Do You Hear What I Hear?

Wokeism.

Bad side of town.

Freaks of nature.

Infecting our Democracy.

New York values.

Our country.

Our God.

Coincidence.

Poisoning the blood of our country.

Make America great again.

Take our country back.

These and more are what is being said out loud in Conservative America.

Have you asked yourself, does it matter?

What does it mean?

What does it mean?

It means that the idea put forth by our founding fathers that America was created for White, male protestants who owned the land they took, and it was this Manifest Destiny that guaranteed that from sea to shining sea, the White man would always and forever be in control and dominate was established by their White Christian God… forever…

The concept of White Manifest Destiny remains prevalent today.

There is a group of our fellow Americans who both believe in the sanctity of their religion, having a metaphysical control on their lives, the lives of the non-believer, and the nation as a whole, as well as the real expression that Jesus Christ established this sanctity that White males are in charge no others need apply.

Any lapse of control is a sin.

These expressions are code to the true believer who is willing to fight for their Whiteness as ordained and established by their White Christian God.

It doesn’t matter if Donald Trump is scum.

They could care less.

He could be the worst human on the planet, but he has two things going for him you don’t see.

One, he’s a White land-owning male.

Two, he’s fighting for White America to re-establish a White-male patriarchy.

He can actually do anything, have sex with goats; none of it matters to these Maga supporters because he’s ordained by the White Christian God to save the White race.

Do you hear what I hear?

The media really ignores this point.

History.

I am constantly reminded of South Africa.

The White peoples of Europe, specifically England, discovered South Africa and declared it White.

Declared South Africa White?

Think about how screwed up inside and out you have to be to be in such a mindset whereby you deny reality that much.

The British were White and in control.

But, on the horizon, their hold on the country was going to slip out of their hands.

The White British population knew it was coming to the end of their lease.

However, that didn’t stop them from descending into a brutal police state.

White Apartheid.

It got far worse for non-whites as the day approached as the White demographic minority grabbed and killed to keep control.

The U.S.A. is slipping down the same slope.

That hardcore group of conservative Americans is not fighting for a political party.

Are you kidding me?

They are fighting for what they believe is their White race.

They will not go away without a fight.

Words are a gateway drug to actions.

When somebody tells you what they believe, you better damn well believe them.

So listen up!

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

To See Too Much

Imagine seeing germs.

Imagine being able to see the germs on the people around you.

Imagine those germs as the untruths, the myths, the self-deceptions, the stories, the lies — both big and small — that people tell each other and themselves every day.

That is what it's like to be an INFJ empath like me.

For the first 55 years of my life, I suffered under the delusion that everyone was like me.

I couldn't fathom why people were so...

So inhuman and inhumane to others and themselves.

The casual untruths, the blatant lies, why did it only seem to affect me and not everyone else?

I had no idea that my psyche was missing a fourth wall.

That fourth wall that the 97% of humanity has and I don't.

That fourth wall that keeps them disconnected from life.

From feeling.

This fourth wall allows them to act independently without regard to how their actions affect others.

This fourth wall, which I didn't have, brought me to the point of screaming, "Let me out!"

After 55 years of taking on the sins of the world, I had painted myself into an actual black pit of darkness.

I saw no relief for the world or myself.

I couldn't take it anymore.

The suffering, the pain, the hypocrisy, the betrayal, the lies, the anger, the hatred, the anger everywhere.

Like a dark black rain, it poured every day non-stop.

A ghost kept screaming in my ear I was useless.

Unloved.

I needed to end it.

As the day approached, a fairy light appeared in my dark oubliette and asked me to believe in love one last time…

If you know an INFJ empath, you know, even in the end, I couldn't refuse to listen.

I found out that empaths do exist.

It's not a fairytale.

I found out it wasn't science fiction as I had thought it was.

I discovered that all the lies I saw were real.

People, all people everywhere, casually lie to each other every moment of each day.

My depression was caused by real-life circumstances, like losing my job, dreams, family, and love.

Those were real; any normal person would become as depressed as I was.

However, being an empath made it incomparably worse than for a normal person.

Who doesn't feel.

I couldn't separate other's emotions from my own.

I fell into an empathic spiral of doom.

I also discovered that I needed to establish healthy boundaries in my psychology to regulate the flow of pain in this world.

I learned that everyone needs to have a mental health check-up at least once a year.

Even the ones who don't feel especially.

You probably don't realize how screwed up you are and how many people know you're screwed up but won't tell you because they think that's the way you are an asshole.

Now, I'm 63.

Now, I have built back love and restored hope.

I still see too much.

I feel too much.

Being an empath is not a blessing unless you feel seeing everyones darkness is a happy thing.

But I'm here to say to fellow empaths it can be managed.

I learned it late in life.

But I learned.

Peace

Daniel J. Frey aka Toby

Shoes

When you walk in another's shoes…

You will gain a deeper understanding of that person's life.

Been told that ever since I can remember.

But what happens when you try on another person's shoes and find out they fit?

What happens to that story you told yourself about your place in society?

