky socket,
Off the coast of France, dear.
One afternoon,
Four thousand men died in the water here and five hundred more were thrashing madly as parasites might in your blood.
Now I was in a lifeboat designed for ten and ten only,
Anything that systematic would get you hated.
It's not a deal not a test nor a love of something fated.
(Death)
The selection was quick,
The crew was picked and those left in the water were kicked off our pant leg and we headed for home.
Then the dream ends when the phone rings,
You're doing alright he said it's out there most days and nights,
But only a fool would complain.
Anyway Susan, if you like,
Our conversation is as faint as a sound in my memory,
As those fingernails scratching on my hull.
But in my humble opinion, it is still only truly complete with the music.
Note added: Many dispute the Bismarck interpretation of the disaster described, mainly because the number of dead don't match the real event. Others point out the sinking of military vessels during wartime could hardly be classified as 'disasters.' Personally, I don't think a lack of connection to any real sinking makes the song less relevant or powerful. In fact, I prefer a fictitious nautical disaster in the song over any allusion to a real one.
March 12, 2020
The Importance of Perspective
How will Western people react when the world goes from all gain no pain to, seemingly, all pain no gain?
I asked this question in a post I published a month ago. I never would have thought that it would become so pertinent a mere four weeks later - yet it has.
I'm not sure how the current crisis will play out, but it is becoming rather evident that the world is going to experience a significant amount of pain over the next few weeks or months (at the very least).
So? How will people in the West react to this challenge?
How are you going to react to this challenge?
I'm not sure what others are doing, but I am focusing primarily on keeping the proper perspective.
I don't want to be a scaremonger, but the material world will most certainly recede in the coming weeks and months. I couldn't tell you to what extent, but I'm convinced no one will work their way through this without experiencing some degree of material loss and discomfort. Considering all the cancellations and closures, it has become practically inevitable. Which prompts a second question from that earlier post.
Will Western people be able to withstand economic disruptions, extended periods of unemployment, a possible increase in civic violence, and a meaningful decline in the overall comfort and quality of their material lives in the short term for the promise of something better, greater, and freer in the long-term?
Above all else, we must not lose perspective. Whatever happens over the coming weeks or months or beyond, we simply must not lost perspective.
We must not give into despair. We must not surrender to fear. We must not abandon ourselves to selfishness.
We must remember love. We must show courage. We must be willing to sacrifice if need be.
Will Western people gratefully sacrifice comfort and pleasure and welcome material pain in order to align their societies with Reality for spiritual gain? Or will Western people buckle under the physical disruptions and material deprivations the global elite unleash and, consequently, willingly surrender to the global agenda in an effort to regain the comforts and the pleasures they have lost?
I believe the coming weeks and months will be a period of intense learning for all of us. We have all been enrolled in a crash course - perhaps the most important crash course we could ever take.
We are meant to experience whatever is coming. It is part of our purpose and destiny. As such, good can arise from whatever we confront as long as we maintain the proper perspective.
We will be faced with many choices in the coming weeks and months.
We must pay attention and ensure we make the right ones.
I asked this question in a post I published a month ago. I never would have thought that it would become so pertinent a mere four weeks later - yet it has.
I'm not sure how the current crisis will play out, but it is becoming rather evident that the world is going to experience a significant amount of pain over the next few weeks or months (at the very least).
So? How will people in the West react to this challenge?
How are you going to react to this challenge?
I'm not sure what others are doing, but I am focusing primarily on keeping the proper perspective.
I don't want to be a scaremonger, but the material world will most certainly recede in the coming weeks and months. I couldn't tell you to what extent, but I'm convinced no one will work their way through this without experiencing some degree of material loss and discomfort. Considering all the cancellations and closures, it has become practically inevitable. Which prompts a second question from that earlier post.
Will Western people be able to withstand economic disruptions, extended periods of unemployment, a possible increase in civic violence, and a meaningful decline in the overall comfort and quality of their material lives in the short term for the promise of something better, greater, and freer in the long-term?
