today

Compassion

The world has never valued kindness.

Kindness in this world of limits has always been relegated to a sign of weakness.

To be kind is stupid.

Ignorant.

You care for your own first.

Blood is thicker than the welfare of the stranger.

If you don’t know, I’m an empath.

I was diagnosed late in life after years of suffering at the hands of the words of everyone around me.

Their anger, their hate, their ignorance, their prejudice, their racism, their bias wore me down to the breaking point.

It broke me.

What kept me from taking my life?

Love.

Compassion.

Caring.

A simple act that cost the person who saved my life absolutely nothing.

But what it did was allow me to be here today talking to you about it.

There is redemption.

There is hope.

There is reconciliation with those that deserve it.

I’m not here to say that those who commit egregious acts upon you are to be forgiven and forgotten.

No.

Never.

I’m here to say that you need to forgive yourself first and foremost so that you can heal.

Never forget.

Never forget the cruelty.

The heartless acts of violence and selfishness meant to hurt, to punish, to destroy.

Compassion is about a standard of morality.

Compassion does not need a religion.

Compassion does not need a doctrine.

Compassion is the act that love tells us to do.

Compassion is stronger than hate.

Stronger than anger.

Stronger than fear.

It can heal the deepest wound.

It can bridge the distance between minds.

It can do the impossible even in the hands of the smallest forgotten person.

Compassion resonates through the centuries.

The love that men and women had in the past is why we are here today.

They fought the good fight.

They stood up to the intolerant.

They ignored the impossible and made it possible.

Compassion is defined as weakness by evil.

You will learn that those that fear a thing call it out as weakness.

As the child who is afraid of the dark calls out, telling the darkness they are not afraid of it…

BOO!

They are.

I have learned that my empathy is a two-edged knife.

It cuts to the truth, but it also cuts me.

It’s hard every day to feel the pain all around me.

It can bring me down.

Yet, it can spur me on, too.

To find a way to lift every voice.

To push for that day when hate is seen for what it is.

Weak.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

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 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…

It seems that idea still persists 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.

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 male.

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

He can actually do anything, and none of it matters to these supporters because he’s ordained by the White Christian God to save the White race.

Do you hear what I hear?

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.

They were white and in control.

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

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

Apartheid.

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

America 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 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

Toby aka Daniel J. Frey

To See Too Much

Imagine seeing germs.

Imagine you could see germs on the people around you.

Imagine those germs are 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.

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

This fourth wall 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.

I found out it wasn’t science fiction like I thought it was.

I found out that all of the lies I saw were real.

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 incomprehensibly worse than a normal person's.

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

I fell into a spiral of doom.

I also found out that I needed to establish healthy barriers to my psychology to regulate the flow of the pain of this world.

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

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.

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 a bit late in life.

But I learned.

Peace

Daniel J. Frey aka Toby

Shoes

When you walk in another’s shoes…

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 get along with every day.

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

Exceptionalism is everywhere.

You can’t get past the exceptional trees to see the forest.

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?

What do we tell ourselves?

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

Them 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.

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 getting 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.

The first will be last.

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 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

The Rain Is Here

All around us, the rain is falling.

Since Dylan put it into lyric, by the way, that was 1964, the American public has been at odds with learning how to swim versus sinking like a stone.

What I'm talking about is leaving ignorance behind and learning we can do right.

The rain falls…

The rain falls, and what it's doing is revealing truth.

In the 20th Century, the rain fell, revealing fascism.

The rain fell, and segregation was revealed.

The rain fell, and we discovered the poor were in need.

We discovered that women had rights.

The rainwater rose, and white nationalism was thrown into the spotlight.

If, by the 1980s, you weren't swimming, you were sinking.

Why?

The rain kept falling.

The rain washed away our delusion that authority, our leaders always told the truth.

The rain fell.

The rain fell, revealing a rainbow of gentle souls wanting to live their lives without fear.

It revealed that religious leadership preyed upon its followers' hearts, minds, and bodies.

The 21st Century arrives, and the weather forecast looks cloudy.

The rain fell.

They're hiding in plain sight; our social servants charged with protecting us instead abused us.

The rain fell.

No justice, no peace.

No justice, no peace.

The rain fell, washing away the delusion that justice was applied fairly and evenly in America.

We rediscovered that some people believed themselves more equal than others.

The rain falls.

It will continue to fall.

Because love applied will never give in.

Love applied will open the eyes of the self-ignorant.

Love applied will openly ask will you change and join us in a great community?

Or will you prefer to sink like a stone?

Wish you love.

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 a lot of things, too many to count.

And we will do them gladly if not out of a sense of duty, of pride.

What is the last thing you’ll do?

Love.