What happens to that ego you have believing in your own entitlement?

What happens when the shoes fit?

Somehow, since before the American Revolution, the People convinced themselves that they were exceptional.

Disregarding the French, who had already overthrown their Aristocracy, Americans told themselves a story that they were first.

They were the first to stand for liberty, for freedom.

But they weren't the first, no far from it.

They weren't the first White people who carved out for themselves a special place in the hierarchy of the universe.

American Exceptionalism is a unique kind of myth.

There are many kinds of myths that we encounter every day.

A universal myth that cuts across all cultures, ethnicities, races, and religions is that my myth is the only true myth and all the rest drool.

American exceptionalism is everywhere.

You can't see the forest for the exceptional trees.

It's a human thing.

Humans convince themselves of a lot of nonsense.

It's what keeps us from all having nice things.

What happens when the shoes fit?

When we find out the person we thought was foreign to us is just like us.

What do we tell ourselves?

What excuses do we narrate to ourselves, still believing we are different?

Those people don't feel pain; that's why they don't need health care.

Those folks don't know how to cut their lawn, so take away their property.

They buy stupid things; don't give them a bank loan.

These people are animals; they don't deserve justice.

It's all bullshit.

People and I'm telling it to you straight because I've been raised with a lot of White racist people, they tell each other whoppers every time they are together how bad everyone else is.

They are never the problem.

White racist Americans see themselves as the solution.

White people in America have an exceptional problem imagining being in another person's shoes.

Why this self-imposed ignorance?

Why the hate?

It's fear.

Fear of losing exceptionalism.

It is, quite literally, the fear of standing in line with everyone else and not being able to cut to the front of the line.

A fear that someone will catch on to all the exceptionalism bullshit and force you to the back of the line.

First come, first served.

No cuts.

What happens when the shoes fit?

When that day comes, what rejoicing there shall be.

When young and old embrace the fact that none of us are getting off the earth alive.

When we understand, we realize that we all bleed.

We bleed for the sake of love.

To love and be loved.

We bleed for respect.

We bleed for freedom.

For justice.

Take a look at your shoes.

Peace

Daniel J. Frey aka Toby

Last Thing

Feeding yourself.

Buying that new pair of shoes.

Ordering online.

We'll do that.

Flipping someone off.

Talking behind a friend's back.

Getting high.

We'll do that.

Not stopping hate.

Not comforting the lost.

Not smiling.

We'll do that.

We will do many things, too numerous to count, in our lives.

And we will do them gladly.

Not out of a sense of duty but of pride.

What is the last thing you would never do?

Is it love?

The last thing too many won't do is to love ourselves and the world.

Why?

It's too hard for too many of us.

We don't know where to begin, so we never start.

Too many of us lack the foundations of love.

We don't love ourselves.

If we don't love ourselves, then loving others, including strangers, represents a danger to our existence.

If we don't love ourselves, we are handicapped, unable, and unwilling to reach out and restore hope.

Not just to be sympathetic but to attain the highest human ability: Empathy.

If we don't love ourselves, we are doomed to be consumed by our own desires, focusing inward at the expense of all life around us.

What is the last thing you would do?

Love to be effective must be exercised.

Love is not something to keep locked away.

If love is locked away only for ourselves, then it is a wasted expression.

Love to become real, to grow, to mature must live in the light of life and grow.

What do you represent?

Selfish desire or giving love?

What is the last thing you would do?

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

What is Love

You tell me to love, why?

Love never tells you to do anything… it expects you to.

I love my family; that's enough.

Love expects you to love your family, your neighbor's family, and your neighbor's neighbor's family.

Why do I have to love them?

You don't have to do anything.

It's all up to you what kind of a day, a week, a year, or a lifetime you want to spend your time in.

Our actions shape our lives.

When we love our neighbor, we open a door that lets the fresh air of perspective into our lives.

Walk in another's shoes.

If we only love ourselves, we shut the door to the world.

The air of truth can't get to us; we recycle our own thoughts over and over and over again.

We twist reality and bend it till we create a monster.

A selfish monster that tells us only what we want to hear, what we want to know, what we want to see.

No more rainbows.

Only a dusty, dank darkness cocooned in a web of self-delusion.

What is love?

We lie to ourselves, and we believe our own lies.

So I love other people, but they don't love me back.

Love doesn't expect a dividend.

Love is not a business transaction.

Love gives; it doesn't take.

That's how you can measure the quality of love.

Love doesn't wait.

Love is now.

Love doesn't keep 90% of the profit and gives the remainder to those in need.

Love doesn't just show up once a week.

Love doesn't arrive on one day a year.

Love is constant.

Love waits.

Love listens.

Love moves.

Love stands for justice.

Love fights for freedom.

Love means honor.

What is love?

Love is the force that binds all people together of goodwill.

Love will take us to the stars; love will lift the forgotten out of misery.

Love is not an easy partner.

Love will always ask for more, never less.

Love never rests.

A life of love is a life fulfilled.

What is love?

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Friends

Who is my friend?

The proof is through what they do and what they don't do.