Above all else, we must not lose perspective. Whatever happens over the coming weeks or months or beyond, we simply must not lost perspective.
We must not give into despair. We must not surrender to fear. We must not abandon ourselves to selfishness.
We must remember love. We must show courage. We must be willing to sacrifice if need be.
Will Western people gratefully sacrifice comfort and pleasure and welcome material pain in order to align their societies with Reality for spiritual gain? Or will Western people buckle under the physical disruptions and material deprivations the global elite unleash and, consequently, willingly surrender to the global agenda in an effort to regain the comforts and the pleasures they have lost?
I believe the coming weeks and months will be a period of intense learning for all of us. We have all been enrolled in a crash course - perhaps the most important crash course we could ever take.
We are meant to experience whatever is coming. It is part of our purpose and destiny. As such, good can arise from whatever we confront as long as we maintain the proper perspective.
We will be faced with many choices in the coming weeks and months.
We must pay attention and ensure we make the right ones.
March 11, 2020
More System Is Not The Solution To An Apparently Faltering System
So the System appears to be faltering. How deep the apparent cracks run is anyone's guess. Whether these cracks were induced or incidental is not very important. Whatever the case, we appear to be in the reaction stage of the Hegelian problem-reaction-solution framework. Panic is gripping the world. Meltdowns and overreactions are everywhere. These meltdowns and overreactions are doing little more than stoking the fire. Demands to find a solution are rising up from the panic - and the bulk of these demands are being generated by and aimed at those who engineer and operate the System.
The solution the Establishment offers will likely come in the form of More System. Rather than learn from experience, people will likely demand, perhaps even beg the System for More System. The System, in turn, will eagerly supply the solution. It could come in the form of more stimulus to prop up and further inflate over-inflated asset bubbles. Or it could involve increased micro-surveillance. Or perhaps a shift to a cashless society to prevent the spread of germs via money. Or an extended ban on large public gatherings. Or some kind of interconnected, global response mechanism to ensure future threats are handled efficiently. Or it could be a combination of some or all of these things and many others on top of that.
The only solution the System will be willing to offer is More System. Of course, More System is no solution at all, and it is the last thing anyone should be embracing, let alone demanding.
But there it is.
The solution the Establishment offers will likely come in the form of More System. Rather than learn from experience, people will likely demand, perhaps even beg the System for More System. The System, in turn, will eagerly supply the solution. It could come in the form of more stimulus to prop up and further inflate over-inflated asset bubbles. Or it could involve increased micro-surveillance. Or perhaps a shift to a cashless society to prevent the spread of germs via money. Or an extended ban on large public gatherings. Or some kind of interconnected, global response mechanism to ensure future threats are handled efficiently. Or it could be a combination of some or all of these things and many others on top of that.
The only solution the System will be willing to offer is More System. Of course, More System is no solution at all, and it is the last thing anyone should be embracing, let alone demanding.
But there it is.
March 9, 2020
Attachment And Perspective
Christ and the Rich Young Ruler, Heinrich Hofmann, 1889
March 8, 2020
Listen All Y'All, It's A Sabotage
I've been up to my neck in translation jobs and other work these past few weeks, which means I haven't had much time to really ruminate about the spiralling "non-crisis crisis" or the "crisis that shouldn't be crisis" or whatever you could call the utterly irrational hysteria currently gripping the world.
My penfriend William James Tychonievich recently referred to it as a "shamdemic", which I find both clever and fitting. Call it what you will, something definitely appears to be brewing - something that will likely translate into some fairly seismic long-term shifts in our world.
Last week, for example, I was rather amused to find my local grocery store had all but run out of flour, rice, and other dry goods. Yesterday I was in a furniture store with my family purchasing a couch (we haven't had one since we bought our house four years ago). As I was paying for the couch, I noticed a little sign informing customers that some furniture items have been suspended due to supply chain problems originating in China.
