But the lunatics are warning us: we’re in a war.

I stopped doing overly political posts on Facebook some time ago. It got to be too painful.

But with all that’s going on, and the signs I’m seeing that suggest our society is taking a major turn toward the dystopian, I do share the occasional tidbit or quote.

The posts come across as cryptic. I know that.

And so a cousin of mine asked me, recently, to explain what I meant by a particular comment.

I declined.

But I do probably owe him something of an explanation, so here it is.

Let me put it this way

Many years ago—i was in my late 20s—i was out hiking when I noticed a plant I’d never seen before.

When I say “notice” I mean the effect was almost startling. Something about the shape of the leaves and their intensely dark color jumped out at me. 

The plant was enmeshed in a tangle of weeds but as a shape or pattern it stood out clearly, almost as if it were glowing or backlit. It was striking and very beautiful.

I took a leaf home and ID’d it. 

The plant was poison hemlock, one of the deadliest plants in the northeastern US.

How and why did I notice it? 

“How” has to do with my background, having grown up spending enormous amounts of time outdoors in tangled, wild settings, paying close attention to plants. Plants are patterns. From childhood – toddlerhood, in fact – my brain practiced the skill of noticing particular patterns within tangles of weedy chaos. 

I began foraging wild edible plants at a young age. I learned tricks, for example that Euell Gibbons memorized the pattern of dead asparagus fronds so that he could spot patches with new asparagus spears come spring. He paid attention to plants’ patterns.

So then, one day, I saw a pattern of leaf shape, plant shape, and leaf color that I had never seen before, and it stood out.

“Why” is a different question altogether. 

What made the experience particularly memorable is the feeling I got from the plant. It felt like the plant was calling attention to itself. It also felt personal, like the plant had also noticed me.

If that plant had a human voice and called out to me by name, the effect would have been the same. Obviously it didn’t speak, but it *felt* like it had. It felt like it was saying “look at me. I am important to notice.”

That is how the brain/mind works, when it has been paying attention to patterns, and is open enough to scan for curious patterns in the environment. The environment speaks back. Patterns jump out and say “this is important. Pay attention, now.”

Now suppose I took someone who had spent her entire life in a city out to that weedy place, and asked her if she noticed anything odd.

She would have had a different experience. She would have seen a baffling, chaotic tangle of stalks and greenery. She might have noticed the bloom of a wildflower if there was a weed in bloom, but her brain would not have “picked out” that odd bright deadly plant.

And I would not be able to “teach” her how to spot that plant. At least not immediately.

Other poisons

I am now a great deal older, and there are other things besides plants that I am highly sensitized to – from a childhood that conditioned me to spot patterns of, i shall say euphemistically, “emotional imbalance,” followed by a lifetime of thinking deeply about humans and what makes them tick, because that is what writers do. 

But just because I see patterns that I recognize as evil, manipulative, or abusive doesn’t do a thing for someone who is not self-trained and sensitized to those kinds of patterns.

And why would anyone trust me when I point to a tangle of chaos and say, see that? It is a poison!

So I can say: See what is happening? Our ruling class is evil and greedy and corrupt, almost beyond the comprehension of decent, normal people. They are lying to us, continually, in every single aspect of society they control. They are deliberately – consciously, as a tactic – fomenting civil unrest; this is a sleight of hand so that we don’t notice that they are robbing us blind and perverting the institutions that once protected us and knit our culture together.

They are subverting our innate abilities to distinguish right from wrong, to detect true threats from manufactured bogeyman they create and set loose on us to frighten and unnerve and distract. They are using their power to hurt and torment us.

They are putting into place a new form of government entirely, one that leverages technology to corral and control and punish “the masses” while exempting themselves from any risk of hardship or sacrifice. Our representational republic is no more. 

On another level – the pattern behind the pattern — I detect that we have now entered a new era, a new epoch. In this new epoch godless — quite possibly demonic in the classic sense of the term — energy patterns are in ascension; the suffering and death that is now evident around us is the fruits of this ascension, and awful to behold – and also very likely only beginning; very likely it is going to become much, much worse. 

Do you see this pattern? 

No, you do not.

Many do not. Many still see only the remnants of a world that was true as recently as 30 or 40 years ago; they see the remnants of old patterns and think that is all that is there.

And if you don’t see the things I see, there is no point in having a conversation about it. I am not able to “persuade” your mind/brain to see something it cannot – and you are not able persuade my mind/brain to unsee what it sees.

I can’t *not* see the poison hemlock plant glistening within the tangle of greenery and stalks.

I do occasionally share bits of what I see because I would love for the people I care about to take steps to protect themselves, as much as they can. But if I share too overtly I will be banned – ostracized – so I do not share links to primary sources or to the research and journalism of others who see the same patterns I do. These platforms use algorithms to scan for links to forbidden materials and then they punish people for sharing them. I don’t wish to be banned. I am dependent on these platforms for a portion of my income. I wish to choose the time I make my exit and I am not yet ready.

There is another reason there is no point in having a conversation: to you and I, it doesn’t matter whether I am right or wrong. 

If I am right, it doesn’t matter to you, because you will never agree that I am right. You will live *as if*’I am wrong and interpret events according to your own, entirely different assumptions and frameworks. 

And if I am wrong? Over time, my paranoid delusions will be falsified by reality. Inflation will not give way to hyperinflation; the dollar will not collapse; the financial markets will not collapse; printing money to paper over national debt will prove to be fiscally sound policy; housing will become affordable again; the remaining wealth of the middle class will not be wiped out; the supply chain will recover without anyone experiencing life-threatening shortages of food or medicines; the massive influx of non-citizens over our southern border will be assimilated comfortably, without straining our healthcare infrastructure or economy…

The pandemic will be overcome or at least be made bearable by ennobled public healthcare policies; the loss of our privacy and personal agency will prove to be justified because our society will become safer and more prosperous; “green energy” will turn out to be reliable and cost-effective after all; the epidemics of drug abuse and suicide will subside as we become more and more psychologically and spiritually grounded…

The ruling class will firmly repudiate corruption; the FBI and CIA and DOJ and NSA and DHS will turn out to be fighting for the citizens they serve, not protecting powerful ruling class cabals; the Chinese will turn out to be a toothless frenemy, not intent after all on destroying us as an existential threat to their Maoist dictatorship and global ambitions…

We’ll discover that focusing education on racial injustice instead of STEM and civics and critical thinking skills turns out young citizens who are best equipped to govern and lead; we’ll learn that reducing budgets for policing and relaxing penalties for crime makes communities more, rather than less safe.

And you know what? Should that be the future that we experience in whatever time we have left, nobody will be happier than me.

Nobody will be happier to tuck into a slice of humble pie and admit I was wrong, that in the year 2021 I was a silly paranoid delusional conspiracy theorist.

You have my word on that.