The person who doesn't want justice for me.

The person who can't hear me when I cry.

The person who doesn't understand peace.

The person who is entitled.

The person who lets me starve.

The person who is okay with me living in fear.

The person who hits me.

The person who doesn't care if I live.

The person who doesn't see me because of my color, my gender, my ethnicity, my race, or my personal belief.

They are not my friend.

Who is my friend?

The person who speaks up against injustice.

The person who comforts me in my despair.

The person who doesn't make 'Drama' in my life.

The person who lets me go through a door first.

The person who shares their lunch with me.

The person who checks in with me to see if I'm okay.

The person who hugs me without asking.

The person whose life would be dimmer without me.

The person who celebrates my life, who I am, who doesn't need to change me.

They are my friend.

To be a friend is both the most tremendous responsibility as well as the simplest.

True friends may not see each other for decades, but when they come together, it's as if no time has passed.

This bond, this relationship, is the outward manifestation of an inward purpose.

That purpose dramatizes our actions and inactions with each other.

That purpose is the true meaning of love.

True love and true friendship don't mean no boundaries.

True love and true friendship mean that we consider each life, each person, an individual worthy of respect, consideration, life, and love.

Friendship ends when respect for boundaries is crossed.

Yet friendship is ever-growing and will continually change.

Friendship leaves open the door for redemption even up to the last second of life.

Friendship is symbolized by the open hand.

Is your hand open?

Open to those around you?

To the stranger?

To yourself?

Who are your friends?

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Indifference

Race haters believe they are the majority when they are not.

Who are the majority of people in the world?

It is the Indifferent.

The indifferent do not react the world over unless they are individually annoyed.

They will sit on their hands.

They will bind their feet.

They will blind their eyes.

They will tune out the noise.

They will box in their hearts.

They will shuffle their morality, which keeps them from any sense of responsibility.

Not until they are personally devastated will they take action.

Oddly enough, when annoyed, the Indifferent split almost down the middle on which side they will take up.

Vanilla versus chocolate.

Democrat versus Republican.

Just a tick less will become fascists as anti-fascists.

Indifference.

The Jewish genocide proved the power of the indifferent.

A nation, a world, the human race calmly sat by while millions of real people were put to death.

Their response was to do nothing.

Not in my backyard.

Until it was in their backyard, and their sons were killed at Pearl Harbor.

Not until then did we, as Americans, say we better put a stop to hate.

Indifference.

Charles Dickens wrote in A Christmas Carol how Father Christmas was warning Scrooge, the Indifferent, about Humanities' two children.

Want and Ignorance.

Want is the easier of his two children to care for.

Want needs, and once those needs are filled, hunger, shelter, comfort, free from fear; Want won't cause Humanity trouble.

Ignorance, however, will always be the root of evil.

Ignorance, both by accident and especially on purpose, is the cancer in the soul of humanity.

Ignorance will brush aside the milk of human kindness.

Ignorance only sees itself.

That is until they are personally annoyed as a consequence of its inaction.

To paraphrase MLK, he said he would rather deal with evil because you know where you stand.

Indifference will wait on time.

Putting off doing what's right.

Until time runs out.

That's the goal of indifference.

Doing nothing.

I'm also reminded of what that quiet voice keeps asking all of us.

Love reminds us that we all need to do more.

There are no alternatives.

There is no choice.

If you hear the voice of love, it asks us all to do.

To do right.

To do it now.

To do it without hesitation.

To stand, to clap, to raise our voice, and never be silent.

Silence is just as evil as hate.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Moral Bias

Do as I say, not as I do.

That's moral bias.

When individuals and groups hold another individual or group to a standard that they do not adhere to.

There have been many words created in our language identifying moral bias.

Hypocrite.

Liar.

Flim-flam man.

Carpet Bagger.

Charlatan.

Fraud.

Con artist.

Cheat.

Fake.

Imposter.

Pretender.

Phony.

Bullshitter.

These individuals and groups gain power and influence by exploiting the fears of others.

Society has been plagued by these people since before recorded history.

And obviously, fearmongers existed before the invention of the written word.

Sadly, there's no real way to stop them.

There's no law to pass.

There's no protest march.

No vote will matter.

There has only been one way to counteract liars.

The truth.

Only through the light of truth shown into darkness can a reasonable person make a judgment.

Just today, we learned of Speaker Pelosi's husband being assaulted in his home.

A TV personality incredulous wondered why the person who assaulted Paul Pelosi was in jail with attempted murder charges.

Wasn't it simple assault?

This TV person demonstrated clear moral bias.

If this TV person wanted to be truthful, they would not have conflated you or I being assaulted versus the Speaker of the House's husband being assaulted.

An assault on the Speaker's husband was an indirect assault on our government.

The perpetrator clearly was heard wanting to wait for Nancy to come home.

For what?

A coffee klatch?

The point is the moral bias that we are all assaulted with daily.

Where lying is moral in the pursuit of power.

Of ratings.

Of likes.

America has a cancer at the center of its soul.

And we all know what the cancer is called.

Racism.