This did not leave a deep impression on me as I stood at the counter, but after I arrived home I got to thinking about the economic implications of that little sign I had seen. The current global financial and economic system strikes me as sophisticated and complex, yet fragile and delicate. Everything depends on everything else. There appears to be very little margin for error. A small, seemingly insignificant problem could easily ripple across the whole network - become amplified and magnified. Set of a chain reaction. Topple dominos.
So sophisticated and complex. Yet so fragile and delicate.
And the powers that be seem quite intent on bringing it down. Now. I couldn't tell you to what degree or for what duration, but the way the hysteria is spinning out of control indicates that this might be the start of something big.
And over what? Over something that, in my uneducated opinion, should not even be making the news.
Yet there it is.
I am no economist, but I know enough about the voodoo our current witchdoctors have concocted to know that most of what accounts for the global economy is built on ravenous consumption fueled by Himalayan heaps of debt. I know enough about personal finance to understand that the average Westerner is one or two missed paychecks away from catastrophe. I know enough about business to comprehend that with the exception of small, family-run enterprises, no corporation on the planet will ever use its vast profits to help itself sail over stormy seas.
And against this backdrop, they have decided to terrorize and slowly shutdown the world. The consumption economy begins hemorrhaging the second consumers slow down. And consumers are being slowed down. By what? By something that shouldn't have even made the news. They are sabotaging the System they so painstakingly designed and profited from. The question is, to what end?
On one hand, I am making attempts to see the possible positive side of these rather baffling developments, but its hard to see a positive side when such blatant sabotage is clearly at play.
The purposive pursuit to end something usually indicates a desire to start something new. I feel no kinship for or affiliation to our current System. It is clearly an obstacle. A barrier. It needs to be dismantled and sent to the scrap yard in order for something better to emerge. But the dismantling I am seeing now will unlikely lead to anything better. More likely, it will lead to something worse.
And that is a possibility we must consider. A possibility I must consider, and will consider, the moment I get these translations done because I simply refuse to be swept up in this stupid tsunami engulfing the globe.
In the meantime, I am keeping my eyes open to every possibility, but I don't waste any time worrying or despairing about it.
Let them sabotage their System - but don't let them sabotage you.
My penfriend William James Tychonievich recently referred to it as a "shamdemic", which I find both clever and fitting. Call it what you will, something definitely appears to be brewing - something that will likely translate into some fairly seismic long-term shifts in our world.
Last week, for example, I was rather amused to find my local grocery store had all but run out of flour, rice, and other dry goods. Yesterday I was in a furniture store with my family purchasing a couch (we haven't had one since we bought our house four years ago). As I was paying for the couch, I noticed a little sign informing customers that some furniture items have been suspended due to supply chain problems originating in China.
This did not leave a deep impression on me as I stood at the counter, but after I arrived home I got to thinking about the economic implications of that little sign I had seen. The current global financial and economic system strikes me as sophisticated and complex, yet fragile and delicate. Everything depends on everything else. There appears to be very little margin for error. A small, seemingly insignificant problem could easily ripple across the whole network - become amplified and magnified. Set of a chain reaction. Topple dominos.
So sophisticated and complex. Yet so fragile and delicate.
And the powers that be seem quite intent on bringing it down. Now. I couldn't tell you to what degree or for what duration, but the way the hysteria is spinning out of control indicates that this might be the start of something big.
And over what? Over something that, in my uneducated opinion, should not even be making the news.
Yet there it is.
I am no economist, but I know enough about the voodoo our current witchdoctors have concocted to know that most of what accounts for the global economy is built on ravenous consumption fueled by Himalayan heaps of debt. I know enough about personal finance to understand that the average Westerner is one or two missed paychecks away from catastrophe. I know enough about business to comprehend that with the exception of small, family-run enterprises, no corporation on the planet will ever use its vast profits to help itself sail over stormy seas.
And against this backdrop, they have decided to terrorize and slowly shutdown the world. The consumption economy begins hemorrhaging the second consumers slow down. And consumers are being slowed down. By what? By something that shouldn't have even made the news. They are sabotaging the System they so painstakingly designed and profited from. The question is, to what end?