The last thing too many will do is to love.

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, the stranger, represents danger to our existence.

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

To not be just sympathetic but to attain the highest human ability empathy.

If we don’t love ourselves, we are doomed to be turned inward, focusing on feeding our desire at the expense of all life around us.

What is the last thing you will 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 will do?

Peace

Toby aka Daniel J. Frey

The Trouble With Truth

Truth is not widely accepted.

Truth is inconvenient.

Truth will set you free only if you want it to.

Humans have told themselves stories in place of the truth since speech was a thing.

Their stories, myths, and beliefs all feel better and right and are easier to swallow than the truth.

It’s perfectly understandable; it’s perfectly human that we prefer our stories over the truth.

Our stories feed our prejudice.

Our stories feed our selfishness.

Our stories feed our entitlements.

If we had to face and accept the truth, the consequence would be responsibility.

What would we be responsible for?

The truth reveals that we are responsible for justice.

For equality.

For freedom.

For peace.

For the planet.

For each other.

We can eliminate poverty.

We can feed the hungry.

We can care for the sick.

We can live in a clean world.

We can control guns.

We can make the world and everyone living their lives fuller, richer, and free from fear.

That’s if we want to.

That’s if we want to let go of the stories we tell each other.

The stories that put the blame on other people.

The stories that say our deities will sort our problems out for us.

The stories that make us deaf, blind, and dumb to the suffering and despair in our world.

Our world is in balance.

The world teeters between the past and the future.

Our stories find their origins in our past.

The future is yet to be written.

Love can see us through, but love alone won’t get us over the mountain of ugly lies we prefer to believe in.

If love alone could have overcome our stories, the human race would not continually find itself on this carousel of doom it likes to ride.

What will break humanity from chasing its own tail of self-deception?

History, yes, history demonstrates it takes just one person standing against the darkness and saying no more forever.

Are you the hope the world is looking for?

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

What 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 and 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.

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

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 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?

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

I can’t trust people I don’t know.

Trust is always earned.

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 on a day of the 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 more never less.

A life of love is a life fulfilled.

What love?

Peace

Toby aka Daniel J. Frey

Purpose

Do you have a purpose?

Do you care if you have a purpose or not?

If you don’t have a purpose or believe in having a purpose, you are in the majority.

The majority of us do not have a purpose.

What is a purpose?

Your job is not a purpose.

In fact, anything that is a function by its very nature is not a purpose.

Function does not have a purpose, and consequently, a purpose has no function.

Many of us mistake their function for a purpose.

As I said, your job is not a purpose; it’s a function.

Everyone has a job.

Functions are a common set of actions that any and all life can do does do.

Having children and raising them is a function.

Taking care of the sick and old is a function.

Teaching is a function.

Eating, traveling, entertaining, preaching, fighting, sex, and more are all functions.

If any living creature can do it in their fashion, then it's a function.

Not a purpose.

Do you have a purpose?

You can add another fact that to qualify as a function, you can or could be paid for it.

Dentists, farmers, carpenters, plumbers, electricians, and politicians are all functions.

To have a purpose means, by its very nature, you won’t be paid for it.

As you can see, so far, having a purpose is not that attractive, is it?

Yet having a purpose is the reason, the goal of being alive.

Having no purpose is akin to being the walking dead.

Wandering through life feeding on the brains, the thoughts of others without regard to who will be harmed.

Never ever think that having a purpose means it has to be grand.

Important.

No.

That would be against everything that having a purpose means.

The smallest of purposes can also be the most important.

Being kind is a purpose.

Compassion is a purpose.

Empathy is a purpose.

These purposes are expressed through the language of love.

These purposes are executed through the administration of justice.

These purposes are held through the application of freedom.

It is through our purpose, our corner of life, that we have the privilege to make the world better.

Not for ourselves; that is a function.

The purpose of life is to make the world better for all.

How are you doing with your purpose?

Peace

Toby aka Daniel J. Frey

Friends

Everyone is your friend until proven otherwise.

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

Who is not my friend?

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 if I live 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.

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.

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, its as if no time has passed.

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

That purpose is made real through 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 we consider each life, each person an individual worthy of respect, of consideration, of life, of 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

Toby aka Daniel J. Frey

Indifference

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

It is the Indifferent.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

Toby aka Daniel J. Frey

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 concerning 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 feeding fear to the fearful.

Society has been plagued with these people since before there was history.

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

There's no law to pass.

There's no protest march.

There's no vote that 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 clearly 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.

America has a cancer at the center of its soul.

And we all know what the cancer is called.

Racism.

You ever wonder why racists come down on people because their grass isn't cut?

Why do they 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 that profit from telling the lie and those that feed upon the lie.