Have you ever wondered why racists come down on people because their grass isn't cut?

Why do the people they hate drive an old car?

Why are they on welfare?

Why they don't wear their clothes right?

It's because of their moral bias.

Prejudice and bias will warp a lie into the truth.

That's what we're all up against.

Those who profit from telling the lie and those who feed upon the lie love each other.

The lie they love to consume is there are different races.

The truth is there is only one human race.

The only difference you will find between people is not in their DNA.

The only difference between people lies in their capacity to understand love.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Everybody

The depth of hate has no bottom.

The truth has a limit to what people can believe.

Everybody has fears.

Everybody has hopes.

Everybody has beliefs.

Our fears, hopes, and beliefs we seldom share.

We are mindful that sharing what we say to ourselves out loud is considered being soft.

Weak.

Unworthy.

Why?

Because we believe strength makes right?

Some of us do.

Not all.

Some of us see the person who does what they want, when they want, how they want as being a leader.

Damn the consequences.

Damn, the lives destroyed.

Damn, what's right.

They got it done.

Everybody wants a hero.

We want to be rescued.

We need someone to come and make it better.

But no existential hero is coming to save us.

The only superhero waiting to make a difference is we, the People.

Our fears can become so great that we're willing to listen and obey any voice.

The voice of hate.

Those who profit from our fear are aware of this.

That's why they whisper in our ears the things we want.

The devil is us, and we are it.

Everybody has a problem with the truth.

No one likes to find out they are wrong.

Nobody.

But being wrong is just as natural as being right.

The only thing about being wrong is if and when you find out you're wrong, you fail to do nothing to change it.

That's when you've consciously decided to turn away from life and become a servant of hate.

Everybody feels pain.

Everybody can heal.

Everybody can make their corner of the world a better place.

We just need to believe that only love can conquer hate.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

What Do You See

The woman who doesn’t go when the light turns green.

The man yelling at the sun.

The boy with the angry face.

The girl standing on the corner.

Who do you see?

The woman waiting to vote.

The man with the red hat.

The boy stealing a hoody.

The girl vaping.

Who do you see?

The woman with tears at the clinic.

The man wipes his eyes in the coffee shop.

The boy pushing past you.

The girl who cut herself.

Who do you see?

The drunk woman.

The man passed out, his nude ass exposed.

The boy asks why everything costs so much.

The girl spitting in your face.

Who do you see?

We see what we want to see.

All of us.

What we see and how far we can see is up to us and no one else.

Do we see only ourselves?

Or do we see the countless people of humanity, all with a story, all with a life, all with a purpose and a meaning?

A better world begins when we open our eyes and see.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Rocks

Am I talking to a rock?

It was once said that an individual had rocks for brains.

I propose a whole society can have rocks for brains.

Rocks are immutable.

Immutable means they don't change.

The only thing that can change a rock is time.

The rock is still a rock till the very end.

You can only wear it away, grain by grain, till you can't call it a rock anymore.

Humanity, since the beginning, has built entire societies upon a belief.

Rocks.

The Egyptians believed that if they hid an image of the current Pharaoh while they were alive, buried out in the desert, and it was not destroyed, they would live forever in paradise with the Gods.

Rocks.

The Romans believed that the wife of a citizen of Rome, a man, was his property.

Upon the man's death, his wife was to be put to death if she were still alive.

Rocks.

The Renaissance enlightened people still believed in witches and didn't know that a woman contributed to the formation of a child.

They believed, as many still do today, some 600 years later, that a woman is an Easy-Bake Oven.

The man places his dough inside the woman, forming into a being that is the man's property.

Rocks.

It wasn't until the American Civil War that we began washing our hands before conducting surgery.

Or eating a meal.

Or having sex.

Rocks.

It was legal to kill the native people of California well into the 1980s if you wanted their land.

Rocks.

This is all just the tip of the bullshit pile that people have invested their entire lives into.

Rocks.

Am I talking to a rock?

Rocks don't examine if they are wrong.

Rocks don't ask if what they are doing is right.

Rocks don't change because you ask them.

Rocks don't care about your suffering.

Rocks don't vote.

Rocks don't care.

Rocks don't listen.

Rocks aren't alive.

They are as solid as a stone.

Once you understand the fundamentals of rocks, you must tell yourself to stop trying.

Stop trying to make 'rocks' something they aren't.

You'll only crash and roar like waves upon the rocks, but the rocks will still be there.

Pay attention.

I'm talking to my liberal brothers and sisters now.

Rocks won't hear what I'm saying or understand...

There's been only one way in this world that has been found to change a rock.

You have to live a good life.

By living a good, happy, joyful life, you'll demonstrate to the rocks of this world that there is happiness.

There is life.

There is caring.

There is love.

One of those rocks will see and just maybe ask itself, "How come they are happy, and I'm not?"

Let the rocks be rocks and move on.

It's time we get on getting on and move forward to that better tomorrow.

Peace

Toby aka Daniel J Frey

Feeling Much

The world is hard.

Soft people get smacked up hard in this world.

I know because of being an empath.