On one hand, I am making attempts to see the possible positive side of these rather baffling developments, but its hard to see a positive side when such blatant sabotage is clearly at play.
The purposive pursuit to end something usually indicates a desire to start something new. I feel no kinship for or affiliation to our current System. It is clearly an obstacle. A barrier. It needs to be dismantled and sent to the scrap yard in order for something better to emerge. But the dismantling I am seeing now will unlikely lead to anything better. More likely, it will lead to something worse.
And that is a possibility we must consider. A possibility I must consider, and will consider, the moment I get these translations done because I simply refuse to be swept up in this stupid tsunami engulfing the globe.
In the meantime, I am keeping my eyes open to every possibility, but I don't waste any time worrying or despairing about it.
Let them sabotage their System - but don't let them sabotage you.
March 7, 2020
The EU's Apparent 180 On Mass Migration
I frankly don't know what to make of the EU's apparent change of will regarding its external borders, but it seems to want no part of Turkey's attempt to flood the continent with migrants. The sudden shift in the EU's rhetoric concerning mass migration and external borders is so extreme it verges on schizophrenic.
I'm sure the coming weeks and months will reveal much. In the meantime, I would welcome any thoughts on the issue.
I'm sure the coming weeks and months will reveal much. In the meantime, I would welcome any thoughts on the issue.
March 6, 2020
Since The World Appears To Be Ending
I thought a little ray of sunshine from Chet Baker might in order . . .
March 5, 2020
Ebb and Flow
We like to believe our mortal lives our linear - a simple straight line beginning with birth and ending with death. I suppose this is true, at least as far as time is concerned. A steady march forward, all to the beat of a silent, invisible metronome.
Yet within this linear framework our lives are anything but straight lines. I imagine most lines are jagged, marked with the fluctuations of sharp upturns and downturns. Some lines inevitably curl and circle back or get caught in feedback loops where everything just keeps going round and round. Others level off for a stretch and run parallel with the straight track time keeps. I am sure some lines reach a certain point and just stop - frozen in a past that seems like a never-ending present while time continues its relentless beeline into the future regardless.
So time is linear and it measures our lives, but our lives are anything but linear. Trace the horizontal and you'll see certain patterns emerge. One mine is ebb and flow - a coming and going. A firm forward movement followed by a slow, steady withdrawal.
The past few years have been flow years, but I can feel the advance has lost all of its momentum. The edge of the wave has stopped and is now suspended; waiting for some force to propel it farther. But the force that pushed the wave this far has dissipated while the opposite force beckoning the wave to return has rapidly gathered strength.
I expect that over the next year or so, my life-line will appear to be moving backwards - in the direction opposite to and away from time. It sounds counterproductive, and sometimes it feels counterproductive, but it is anything but.
Although ebbs resemble retreats, they are actually times of renewal and regeneration - a slow and steady gathering of the energy needed to initiate the next flow.
Yet within this linear framework our lives are anything but straight lines. I imagine most lines are jagged, marked with the fluctuations of sharp upturns and downturns. Some lines inevitably curl and circle back or get caught in feedback loops where everything just keeps going round and round. Others level off for a stretch and run parallel with the straight track time keeps. I am sure some lines reach a certain point and just stop - frozen in a past that seems like a never-ending present while time continues its relentless beeline into the future regardless.
So time is linear and it measures our lives, but our lives are anything but linear. Trace the horizontal and you'll see certain patterns emerge. One mine is ebb and flow - a coming and going. A firm forward movement followed by a slow, steady withdrawal.
The past few years have been flow years, but I can feel the advance has lost all of its momentum. The edge of the wave has stopped and is now suspended; waiting for some force to propel it farther. But the force that pushed the wave this far has dissipated while the opposite force beckoning the wave to return has rapidly gathered strength.
I expect that over the next year or so, my life-line will appear to be moving backwards - in the direction opposite to and away from time. It sounds counterproductive, and sometimes it feels counterproductive, but it is anything but.
Although ebbs resemble retreats, they are actually times of renewal and regeneration - a slow and steady gathering of the energy needed to initiate the next flow.