The lie being there are races of humans.

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

Toby aka Daniel J Frey

Everybody

The depth of hate has no bottom.

The truth has a limit for people to 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.

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.

Those that profit from our fear knows this.

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

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 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 better.

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

Peace

Toby aka Daniel J Frey

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 wiping his eyes in the coffee shop.

The boy pushing past you.

The girl who cut herself.

Who do you see?

The woman who is drunk.

The man passed out, his nude ass exposed.

The boy asking 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, a meaning.

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

Peace

Toby aka Daniel J. Frey

Rocks

Am I talking to a rock?

It used to be 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.

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

The Romans believed that a 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.

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

They believed, as so 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.

It wasn't until the American Civil War that we started to wash our hands before we conducted surgery.

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

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

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 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.

I'm talking to my liberal brothers and sisters.

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 you 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 and move on.

It's time we get on getting on and move forward to that better tomorrow we who aren't rocks have been waiting for.

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 a thing of science fiction.

It turns out 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 died at age seventeen.

I lost my memory.

I lost my family.

I had to relearn my past.

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

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

Cruel father, a mother on the cross, bullies.

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

Stupid.

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

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

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.

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.

Being hard going through life not caring labels oneself as being a child.

Being soft and going through life caring for others makes you an adult.

In many ways, both our fault and nobody's fault, we have lost those touchstones in our 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 responsibility of life.

Adults care for the children.

Children care only for themselves.

This world is hard.

Some days I can't really take it.

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

DFrey

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 won’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 to keep us from getting to where we want to go.

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 wants to get to a world where peace, justice, and love are the rule, not the exception.

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

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 building efforts to get to the promised land.

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

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 the bridge builders that there’s only one-third of the people actively help build bridges across humanities 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?

Here’s an honest answer…

I don’t know.

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

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.

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.

I’ve been thinking that 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 all must actively engage our brothers and sisters and take as many as possible to the other side.

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

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

We can’t wait on the perfect time is too short.

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

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

DFrey

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 end 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 form 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.

Our ignorance of life is a virtue.

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.

So many of the lights put up in the dark are there to trap and hold people like moths to a flame.

People put up these lights because of their need for power, for people to praise them.

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

The voice of love speaks with the light of truth.

Light in the darkness.

Peace

DFrey

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 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.

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 final act of living tells us about the importance of life.

Every life, every life is essential.

Every life, including yours and mine, has meaning.

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

Understanding how precious life is, the life of the individual, means; what it really means requires us to do more.

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

That’s absurd logic.

This life is all we are guaranteed.

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.

Love gives birth to the truth.

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

Drop hate be hope.

Peace.

DFrey

Blame

Who is to blame?

Short answer…

We all are.

The act of blame serves three purposes.

One; is to target a thing, a person, with responsibility negatively.

Two, to generate guilt in a thing, a person.

Three, to deflect responsibility.

The blame game is as old as the human race.

Why are there no crops?

Who vandalized my sundial?

Why is the person I love dead?

Somebody did something; consequently, somebody must be to blame.

Who is to blame?

I can’t be to blame, am I?

When was the last time you heard anyone say they were at fault?

On average, Occam’s Razor says no one that you can personally remember.

It’s easier to blame anything else but yourself.

Bandits, crooks, hucksters, flimflam men, liars, despots, dictators, and the sociopath in your friends and family all use blame to stay in power.

Blame is used by governments, religions, social media, and charities the world over.

Someone is to blame!

Blame them!

You’re innocent.

Give me money, give me power, give me your soul.

Trust me.

Just an aside, if anyone ever says to you, trust me, they are immediately untrustworthy.

Trust is earned, not taken.

And that’s at the core of blame.

Blame says that the other person is responsible.

You ultimately are taken off the hook; if someone else is to blame, you don’t have to do anything.

For that kind of relief, allegiances are formed between those who blame others and those who believe they are not responsible.

I’m here to say we are all responsible.

Hunger, poverty, injustice, and fear we are the weavers of darkness.

There is no outside force, no invisible mythical entity darkening the world.

Its people.

Us.

Our brothers and sisters who live in fear of the truth.

That fear we are all equal.

Everything we love will die someday.

This is why it is so important to love one another while we can the best way that we can.

That is why we must stand for justice the best way that we can.

That is why we must feed the hungry.

Help those that are sick.

Be with those that grieve.

This is why we must drop the blame and take responsibility for our life.

No one is to blame, but our failure to do what is right when it is needed.

Doing nothing is not a virtue.

Doing nothing is the tread that holds together the blindfold of fear.

I’m just one voice in a chorus.

I’m asking…

Drop hate be hope.

Peace

DFrey