For most of my life, I thought being an empath was something from science fiction.

I didn't read enough.

I've had this problem with this world as far back as I can remember.

It's not as far back as most.

The first twenty years of my life are gone because I physically died at age seventeen.

Died during an operation to restore my breathing.

I lost my memory.

I lost my family.

I had to relearn my past.

From imperfect narrators.

Most, if not all, of it I didn't like.

I have a soft heart.

When you're born soft, the world will gleefully stick you hard.

Cruel father, a mother on the cross of indifference, bullies.

Every question you have struck down, telling you you're retarded.

Stupid.

Striking you across the face till you bleed because you can't read.

Being cruel is not only a point but also a strategy for survival.

In a world of limited resources and an ever-changing environment, being cruel, selfish, and hateful allows you to survive.

Being soft-hearted in this world is a contradiction.

Independant.

Self-made.

The man living alone needs nothing and nobody.

The American ideal?

I was born soft.

I feel things others don't.

Like a dog tied up in the yard, I can hear danger approaching while my people sleep.

I can smell fear.

I can see self-made ignorance.

I know instantly when you're lying.

Soft people are here for a reason.

We have a duty.

A duty to warn.

A duty to care.

A child only cares about itself.

Adults care for both themselves and others.

We have lost those touchstones in our Western society that allow us to recognize when it's time to transition into adulthood.

To care.

To put the future's well-being and safety ahead of our self-interest.

Soft people are here to remind the children to put away their toys and take on the larger responsibilities of life.

Adults care for the children.

Children care only for themselves.

This world is hard.

Sometimes, I struggle to cope.

The cruelty, the despair, the uncaring, like one stone stacked on another, crush me.

Yet I rise.

I have a duty.

A duty to warn.

A duty to care.

Join me.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Bridges

When the road ahead meets a gap, we build a bridge to get to the other side.

That's what we do, don't we?

Humanity has never come up against a problem and said, 'Nope, can't do that.'

Yes, many will say, 'Let somebody else build the bridge.'

That's true enough.

But when there's a river to cross, everyone recognizes the need to build a bridge to get to the other side.

Ain't no mountain high enough.

Ain't no river wide enough.

Ain't no valley deep enough.

As the song goes, it keeps us from reaching our desired destination.

The gap.

Racism is a gap.

It's a mountain, a river, a valley keeping humanity from getting to where it wants to go.

Where does humanity want to go?

It aspires to a world where peace, justice, and love are the norm, not the exception.

Not something that takes every effort we have in our minds and bodies to keep and secure.

A place where peace, justice, and love needn't be fought for.

A reason why we are in this constant numbing struggle generation after generation is the gap called racism.

There have been efforts to build towards the promised land.

Generation after generation has sunk foundations, pillars of stone and steel, deep into the riverbank.

All in the effort to build that bridge.

To span that expanse.

But we keep coming up short.

The world is ruled by thirds.

It's a hard, fast rule that every problem and situation can be divided into thirds.

One-third want a solution, one-third don't care about a solution, and one-third fight any solution.

It has long been recognized by bridge builders that only one-third of the people actively help build bridges across humanity's divides.

In fact, two-thirds of the people are either actively fighting the building of bridges or are doing absolutely nothing.

The worst part is those that are doing nothing.

Letting others do what they won't do.

If we can get enough of the people who are sitting on their hands to join us, we can finish building that bridge.

How do we do it?

How do we do it?

Here's an honest answer…

I don't know.

I don't know.

People haven't listened to the words that Jesus said.

Have they?

They don't listen to Dr. King or Gandhi.

They don't respond to the voices of poverty, the tears of despair and loss.

They don't respond to the bombs of war, the bullets in our streets, our schools, our homes.

Old man racism.

That dark river out there called racism sure has a lot of people afraid.

I've been thinking, and you all can tell me I'm nuts.

We have to get up out of our seats and take as many as we can by the hand, by the heart, and lead them step by step to that brotherhood of man.

We must all actively engage with our brothers and sisters and bring as many as possible to the other side.

We also have to understand that we can't get everybody.

What we got they don't want.

Waiting on the rocks to grow wings isn't going to happen.

We can't wait for the perfect time.

Our time is too short.

Take your brother and sister by the hand and tell them we are not afraid.

We know the way across the river.

You don't have to be afraid, either.

Love is calling your name.

Hear it?

Just have to answer and cross that bridge.

It's for free and only costs you your fear.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Light In The Darkness

The universe is dark.

So is the human consciousness.

We all are born into darkness.

No guidebook is handed out for free to guide us on our stumbling journey.

In the dark, we reach out and touch people with good and not-so-good intentions.

They, too, are on their journey, believing in their guides.

But what is the end?

What is at the destination of those maps?

Is it the light of Truth or an abyss where there be monsters?

Light in the darkness.

All life springs from the dark.

Without the darkness, we would not be able to recognize the light.

Life in all its forms is a resistance to the darkness.

To never have lived means to never have grown.

To never have lived means never leaving the darkness.

