STFU

So, you say that you are despondent over the election of Donald Trump? Or, you are depressed over the many who supported Hillary Clinton (or who now oppose Trump and your vote for him)?

In short, you are unhappy with the state of things and cannot grasp the thinking of those opposed to you. You are deeply concerned over where the country – indeed, the world itself – is headed. Something must be done about the other side before it is too late!

Me?

I’m sick of ALL of you.

The uncomfortable truth is that your laziness has created the very mess you claim to abhor, that you so earnestly wish to overcome and fix. You are like a child who has made a mess of things and now sits there wailing about it.

M. Scott Peck – who made his living trying to fix kids broken by their broken parents – considered human laziness original sin. Easier to point fingers, shout words, swing fists, drop bombs, than to look at that which feels compelled to do such things.

I see many of you nodding along with this. “Yes, yes, THEY are so blind.”

If you voted for Trump or Clinton, for the same old same old, for the system you are certain is broken and only your side can fix, well friend, I’m talking to YOU.

Stop your bitching and moaning and acting like a petulant child. Stop obsessing about the world around you. Start looking at yourself, you who behave as judge, jury, and executioner.

No, not the image staring back at you in the mirror. God, we have enough body-obsession already.

You aren’t the body! Even a simpleton, with a few moments of investigation, can see this.

If you’re the body, stop it from aging. Stop that mole from growing. Divide your cells faster, rewrite the masterplan contained in your DNA.

Obviously, ‘you’ have zero control over what the body is doing. So move on, already. Let’s get to the important stuff, all of that thinking that has convinced you of just how right you are and why your side is right and the other side is wrong.

You THINK.

What does that mean? What is a thought?

Don’t just read that sentence. Stop and investigate it. What is a thought?

See immediately beneath this sentence for what you are in the absence of thoughts.

 

 

 

Is there a ‘you’ in there creating thoughts? Is there a you in there sorting through which thoughts to think like a shopper scanning new shirts on a rack? Or are the thoughts arising out of nowhere, constantly, endlessly, without anyone or anything in control?

Don’t look for the answer here. Look for it yourself.

Can you stop yourself from thinking? Can you predict what you will be thinking 10 minutes from now? Can you remember what you were thinking 17 days, 6 hours and 14 minutes ago?

Nevertheless, you insist you know what ails us as a people, as a planet. You KNOW your candidate is the right candidate. You know the other side is all fucked up and wrong. (The ‘other side,’ mind you, is also your mate, another religion or nation or skin color or gender. Anything outside you.)

Sorry to burst that sad little made up bubble.

You. Don’t. Know. Shit.

Start with that. Be HONEST with yourself.

You haven’t got a clue what you are. Where you came from. Where you are going.

And please, don’t bring up your ‘god.’ That’s just another belief, more thought. If someone hadn’t TAUGHT you about Jesus or Buddha or Allah, what would you know about them? Hell, someone had to teach you language just so you’d have some capacity to write and speak their names.

But hey, don’t let that stop you from proselytizing to the rest of us, from damning others to hell and sawing off heads.

Maybe you’re furious and ready to click that unsubscribe button. Do it. Your arrogance isn’t welcome here anyway. Your arrogance is poisoning the planet, fucking up your kids, making your neighbors miserable.

And deep down, as millions have confessed to their shrinks, you know you’re a fraud, that that ‘you’ you trot around town is a fiction. You’re terrified someone will see through you, challenge you, see you naked. That’s why you so desperately hide behind your words and possessions and titles – you need them to represent ‘you’ because, well, what else is there?

Or….

If these words bother you, ask why? Inquire into WHO is bothered by them.

If you’re annoyed with this asshole, Doug, are wondering who he thinks he is. Or you know me, and are thinking, “WTF does Doug know?” You’re right. Truly.

And ‘Doug’ is irrelevant. I’m over here. ‘You’ are ‘in there.’ I’m no different than Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton. I’m meaningless, a distraction.

Instead, start an honest – brutally honest – examination into the Bullshit Artist Known as Me. Before you open your mouth again to tell everyone how wrong they are. Before you celebrate yourself (or beat up on yourself), why not look into the self at the center of that equation?

My dream? A global day of STFU. How magical that day would be.