To live means leaving the darkness behind where myth, legend, and lies whisper to our ego, telling us there is nothing outside.

Darkness tells us our ignorance of life is a virtue.

Darkness tells us nothing exists outside of what we believe to be true.

However, if you live only in darkness, in your own Truth, you are only living a half-life.

A half-life means you are crippled and ignorant of Truth.

You are not living a whole life.

A life where light and darkness reveal the Truth of the true meaning of life.

Light in the darkness.

There are so few lamp posts of Truth in the dark.

Many of the lights installed in the dark are there to trap and hold people, much like moths to a flame.

People put up these lights because of their need for power and to be praised by others.

They are not true lights.

To judge for yourself what is a true light, always remember this.

Truth doesn't need you to believe because it is the Truth.

Truth doesn't need your money.

Truth doesn't need your permission.

Truth doesn't need you to worship it.

Truth stands like a light in the darkness, piercing through the fog and sweeping back ignorance, shining as a beacon of freedom.

The voice of love speaks with the light of Truth.

Light in the darkness.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Fear

Where does it begin?

Fear of the dark.

Fear of the stranger.

Fear of the parent.

Fear of the barking dog.

Fear of the bright flashing light.

Fear of the bully.

Fear of being embarrassed.

Fear of being caught.

When does fear ripen?

Fear of peers.

Fear of sexual identity.

Fear of society.

Fear of judgment.

Fear of the future.

Fear of the unknown.

We are all at odds with fear our entire life.

We do many things to keep our attention from focusing on our fear.

Drugs, alcohol, sex, career, religion, politics, pets, eating, reading, music, walks, talking…

All human activity is a way of doing something, anything that will keep us from thinking about our fear.

Ultimately, what can all these fears be boiled down to?

Death.

As far as we can understand, we are the only life form on the planet that knows it will no longer exist one day.

That's real.

Everything we ever love will die.

That is why we run.

That is why we climb mountains.

That is why we run from sunrise to sunrise.

We run to keep ahead of the fear.

We create a whole pantheon of stories we tell about the past, the present, and the future.

These stories we tell ourselves keep us from accepting the reality of death.

What death really means.

This is the evil at the heart of humanity.

This fear.

This fear of death keeps us from doing what is right.

This fear of death keeps us from doing what is just.

This fear of death keeps us from loving each other.

Understanding that death is the ultimate act of living reveals the importance of life.

Every life, every life is essential.

Every life important.

Every life, including yours and mine, has meaning.

You will not pass through this universe in its current form ever again.

Understanding the value of life and the significance of an individual's existence requires us to do more.

We can not let people die and let God sort them out.

That's absurd piss on the world logic.

This life is all we are guaranteed.

This is it.

This is why we stand; we speak up, and we fight for what is right.

For justice.

For freedom.

For our human rights.

Fear is the slayer of truth.

Death is the end of all things.

Love gives birth to the truth.

I love you all; this is why I'm telling you the truth.

Drop hate be hope.

Live.

Stop dying.

Peace.

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Boundaries

How far does your influence extend?

What are the boundaries of your control?

Do you even think about it?

Do you think about it a lot?

Do you road rage?

Do you hit your child?

Do you knock on doors and hand out fliers on political, religious, and social issues?

Do you yell at your neighbor's dog?

Do you not leave a penny?

Do you march?

Do you write your congressman?

Do you stay in your own backyard and ignore what's going on over the fence?

Boundaries.

We all have the potential to influence others.

Those people whom we know and don't know are also in their own bubbles.

Some of us are ballsy enough to romp over to our neighbor's yard and burst their bubble.

However, most of us are complacent and allow our neighbors to drown in theirs.

We assume their decline; their failure is all theirs.

We had no involvement in it.

Boundaries.

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.

There are groups of us who believe we can lead others to the well of our beliefs and make them drink the water we're pouring out of our mouths into theirs.

This is and has been a false narrative given to us by those individuals and societies that have subjugated us, the People.

In other words, you can't force people to believe as you do, regardless of your moral high ground or the low ground from which you stand.

If you do, you are a little dictator.

A nationalist.

A fascist.

A supremacist.

Believing that everyone is within your boundaries of control.

Your subjects to do with as you please because you are the king of the world.

Boundaries.

Boundaries.

There are boundaries we break, but there are also boundaries we don't break.

We allow poverty to murder our neighbor and their spirit.

We allow injustice to steal truth.

We allow racism to beat other people down.

We allow those who lack boundaries to make us cowards.

It is difficult to have boundaries when passions are inflamed.

However, there is a difference between seeing a person drowning and either ignoring them or throwing them a book on how to swim.

There is an answer to boundaries that is a compromise.

There is a boundary in between.

It's called love.

Love understands; love attempts to tell us that you can't always get what you want.

Do no harm; love asks of all of us.

Your boundary ends inside of your head; your influence ends there, also.

Your boundary ends at your fingertips.

Community.

We come together as a community, share ideas, and chart a course that best suits all of us.

Together.

Taking all reasonable ideas and beliefs into account.

In the history of the world, there has never been a single belief or a single person who has had all the correct answers to life's problems.

Nobody.

History, in fact, is littered with people and beliefs that lack proper boundary control.

Truth, justice, freedom, and love have always defeated them.

Put a spotlight on their poor boundary control.

Always.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Heavy Lift

Some of our brothers and sisters believe that the law is up for debate if it is not explicitly written in the U.S. Constitution.

It's even up for debate whether it applies to you and whether you will obey it.

This is why there is a job ahead of us all.

There is a heavy lift.

The Constitution has to be amended.

What does 'amended' mean?

It means that our society has grown more complex than when the Constitution was initially written.

In 1787, the Constitution was written by and for White Protestant male landowners.

Period.

That's a fact.

However, in their wisdom, the founders put in a contractual clause.

An exception, a clause, in case the minds and consciences of Americans changed in the future.

This clause stated that as the American Society evolves, it will be recognized that this document will be inadequate to meet the needs of future citizens.

The Constitution can be rewritten, amended, or repealed if a majority of States see the need.

Many of our conservative citizens believe that the Constitution is the same as their Christian Bible.

It is not.

Understand that the Constitution of the United States of America is a civil document that states the rights and protections of its citizens and outlines how they are to be governed by their elected officials.

It is not a religion.

It is not the holy book of any one religion.

It is not a book of poems.

It is not a belief.

It is not a fiction.

It is not.

Consequently, the irony is that too many of our conservative brothers and sisters believe that if it ain't written in the Constitution, that right doesn't exist.

These Constitutional absolutists are akin to the character George Costanza from Seinfeld.

When his boss fires him for having sex with his secretary, George laments, "If I had known, if it had been written down, I would never have done it."

This is the Conservative mindset: You have to have the law explicitly written down in one place, and in one place only —the Constitution.

If it's not explicitly written down, that law, that right, doesn't exist.

What about local laws?

Laws created by local governments, States, and at the Federal level are all up for debate.

They are covered in the conservative mind by the 'all-holy' States Rights clause, which is again believed to protect and exempt States from obeying Federal laws.

The Law.

Again, the debate is whether I will obey that law.

Suppose there is no sentence in the Constitution saying there is a right to privacy between a woman and her doctor. 

In that case, that right doesn't exist in their belief.

No amount of legislation will convince them.

No amount of protest.

It must be explicitly written in the sacred document ordained by Jesus Christ himself.

Yes, Conservatives believe that the Constitution was dictated by Jesus Christ to Thomas Jefferson, who wrote the Constitution…

Yes...

Yes...

Yes...

Jefferson "did not write" the Constitution; he wrote the Declaration of Independence.

People with a belief have no room for facts.

Fact.

Jefferson was not a Christian; he was a Diest.

A Deist is a person who believes in logic over mythology.

The mythology of Western Religion in which he was born into.

What do we have to do to make a change...

Our heavy lift, if we can get the resolve together to do so, is to convince people who believe in mythology to develop the ability to reason.

It won't be easy.

Nothing good ever is.

Some people have to be dragged into the light for their own good.

I can attest to this from personal experience.

Just like a Lifeguard… 

We who understand and believe in the greater good, for justice for all, are being called to come to the rescue of our brothers and sisters.

Our brothers and sisters are drowning under the weight of their myth.

A myth that keeps them spiritually oppressed.

A myth that overlooks their economic and social sacrifices.

A myth that forces them into servitude that cares nothing for their welfare.

A myth that keeps the power in the hands of the few, not the many.

This is the good fight.

This is the good work.

This is why you and I are here, in this place, at this moment.

Peace.

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Why Change Can't Happen

Believe me.

That's the central problem in America.

Beleif.

You can believe me or not, but understand that there is a fundamental roadblock at the heart of gun control, abortion, voting rights, civil rights, and human rights.

That roadblock is what you believe.

There has always been an error in interpretation as to what belief means.

Belief has always been a game of chance.

You either believe or you don't.

If you believe, then you are part of the club.

You get rewarded by the club.

Belief provides immediate benefits.

If you don't believe, you are somehow out of touch, sinful, against God, against me as a person who does believe.

You don't get any benefits.

You're on your own.

No club for you.

There is no fighting belief.

Once a person has committed themselves to a story, it is impossible for them to entirely let it go.

And what does belief do for us?

It feeds our prejudice.

It feeds a monster called ego, which demands that I'm the center of the universe.

Belief tells us it is right for us to be selfish.

Protect our own.

It feeds that inherent genetic childhood psychology, that feeling that I am the center of the world and that I must survive.

My needs before the other.

I am the chosen.

The one.

Consequently, in this mix in our nation, there is a group of people who firmly righteously believe they are God's chosen people.

There are organizations as well as individuals who understand the dynamics of this prejudice and exploit it for their own benefit.

For profit.

These 'brokers of evil' keep the monster called White supremacy alive, feeding it the red meat of death and destruction.

They are the gatekeepers keeping racism on sale.

These gatekeepers can be found in legislative bodies.

Sitting in judgment on legal benches.

In pulpits.

In our places of work.

In the home.

The belief that I'm better than everyone else on the planet is not limited by class, race, nationality, or income.

Belief is a cancer on the soul of mankind.

Belief served a purpose when humans were alone on a hostile planet with limited resources.

Belief is a sickness that rots society from the inside when you live in a world of abundance.

Belief keeps the individual isolated.

Isolated from reality.

Isolated from asking who is my brother who is my sister?

Belief.

What does your belief tell you right now?

Can you see people marching for their freedom?

Or do you see thieves reaching for something that doesn't belong to them?

Do you hear people crying?

Or do you see insects who got what they deserve?

Do you defend the past?

Or do you embrace the future?

Do you hate?

Do you love?

Change can't happen unless we change what we believe.

We have to stop believing and start knowing.

What do you believe?

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Madness

There are no words that will stop the madness.

Only through our actions will we gain our rightful protection from fear.

What is at the heart of gun rights madness?

What is the pillar, the rock on which some believe we have an inherent right to kill?

This country, in particular, suffers from this madness the most.

The source of the origin of this madness is nothing new.

No.

It was brought here with the arrival of Europeans to the shores of the Virginias.

It was in the hearts and minds of the Pilgrims.

It is the belief that God, the one and only Christian God, created the White race to dominate the world.

If any other race got in the way of God's will, then it was the duty of White people to put the other races in their place.

It was their duty to kill in God's name.

White people are the chosen judge, jury, and executioners of God.

The source of the origin of the gun rights madness is the belief in White supremacy.

I'm too old now to pull my punches.

It's too late to put a diplomatic spin on madness.

It's time we took the lies by the neck and kicked it out into the spotlight.

This ugliness, this vile evil fostered by timid sociopaths to keep themselves in power, has gone on too long.

Guns are tools of death.

Period.

Not everyone is qualified to work a jackhammer, are they?

They may think they can.

They may believe they can.

But they would be mad to think they could.

Tools do not have an inherent right.

WE, THE PEOPLE, and our rights to peace, happiness, and security —our rights supersede the madness that prioritizes tools over lives.

WE, THE PEOPLE, have to confront our brothers and sisters who believe in the madness of White supremacy.

You can't tell a rock to fly, no matter what you think is best for that rock.

You can't just tell a White racist to grow some compassion because it will never happen.

We have had over 2,000 years of the doctrine of love.

Do unto others as you would have done unto you.

How has that worked out?

It's a slogan that's often forgotten.

100's of millions of people have been killed around the world.

Murdered by White Christians because they knew God is on their side.

If you don't see the correlation between White people killing other races by the millions in history, in the name of their God, from the beginning of the Crusades to today, you have a bag over your head.

Until we confront the foundations of White supremacy that founded this nation, the U.S.A., we will never end the madness of gun violence.

Every Sunday, parishioners in this nation are told there is only one way to God.

They are told there is only one religion that God likes.

They are told there is only one kind of person God likes.

The White, protestant, Christian male.

All others are second-class passengers and are subject to being killed for disobeying White males.

This is the madness that is taught to our children before they can even speak.

This is what they learn in Sunday school.

I know it as a fact because I'm a witness to it.

The supremacy of the White race.

They believe this is true because why would an adult lie to them?

Somewhere, somebody, and it might be us, has to stand up and say no more forever.

Forever!

Drop hate be hope.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Brotherhood

Equality.

The word the idea of equality strikes fear in many hearts.

Not just racial equality.

No.

But intellectual, cultural, physical, and gender equality also strikes fear.

How could someone be afraid of being equal?

Being equal means I am not unique.

I am not special.

I am not chosen.

I don't get a break.

I'm not first in line.

I am not the best.

No more entitlements.

Notice how there is a lot of "I" in these thoughts?

"I" as opposed to "us."

Human beings are unique, as far as we can tell, in that they can hold two opposing thoughts in their minds at the same time and believe both of them to be true.

I am special; therefore, mankind should serve me.

The rest of humanity was placed on this earth to maintain my position as leader.

If you are so superior, you should be serving mankind, ensuring its happiness, freedom, and justice.

Equality.

Thinking and saying you are the best is a good indication to the herd that you are not.

Our journey to brotherhood has only begun.

It received some good press, including a news announcement back in the 1950s.

Like a voice in the wilderness that echoes between the trees, 'I am a Man' pricked up the ears of those asleep.

Far too many fell asleep after those voices of freedom were taken away from the world's consciousness.

Too many thought the fight was over.

The battle with inhumanity was over.

It was only a round of a fight that has no end.

Fear.

Fear is a terrible thing.

It will make people do terrible things.

Fear will make people deny the truth.

That's why it's such a potent weapon for those who profit from fear.

Realize those who profit from fear it's their only source of income.

They know not of any other trade than fear.

Fear.

Let us trade our fear for compassion.

Let us trade our fear for what love demands of us all.

More.

Love wants us to understand there are no boundaries to its reach.

Love is the future.

Fear no more, my sister, my brother.

We are right by your side together, facing the future together.

Drop hate be hope.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby