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Written Essay: Pro-Democracy Series #5: The Mass Psychology of Sexual Repression

This is the 5th volume in our pro democracy political philosophy series. In the 4th volume, our previous essay related to "Growing Up With Authority and Love" we touch on how there is a direct link in growing up under loveless authoritarian parenting styles and incorrect indoctrination into thinking that the human race is fundamentally bad, based in sin, and later in life support for authoritarian political leadership. Authoritarian parenting is defined as a parenting style characterized by sky high levels of control and strict rules, with little room for negotiation or discussion. While authoritarian political leadership is characterized by a strong focus on obedience and respect for authority and the deplorables who aim to yield that authority with little room for dissent or democratic decision-making. Individuals who were raised in an authoritarian parenting style are locked into fully conforming to their parental asshole authority with near complete incapability to question or challenge their authority figures who emphasize obedience for that authority, regardless of whether those leaders are acting in their best interest.

In our third essay in this series, "Gender and Sexuality Balance", we also touched on the off-balanced nature of systems that do not equally value both the feminine and the masculine but instead skew heavily towards the masculine. This extends all the way up through culture, is ground zero for empire, and back through history (his story, not both her story and his story) to the centuries long con claim that the creator of the universe is only a male and not both a female and male. While most modern day organized religion is patriarchal, claiming that the creator is only a male, who has the most importance throwing the feminine to the side of less importance, many moderate religious folks are very much still pro-democratic. However, in all more extreme religious households, not only is there the incorrect claim that sky daddy is also a male but also a vengeful and mean authoritarian male - so basically your mean, macho father is also hierarchically under a mean and vengeful sky father. So if a dad was a chauvinist macho asshole, it's likely their children will be the same. Authoritarian leaders often present themselves as strong, decisive, and in control, which can be attractive to fear based persons who secretly feel powerless and lack control in their lives and need a macho father figure and patriarchal sky father to tell them what to do and think.

While a variety of factors play a role in shaping an individual's political views, and authoritarian parenting heavily relates to support for authoritarian political leaders because of the appeal to this loveless mean male hierarchy, other factors such as travel, socialization, and education also play a role. However, since the major factor missing in this hierarchy is ample love, there is another factor that is a major cause tied to the loveless aspect. Which is the way that the household treats sexual education. Which in progressive pro-democratic households is to embrace it and in regressive authoritarian households is to repress it.

Sexual repression is a state in which a person is prevented from expressing their own sexuality. It's often linked with feelings of guilt or shame being associated with sexual impulses. Defining characteristics and practices associated with sexual repression vary between societies and historical periods. The behaviors and attitudes constituting sexual repression differ across cultures, religious communities and moral systems. Sexual repression can largely be categorized as physical, mental or an amalgam of both. It thrives in authoritarian theocratic countries in which common practices include genital mutilation. Especially against, you guessed it... the feminine. Even consenting adults under these tyrannical systems believed to have engaged in behaviors contradicting dark social, imperial, religious, or cultural expectations - such as sex out of marriage, sodomy, or homosexuality, may even be punished through honor killings, persecution, or even the death penalty.

So instead of that tyrannical insanity, what is the more natural, healthy counter to this which occurs under loving parenting? Proper sexual education. When one is a baby, they learn how to eat, sleep and pee and poo. So they get those basics of their plumbing figured out. Sexual education, which when introduced, just prior to hitting puberty, is the completion of this previous education - further informing youth how the secondary aspects of their bodies systems and plumbing fully works. And then being educated about these natural instincts, being shown that these sexy liquids that start oozing out of us when we become teenagers are perfectly natural, and are openly shown how to balance these associated urges and interests in life, and have healthy expressions for them. Authoritarian households, especially repressive ones, not only do little to no education about this secondary basic natural education, they outright dismiss it as dirty and sinful and encourage the repression of it.

Now we know you love it when we talk about sex. We've had a long time essay in the works about how sexual energy is also creative energy. More on that in a future long form spoken word piece but we will touch on it a bit in this essay. So strap in here (no pun intended) as we get into this... We're going to say some things in this one that should just be considered standard mature adult conversation. Catered to you, the mature, sophisticated reader or listener.

Humans, and pretty much every other animal in the food chain, are sexual beings. We could have a whole separate evolutionary and epidemiological discussion about how the majority of mating in the animal kingdom happens quickly, not in a consummated relationship. IE, the two fish who never have met before, team up, share fluids, fertilize thousands of caviar, and then go off on their separate ways to never see each other again. Quick Quick Boom. This style of procreation in nature works well for creatures whose offspring can be independently operating from day one. But for other species, such as beavers or elephants or humans, where the offspring need to be under parental care for multiple years, that dynamic entails parents that have established monogamous relationships in order for both to be involved in protecting and raising their children. We could also have a separate evolutionary discussion about both primate and human indigenous hunter gatherer societies in smaller tribes, in which there is evidence to show that orgies were standard practice for long sections of human tribal history, in which everyone of consenting age is banging everyone else. In which not only is there more to go around, but then no one quite knows whose child is whose, so there's an incentive for the whole tribe to co-raise each child. Hence the phrase, it takes a village to raise a child. But as society scales up, the more standard practice has been that two parents, or a single parent, or some combination of parents, older siblings, and grandparents, help raise the child - with love and care.

So when a parental figure loves and cares, they want their child to be truly happy and educated. And part of having future healthy and loving relationships is to be informed about the underlying scaffolding that should be in place for future adults of consenting age to have the full extent of expression of that future loving relationship - physically. In open, pro democratic societies, which should hold both sexes of equal value, this is always in place. Because it's informing and educating about basic aspects of nature - which include foreplay, steamy sexual pleasure, and crescendoing orgasms. All of which, when done amongst consenting adults or shock horror, god forbid, when done individually by a single adult - are wonderful and a glorious part of life.

But if one is a de-spiritualized pro-authoritarian patriarchal theocrat who hates nature, and thinks people are born in sin, the opposite is thought. The 90% of religion that’s imperial crap is sexually super up tight and historically, the United States, which has a large percentage of its population that is quite religious, is thus a quite sexually repressed culture. This extends back to the Victorian era where they would have to literally cover exposed piano legs to not give the boys any arousal. And has carried into this puritanical mindset of the new American settlers, many of whom were colonialists of empire who slaughtered the native Americans. To this day, Europe is a bit more enlightened when it comes to nudity. As you're much more likely to see a topless woman on a beach in Spain. And not only does little to no one care, they mostly know it's awesome. Because they are more social, chill, free, and democratic. But since about 1/4 to 1/3rd of the US is still religiously bonkers, this constant through line of sexual repression still exists. And the lauder the volume is turned up on the religious indoctrination, the crazier these later effects end up being within those who grow into adulthood under heavy dogma - such as ultra sexually frustrated nuns that are always crabby and pissed off, or a quiverfull child who’s one of 19 kids in a bat shit crazy family that starts banging his siblings, or mega church preachers always having sex scandals, or the attitude that male to female rape within marriage is totally allowed, or Catholic preists who end up raping kids, or militias or mercenary soldiers for scumbag authoritarian armies who end up also being mass rapists. All of who would have little to no problem watching bullets spraying, because they’re ammosexuals, but shock horror at seeing that female statues bare chest or Michelangelo's David’s ween.

Most of everything in culture is secretly really about either making money or sex. Both are in a somewhat subtextual dont really say it upfront way - but especially so with sex. One example, if you haven't figured it out yet fellas, is dancing - which, like shamanism, is as old as the hills, and is a major flag wave for sex. Because there's nearly a 1-to-1 correlation with how good you are at shaking your hips dancing with how good you are in the sack. Women generally like to dance more than men, so you’ll see a group of women out on the dance floor first, and they know this. And want to see a man's dance skills - because it secretly reveals this information in finding a partner. So up tight culture has very much been about not directly speaking about sex but having undertones of it everywhere. The psychedelic philosopher Terence Mckenna once accurately said that culture “would make sex illegal if they could. But they can't, so it isn't.” But they will surely use it to sell things to you. We don’t have to tell you how much of society and culture, especially commercialism, is really all about sexual undertones. Human sexuality has had a significant impact on the marketing industry. The use of sexual imagery and themes in advertising is a common tactic used to grab attention and increase consumer interest in a product or service. This is because sexual content goes to our deep roots, urges, and natural instincts. Because we are sexual beings, and because we want that, which marketing knows, they also know that sexually related influences are highly attention-grabbing and memorable, and use it on us consciously or unconsciously as the most effective way to communicate a message and sell a product. The use of sexuality in advertising can be found across all forms of media, from print ads and television commercials to online marketing and social media campaigns.

Healthy society certainly discourages hedonistic orgies amongst under age teenagers. All getting STDs and pregnant during their pre-collegiate years. That would be bonkers in the other direction of repression if allowed. But when one naturally becomes an oily and sweaty teenager, this natural stuff they want to do, if in a more balanced dynamic which entailed being educated about birth control and allowed to have healthy, guilt free expressions for a fresh sex drive, should result in things like encouraged masturbation as a solo outlet along with development of a caring relationship prior to undertaking in sexual activity exclusively for pleasure when reaching adult age. But when none of that is allowed before some sort of strict marriage, or sometime even an arranged loveless marriage, and teenagers are instead told it's bad to do, or you shouldn't do, or is sinful to do, and birth control isn’t even mentioned or is also said to be bad from Satan, hating the thing you want to do most and repressing that natural healthy creative urge for pleasure purposes really messes with the horny teenage brain. Then fractal that out to every extreme regressively religiously indoctrinated child, and you've got 25% of a society's children that are totally mentally damaged. Basically, young adults with wet vaginas and hard boners are told by stuffy adults with ultra tight Protestant buttholes they can't physically interact for pleasure purposes. And claims that society is sinful and bad and you the child are bad and your sexual urges are wrong fucks you up in the head and makes you a future mean asshole who wants to be an authority over others.

We are far from being the first person whose come to decode this. Wilhlm Reich figured this out almost 100 years ago. He was a psychoanalyst and doctor of medicine who had a life very similar to Nicola Tesla's in which he was 100+ years ahead of his time but had a very tumultuous relationship with entrenched systems of power (the authority, more like the horny but repressed authority) which some of his work threatened. Much of that work, like his predecessor Sigmund Freud, was related to sexuality and sexual psychology. He coined a term called "orgone energy", from "orgasm" and "organism", for the notion of life energy and very much knew some of the esoteric secrets about the human orgasm. Which the religions of empire work really hard at repressing from the populace. Also like Nicola Tesla, his life is very worth looking into, as he died in very poor conditions when he should have died with high cultural and societal appreciation. Reich contended that psychoanalysis of his time had failed to address the social and political factors that contribute to emotional distress. He claimed that when an individual is sexually repressed in their youth, they develop a sense of guilt and shame about their sexuality. This guilt and shame, according to Reich, leads to a suppression of one's natural sexual impulses and desires. As a result, the individual's emotional and psychological development is hindered, which then snaps by inevitable feelings of aggression and a need for control. In addition to his work on orgone energy and its therapeutic potential, Reich made significant contributions to the field of sexology. He wrote extensively on the topic of sexual repression and its effects on mental health. He also helped to popularize the concept of "sex-economy," which posits that sexual energy is an obvious driving force in human life. Reich also found that this same orgone energy is responsible for the creative process and that the free flow of orgone energy is crucial for creativity. Reich's ideas about the connection between sexual energy and creative energy stem from his research that both are forms of bio-energy that are stored in the body. He was one of the first to propose the idea that sexual energy and creative energy are closely linked and that the repression or blockage of this energy can literally lead to a wide range of physical, emotional, and psychological problems. He also felt that the orgasm and the discharge of its energy leads to a feeling of well-being and balance when dont through healthy expression. He emphasized the importance of sexual liberation amongst consenting adults and the rejection of regressively old school up tight societal attitudes towards sex and sexuality - and especially how that relates to creative expression. Reich argued that the ultra conservative patriarchal repressed family structure, which only says sex can be used, without pleasure, to have way too many kids, plays a role in the rise of fascism because the patriarchal family creates a sense of submission and obedience making them more susceptible to fascist ideologies closely tied to the rise of authoritarianism and/or totalitarianism - so this is the extra nightmare fuel that supercharges what is already growing up under a mean authority which lacks love - and that is no guilt free sexual release valve.

He stated such in one of his accomplishments - which is his book titled "The Mass Psychology of Fascism" which he wrote in the early 1930's - which is a psychoanalytic examination of the rise of fascism in Germany and other European countries during the early 20th century. A definition of Fascism is a far-right, authoritarian, ultranationalist political ideology and movement, characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social patriarchal hierarchy, subordination of individual interests for the perceived good of the nation and race, and strong regimentation of society and the economy. Like we always say to seek balance, as communism is the most extreme form of off balanced left-wing politics, where most everything is totalitarian government run and/or based, fascism is the most extreme form of off balanced right wing politics, where everything is under a complete totalitarian dictatorial mafia style corrupt corportized and often theocratic regime. Mussolini, took the name of his party from the Latin word fasces, which referred to a bundle of elm or birch rods. There’s a deeper story for another time as to why there are fasces symbols of these bundles of rods on each side of the American flag behind the congressional podium in congress in Washington D.C. but the premise of Reich’s book is that fascists and authoritarians actually come into power through previous decades of political and ideologically-oriented sexual repression on a society level in mass - the mass psychology of sexual repression. 

The book also very much mirrors what we have previously been highlighting here, which is not only that sexual repression in one's youth could lead to a number of emotional and psychological problems, but also includes the support of Fascism in adulthood. Reich argued that the suppression of sexuality, again, the natural and healthy aspect of human life, also contributes towards anxiety and aggression, which in turn make individuals more susceptible to ultra terrible fascist ideologies which hate others. Because as we've been decoding, orgasmic energy, designed to be used for love, can instead be negatively transmuted into hate. And since fascism always says get the dirty poor foreigners and other minorities out of our country and lies about restoring order and control in the face of oftentimes perceived chaos and instability of a population that is emotionally and psychologically damaged, Reich highlighted that this emotional state created by sexual repression makes gullible individuals more susceptible to such appeals because they are targeted towards those who have feelings of powerlessness, insecurity, and resentment. These feelings are exacerbated by the economic and social conditions of the time, such as unemployment, poverty, and a sense of alienation. Reich contended that these feelings lead gullible repressed individuals to seek a sense of belonging and security in fascist ideologies, which supposedly offer a sense of unity and power through the submission to a supposed strong leader, even though in reality these asshole leaders are weak cowards who have only managed to fail upwards, and instead of their mentally damaged supporters seeing the dictator as the obvious problem, their supporters pent up sexual repression hate mirrors it backwards onto the the scapegoating of certain other groups which the dictator commands. And those will always be those not in their cult and often on a lower totem of the "socio-economic hierarchy." Since most everything in modern culture is not just about sex but money, we'll be heading over to how that socio-economic hierarchy is structured and what type of its structuring is the most democratic in the next essay or two in this series. 

Photography Focused Channel

We are interested in many subjects. But over the years have solidified three main creative outputs which we would like to continue doing until we ship off this mortal coil. They are:

1) DIRECTING DOCUMENTARIES
2) TRAVELING THE WORLD AS AN INTERNATIONAL STREET PHOTOGRAPHER
3) WRITING AND NARRATING ESSAYS RELATED TO SELF-DEVELOPMENT

It has LONG been on the “to do list” to create more with our form of documentary photography - street photography. Specifically, to use the thousands of back photographs we’ve taken over the last 20 years to help provide visuals for more short form video documentary work related to the subject. Being interested in the vary obscure subject of esotericism, we also just really need one of our outputs to have a more mainstream appeal that we can still weave some esoteric themes into and photography just so happens to be the #1 most popular hobby in the world.

About a decade ago we secured the URL www.philosophicalphotography.com which has forwarded to nilesheckman.com/photography ever since. The reason for that name was that when we take a photograph of someone or something candidly, we will also provide a somewhat funny and/or philosophical caption along with each photo. Which is what you’ll see if you scroll through our work at the feed at https://www.nilesheckman.com/photographyfeed.

Over a year ago we also secured the same name for a YouTube channel and because we’re not doing the podcast conversations anymore have now been finding the time to create some video pieces there which can be found at - https://www.youtube.com/@philosophicalphotography/videos

YouTube is the largest video platform in the world and the second largest search engine in the world. Being under big brother Google does have its negatives, and we are constantly on the hunt for new video platforms that are not regressive hell scapes, but generally works very well and we do use it most days we are home and in our office. Since it’s good to upload to platforms you actually consume, we have deemed YouTube as a good single platform to showcase all of those three outputs. The platform also works best to have a channel based around one particular subject. For years we were uploading a mix of all of our three outputs to our main channel but we started getting trapped in the algorithm. So in recent months we have now broken each out into their own separate channel. Which seems a bit like overkill but we barely use any other social media.

With our usual approach of quality over quantity, the idea is to make each video on the street photography related exclusive channel a mini film in itself. Covering topics such as sharing our life experiences and techniques learned through our international street photography travels as well as share through a documentary lens the work of other street photographers and photojournalists.

Essay: Arriving In Waves

You may have very much noticed that these essays or episodes, at the time of their initial publication, come in waves. Meaning not one by one regularly on a set standardized, reoccuring schedule, but instead more in chunks or bursts, a bit sporadically, with oftentimes sizable gaps of time in between each wave. For example, not always, but oftentimes, they're may be 3 or 4 publications in a month and a half and then it will be 4 months of downtime - Crickets! Dust bowls! Making half the listeners or readers think we've hung up the reins, put them out to pasture, rode them off into the sunset, otherwise known as completely concluded them. Only to have another wave show up at some previously non-defined amount of time. Until this all re-courres again! 

Creative outputs are often intermittent due to a variety of factors. One of the most prominent reasons is the nature of the creative process itself. Each of these writings we try to make (hopefully somewhat) timeless and figuring out what the next one will be is based on what we feel at a certain time based upon how much introspection and incubation we've given an idea. Ours or anyone else's real creativity requires a certain level of inspiration, and inspiration is not always present or easily accessed. Often arriving sporadically and is influenced by factors such as emotions, schedule, environment, and life experiences. Primarily in this scheduling case, it's because we also undergo various waves of a short term slave job - day work. Having typically freelanced over the last decade, in various film related capacities, which means being absolutely slammed for numerous months, and then suddenly unemployed. Feast or famine.  

Creative work is very undervalued in the dysfunctional everything is for profit culture. Like most others, our most creative work makes us almost the least amount of money - so we work as well. Not as a permanent staff infection company man but here and there at various places at various times. So when little to no creative outputs are occuring, it almost always equates to us working. Less on our own projects, and way more on someone else's projects. Thus, these essays, along with our documentary and photography outputs, get mostly paused. There is an unfortunate stigma around creative personal work being viewed as a hobby or a luxury rather than a viable career option. This can make it difficult for artists to earn a fair wage for their work, particularly in fields such as writing, visual art, or music, where piracy and unauthorized sharing of content being rampant hasn't helped and the rise of the ghost in the machine, otherwise called Artificial Intelligence, is both a simultaneous help and hindrance as well. 

Even though, in the early 2020's there are now new models for funding, distribution, and monetization, pressures of commercial viability and financial success more often than not stifle creativity and limit artistic expression. In order to make a living off their work, many creatives must make compromises and sacrifices in their artistic vision, leading to a dilution of their unique autor voice and style. Not to mention spending time away from what they want to be doing to instead develop business skills. Another challenge facing creative individuals is the lack of stability and security that comes with working in a freelance or self-employed capacity. Without the benefits and protections of a traditional job, such as healthcare and retirement co-provided in a more sophisticated European society that provides those as a social contract through tax dollars paid - rather than solely through an employer, creatives often have to navigate a complex and often uncertain landscape of contracts, clients, and finances just to be able to be paid a modicum of a living wage along with a nestegg for the future. Furthermore, creative outputs are often hindered by the pressure of deadlines or expectations. The stress and anxiety associated with the need to produce on demand can be a significant impediment to the creative process, causing artists to second-guess their work and ultimately stifle their creativity. This is why we long ago learned to completely decouple our day job work from our own work. Knowing they are two completely different things. So between all of these life dynamics one goes through to make a living, or let the sand drain from the hourglass their whole life making a slow dying, intermittent waves of others work generally pause intermittent waves of maximized individualized original creativity. 

We've previously released a private essay on the subject of having "no set schedule" in regards to outputs. So we encourage you to seek that out and try and not have this be just a duplicate of that previous writing, but what is important to highlight here is that - it's incredibly difficult to make a full time job out of your own creativity. John Anthony West, the Egyptologist who, unlike most mainstream legacy forgettable Egyptologists, actually knew things about the esoteric and initiatory aspects of ancient egypt, thereby actually knew deep things about Egypt, and was someone who wrote his own books from his decade of research on the subject and made a documentary series about it as well called Magical Egypt which is very much worth your ear holes and eyeballs, once said in a lecture that it's nearly impossible to make a living off your own creativity.

Creative fields, where one does actually use some level of their own creativity, are highly competitive, with many talented individuals vying for nauseatingly limited keyston creative opportunities. This means that success often requires not only skill and talent, but also luck and perseverance. And then something called The Pareto distribution sadly also comes into play. Which is a power-law probability distribution that is used in describing the ratio of many types of observable phenomena sometimes within more perfect nature and way more often within dysfunctional culture. In short it highlights how most people will have little to very moderate success at something, while a tiny few will be wildly successful at it. Basically the scale of resources and thus power, is incredibly off balance. Such as how most podcasters make little to no money off their podcasts, and then one podcaster sells his to Spotify for $100,000,000.

Regardless of how one makes an income, in a boring slave job or even if it is lucky enough to be off some percentage of their own creativity that's in a job that is mostly enjoyable, over the long haul, being years or decades, the intermittent nature of creative outputs allow for more flexibility. Also allowing for splashes of productivity followed by periods of rest and reflection. This pattern of intense focus and rest is often necessary to allow the mind to recharge and generate new ideas. From within, not from outside sources. Such is how the band Tool is able to make such incredible albums that dont degrade over time. Where songs on their last album can be mixed with songs on their first album, and they pretty much all lock in place together without a noticeable style or quality change. You could take all their songs from all their albums, mix them all up, and basically not be able to tell which are newer and which are older. They are one of the only bands which seem to be able to do this, but the catch is their fan base will have to wait the better part of a decade between each album being released. 

Because the creative process is often unpredictable and nonlinear, meaning that progress may not always be immediately visible or measurable. It is not uncommon for creative individuals, outside of what they get paid for, on their own time, which is likely a rarity to begin with, to also spend long periods of that rare personal time on a single project or idea, only to abandon it entirely or return to it later with a fresh perspective. So we find, during these freelance job chunks, our creative flow, and frankly much of our self development, get either paused or turned down to a slow drip. As it's really hard to have time for introspection, travel, and synchronicity when you are working a lot of hours for 6 or sometimes even 7 days a week from home. At that point not only can you not get out there, see the world through travel and walk the yellow brick road, you barely have time to fold the now clean and formerly stinky laundry. 

The ebb and flow of inspiration, coupled with the need for rest and reflection, can often lead to periods of apparent inactivity. However, it is important to remember that these periods are not indicative of a lack of value, creativity, skill, or legacy built, but rather an essential part of the process that ultimately leads to the production of meaningful and impactful work over a lifetimes. So the intermittent nature of creative outputs is a natural and inevitable part of the creative process - and is how these essays will continue to arrive in waves over the months, quarters, and years. Think of this venture's orbit just being longer. Which should increase the value of the waves when they arrive anyway. So this orbit is not Venus, it's Jupiter.

Documentary Recommendation - The Lost Leonardo

This feature documentary covers the mystery surrounding the Salvator Mundi - the supposed first painting by Leonardo da Vinci to be discovered for more than a century. Which has gone missing after being sold to a morbidly rich godzillionaire - who is likely Mohammed bin Salman who had his guys cut Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi into pieces.

The work is for sure considered to be partially by da Vinci and for sure by one of his students. But whether it was 100% originally painted by da Vinci is still a matter of private debate. New York art restorer Dianne Modestini, who is One of the if not THE leading art restores in the world thinks so and so do the experts at the Louvre in Paris. The work stayed undiscovered for hundreds of years because of a bad restoration which covered up many of the traits that were call signs of da Vinci’s work and until that restoration work was removed only were those things then discovered.

The film tells the tail of this process and also how the priceless work of art of course went into the private sale market, and all the skullduggery contained within, to then being the highest selling work of art to date. A later twist on the story is that bin Salman visited Paris prior to the work’s authentication by the Louvre. So if it is not a 100% real da Vinci he could have just offered them a couple million to claim it was in order to increase the value of his very expensive investment.

Do consider paying to watch it via the usual streaming platforms or it can also be watched via a naughty link here - https://fmovies.to/movie/the-lost-leonardo-olvv8/1-full

Kevin Smith's Personal Journey

Even though this comes from “People Magazine”, it is quite amazing.

Kevin Smith is an American Filmmaker, comedian, and comic book nerd who hails from glorious New Jersey. He’s made a series of movies since the early 90’s, most of which are light weight fluff that could be classified in the “comedy” genre and appeal to younger adult audiences. Over the decades, we’ve paid attention to him because one of the other things he’s done for many many years is to tour college campuses participating in long and humorous talks and Q&A sessions to college students. Often discussing his films and their surrounding subject matters. Not only is much of it quite funny, but also gets philosophical at times, talking about life and also various inside skull duggery of Hollywood and the film industry. Here’s a quite beloved explanation he gave at one regarding his attempts to be involved in writing a screenplay for a Superman movie and dealing with a crazy studio executive in the process who of course knew next to nothing about the original material.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wo2KB1dEDdk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53hMYw8LX60

What we like most about him are not his films but instead his willingness to publicly share many of his personal life challenges through these public discussions. Which have often surrounded his struggles with his weight. Here’s another solid gold one dealing with fan heckeling and criticism:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ou2mVnElp6c

Smith has recently gone through what one could call “acceleration” on his spiritual path. In which, with his years of public speaking experience, he does quite a masterful job of explaining some of his recent life adjustments. For spirituality is not only living more in balance with nature, but very much also fixing your life’s alchemical dysfunctions. Official blurb regarding:

“One morning in January 2023, 'Clerks' director Kevin Smith awoke in terror, convinced he was losing his mind. The next day, he checked into Arizona's Sierra Tucson Treatment Center, where he spent a month in intensive therapy and learned how childhood sexual abuse and bodyshaming over his weight by his 4th grade teacher led him to create and hide behind a larger-than-life public persona he calls "the other guy." Now Kevin has stopped smoking weed, cut back on social media, is slowing down his work schedule after churning out movies, comic books, TV shows and podcasts, and learning about the healing power of self-acceptance. Most importantly, he is determined to get the word out to others who could benefit from hearing his story and the tools he's acquired to help find peace.”

Essay: The Cannot Be Given Away Phase (Exclusive For Members)

This is a written and spoken word essay which we are writing and recording in March of 2023. To serve as a bit of a time capsule while also sharing some personal insights through struggle. For, like the majority of artists through time, we've spent the better part of two decades in "The Cannot Be Given Away Phase", which you very much may be in as well.

Putting this out privately, this currently goes to a small audience. Primarily to those who support our work via a membership, paying a little something to download this essay volume, or in perhaps 20 years from now put up on some sort of archival website. For those of you who have been past or present members, thank you so much for doing so - Essentially sticking with us here, especially at the time of this writing as our exclusive outputs for patrons have slowed in the last couple years. This is both due to the evolving of our work through our own development, combined with the continuing need to make money in commerce. And in all honesty, we'll give you some specifics of our ongoing challenges with all this, including some specific numbers.

It's not that uncommon to hear people claim that they put a piece of media online, such as a video or song, and then say "the response to it has been amazing". Or say the phrase "the power of social media". Our experience has nearly always been the exact opposite. We have put out a lot of content in the last 10 to 15 years, most of it took a long time to create and is of high to very high quality, and the result has, for the most part, been met with dusk bowls and crickets. So yes, we sometimes wonder why we keep doing it. In all honesty, it has felt like our posts anywhere we place content have usually been to an empty room, but that's how it's almost always felt so we are used to it. We've rarely if ever had a series of comments via the internet or in person responses from our work. Sure, there is an occasional comment or two here and there, public or private, which are very appreciated, but they are very few and far between. One shouldn't need external gratification to continue creating, as creation should be an internal process. But some threshold of positive external output does help. Both in terms of keeping wind in the sails, but also creating a lasting body of work - that is known. In this case, in person there has been a rare appreciation about our work from one who's watched one of the projects or listened to an essay, but those are even more rare. To be honest, there are members of our own family that don't even watch or listen to most of it. And the God's honest truth is as our internal growth has expanded through the years, (our external mundane success growth regarding the audience for our personal work), numbers growth, has done the exact opposite. Our audience numbers during the years have been contracting and not expanding, reducing instead of growing. So one of the main continuing struggles is the constant underlying worry that when we take the time to create something of quality, which thus means it takes a good chunk of time, will it basically go unheard or unseen and of course, un-responded to? There's a saying that "it's better to have negative attention than no attention at all" and man, we've really come to know why. As for some, being an asshole on the radar is thought superior to not being even a blip on the radar at all.

When we started our first podcast which was called Novelty Generators, that was at the time of this writing 15+ years ago, it would get somewhere between 5,000 to 10,000 listens. Which we've come to realize now was quite high. We credit this to being more in the early days of podcasts, when less were out there. Now there are like over a million+ podcasts in existence so the competition is higher. Same with our film outputs on a platform such as Vimeo. We would put a piece online 10 years ago and it could get 3000 to 5000 views. Now we're lucky if it gets 100 views. We directed a couple short narrative films during our living in Los Angeles years, one took us a year or so of side time to make and the other a few years of side time to make. One got some festival recognition and the other was on what has become the de facto indie science fiction platform called DUST, and we learned a lot from them, but they never led to any narrative directing work. Which helped force us to steer more toward documentaries. But we very much still have interest in what is called mockumentary - which is a documentary that is partially or fully re-enactments of past events with actors. And in order to do that well, one has to be good with actors.

When we later rebranded the podcast to An Infinite Path like 5+ years ago that really killed the numbers, which then sunk down to 2000 to at best 5000 listens per episode, which were very dependent on the guest. For a third rebranding a year ago making it just about our spoken word essays, we're now lucky if it gets 1500 listens and the YouTube channel of the back archive being uploaded currently barely breaks double digit listens per episode. Our long-form filmmaking content such as Transmutation and Shamans of the Global Village have been our most financially successful in the world of commerce. Leading to some connections being made and even though being created for very little money (Transmutation was made for around $8,000, EP#1 of SGV for $10,000 and EP#2 of SGV for around $3000), which have all been financially successful, having at least doubled if not tripled the money they cost to make them with occasional sales to this day. We have occasionally heard from folks who were positively influenced by them, however, none have gotten us more documentary work or by any means allowed us to be industry known as a filmmaker. So we still have to work in our previous industry, where we are a cog in an assembly line and use 1/10th of our skillset tops, in order to make a living. Not to mention taking up a great deal of our time. Since most of our personal creative short form outputs are either voice, photo, or film / video based, video platforms are the best place to put our film content. Yet even on the main current video platform of today YouTube, which we've been trying to do more on camera content for with more broad appeal, our channel is very obscure and unknown - having surprisingly little subscribers when the quality of the outputs deserve to have 100x more subscribers. And this doesn't even get to our photography. As we know we are one of the best street photographers, one of the hardest types of photography, in the world and most of it has barely even been seen. At the time of this writing we actually find Twitter to be the best photo sharing platform so we've been engaged in "digital minimalism" there. Sharing a somewhat comical and philosophical observation on humanity via our street photography there during the last year, and not only has posting it not been met with new notice or followers, we've actually lost some followers. Which Godzillionare Darth Elon would say were "bot followers" that have been removed. But we're not so sure about that.

While we appreciate networking with fellow podcasts and have been a guest on quite a few podcasts, the work itself has gotten little to no press. With minimum sharing. So we have to share it ourselves. So platform wise, we have long been a denigrator of social media cause we suck at social media. We actually seem to have a talent of posting content and losing followers. Any marketing person will tell you in order to be successful at it you have to do two primary things. The first is to be persistent, and the other is to constantly engage with them. Meaning give them a lot of your time. A friend of ours who very nicely manages one of our social networks for one of the long form projects, constantly gives it his time, so much to the point that he has literally spent more work on it than we do creating the underlying content itself. Not being willing to make it our full time job, we fully admit we are good at creating content and suck at getting it scene. So much to the point that we are constantly considering quitting various 3rd party tech platforms due to extensive lack of engagement back. So we get the hint.

This is mentioned to you because in order for an artist to make a living off their own art, they really need to be continually growing in terms of audience. Which is external growth and not the internal growth that our work often speaks of. But, ideally, the first would mirror the other. And we're sharing this to highlight how incredibly difficult it is for anyone to make a living off their own creativity. It's a bit of a sad reality that you've either carved out a niche within your specific industry, becoming a mini celebrity within that industry, or else you're in obscurity and thus poverty. And because we've never gotten large numbers, such as tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, let alone millions of listens or views on any of our works, in the long run that means then one can only output slow drip - which doesn't work as well for a subscription model with constant exclusive extras. In the past, when we tried to just focus 100% of our time on our own content, regularly outputting and saving half of it for private release on a regular basis, we make maybe $300/month and our bank accounts drained. Which of course is not enough to live on or be in any way sustainable. There is nothing more we would love then to do that 100% and make a living off of it, which would require 50x as much money received than we have thus far. But to date, that has never come to be. When we were most busy with an external private member section for our work, putting out one to two private member outputs per month, on top of one to two public outputs per month, we got up to mid double digit subscribers. In that last couple of years, as we've changed back to a freelance day job model, which allows for us to actually have a living wage in the state of California, resulting in our personal outputs to slow, at the time of this writing that has been reduced and is heading down to single digits. Continually lowering, even without even charging folks. So in terms of external growth, we have to date, been an utter failure.

All this being said, this has been us talking about ourselves in the past and not the future. It also hasn't been about you and what our outputs can continue to do for you dear reader, listener, and / or watcher. While all of our personal work does have philosophical themes of self development (which is hopefully really spiritual self development), esotericism, and the natural world, we realize that type of content is not favored by the algorithms of today. And on a rare occasion that it's recommended to a new audience member, it can be hard for many new folks coming in to find a through line with it. Because it's very individualized. It doesn't come up in recommendations because the algorithms don't favor it because it's not really like many others' works. It's not a paint by numbers thing. It's also deep and complex, and not a simple concept or mundane. Most folks are good but a bit mundane so they have mundane interests - See our essay on "Big Sports Fansmanship" and most importantly it's not commercial. It's a lesson in human psychology that you, the creator, have to constantly remind people on the regular to do things to help your reach. Which is a commercial contract. The classic example being asking listeners or viewers to like and subscribe. Which is unsophisticated and we put at the level of a used car salesman. But the truth is, those who are willing to sink down to that end up with more of an audience. Which then translates to more financial liquidity.

Commercial creators can grow a larger audience that are certainly interested in high level things beyond the mundane. Let's take those who are interested in mental or physical health for example. Which are of pinnacle importance for society. It's not like where the gal that's talking about only making vegetable juice, with everything being exclusively about juicing on what seems like the audience's behalf with it all being catered to how the audience can learn to make those juice drinks and how they help the audience's physical well being. While at the same time being very commercially successful and thus enriching the creator because they also have relationships with juicer companies, having maybe even created their own company that's making a revolutionary new juicer, and juicer affiliate links all over their websites, videos, podcasts, and blog posts. Those are the types of podcasts and channels that are most successful. Because they usually have a simple call to action for the audience, which attracts new members and then has them adjust their patterns of behavior to benefit both themselves and the creator. That, instead of sharing a portfolio of your own obscure content like we have. Folks do come to your work cause they enjoy it. But mostly because of what it can do for them. Little to no one invests in something because they want to support it. They do so because they hope it will give them a return on the investment. For themselves. And when one's work is more individualized and complex, that's harder for an audience to see and appreciate.

Now, this is not meant to be a pity party. As there are hundreds of thousands if not millions of others outputting content whose work is less known then ours and we think of this just as the "Niles cannot be given away phase" of his art. Millions of other artists have also been in such a phase and millions more will always be. Joseph Kosinski is a Hollywood director who we worked with many years ago on a commercial. When he first got representation as a commercial director in Los Angeles many years ago they couldn’t even give him away. Getting essentially zero work. So he sat around for over a year doing little to nothing. And that was with representatives working for him - which means people who see your value and want to help speak on your behalf and help get you work. Most entertainment industry artists don't ever get representation at all let alone work through that representation. We remember a fellow colleague at a sister company literally saying to us, "Yeah, they couldn't even give Joe away". Let alone have a client who wanted to pay him a lot of money to work with them. Later he went on to become an incredibly successful director who just so happened to direct Top Gun Maverick. Could other aspects of his life still be an absolute mess? Of course. But he's utilizing his creative potential.

Ke Huy Quan is an American born from Vietnamese immigrant parents and has been a phenomenal actor his whole life. He played Short Round in the early Indiana Jones movies and Data in Goonies and was literally thrown away by the acting world in Hollywood for over 20 years. After being a successful child actor, he had so much trouble finding adult acting work he started going by Jonathan Quan, thinking a more Western style name would help. During the interim struggle, he worked various sporadic roles in the industry. Including being a stunt coordinator and even an assistant. Later during the covid 19 pandemic, he was unemployed, with no health insurance and was inspired to get back into acting after seeing the film Crazy Rich Asians and would call his agent every 3 to 6 months asking if anything was out there and the agent would always say no. He was then cast by a quirky directing duo Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert who go by the name Daniels, (who on a side note just so happened to direct what could possibly be the most brilliant music video ever made - DJ Snake's Turn Down For What. Second only to the masterpiece music video for Aphex Twin's - Windowlicker - which makes fun of low brow, hyper misogynistic, materialistic hip hop videos) to be in the 2022 film Everything Everywhere All at Once which had a very asian cast, and reminded everyone how phenomenal of an actor he is and has always been - now during the week of this writing having won an Oscar for best actor. While Vivian Maier was a phenomenal street photographer who took over 150,000 photos in her lifetime, on expensive film mind you, and in the later half of her life was too poor to even have any rolls developed. Her day job was that of a nanny and virtually no one ever knew her photography existed until after she died when her negatives were found in a storage locker.

One could consider all of these first world problems or even upper middle class first world white people problems. The fact that some established power player person who we've reached out to and could really help our career doesn't call or write us back is insignificant in most ways. It's not like we, our you, are fearing for our life everyday inside a collapsing country, or working for pennies in a sulfur mine, or living out of our car as a single parent, or risking death riding dangerously on the top of a crowded coal train with thousands of other peasant migrants, or being diagnosed with a terminal neuroblastoma with 6 months left to live. Even though there is a lot going well, especially on the mental and physical health front, the spiritual path front, the home front, the fellowship front, this is us speaking of the work front alone. We're even appreciated and in demand for some things on the work front, even if they are not the specific things we would like to be in demand for. We've had a long problem, and it's a good problem to have, of being in demand for things we are good at but don’t want to be doing. We're not trying to be famous but we would love to be in demand for what we are most passionate about, and respected but more of an audience for our insights, knowledge, and creations. To have our work known enough to keep doing it exclusively full time. And will continue trying just that. For one of the things that Ke Huy Quan shared as he was back being recognized for his craft, is to not give up. Not to quit. And we are not going to be doing that either. Our work will absolutely continue. With ongoing refinement and adjustment. And perhaps actually have an audience one day after someone writes an article about us called "The never-been-represented, financially successful, documentary filmmaker you've never heard of."

What is also needed is continuing insight from you about how we can help you. If not in terms of support, we are always open ears on any suggestions, corrections, or recommendations you dear listener may have. It's also known that these struggles, and your struggles, are good struggles to have. Because we and you are supposed to be going through this right now. There's nothing else we're supposed to be doing. For we learn through our mistakes or non-successes and as shared here, we've certainly had a few of those.

Hail to the BEAVER!

Beavers are a keystone species. Meaning what they do, being amazing natural engineers for water, has a huge effect on countless other species which depend on water for their well being. In the mid 1800's to as recently the early 1900's our species were absolute dumb asses and considered them pests. Reducing their populations down in both Europe and North America to near nothing for unconscious reasons such as using their fur for bad fashion. And then after that, many rivers and waterways massively suffered. However, the fabulous news is these wonderful herbivore critters are coming back big time in both regions.

We are massive fans of both Capybara, which are the largest rodent on Earth, and beavers. The second largest. Some short doco pieces on the subject below. Hail to the BEAVER!

Leave it to Beavers

Want to Solve Wildfires and Drought? Leave it to BEAVERS!

Architects of The River

The Incredible Hulik and His Beavers

Heal the Planet with PONDS

The Giant Rat That Built America

Documentary Recommendation - The Occupation of the American Mind

The following is a good example of why we have a private members section for our work. Many things operate in secret because they are deplorable, like blankly anti Jewish Neo-Nazism. But just like the mystery traditions of the past, other things have to be shared a bit in secret because doing so in public can cause problems. They are too truthful for the current cultural operating system and speaking out against them can lead to your networks contracting and not expanding. Especially in terms of career.

In much of the world what is really going on here is an obvious issue because it's reported on truthfully, but we can think of no better example of a spin zone in The United States, then folks who support Israel’s occupation of Palestine.

All that should matter is the truth. And the truth is that Israel is an apartheid state founded on and continuing modern day imperial colonialism. And there’s a Grand Canyon of difference in realizing that obviousness vs being a somewhat anti Jewish person or a heavily hateful Neo-Nazi anti Jewish person - both who share an incorrect blanket “it’s the Jews” attitude. For there is a difference between most people of Jewish faith and Zionists. As there are even Hasidic Jews who recognize what Israel has done to be a violation of international law.

We want all people of all faith to live in peace. Which for the last couple thousands of years has been easier said than done. As they are keeping to themselves, no Christian should be persecuted for their beliefs. Nor should any Jew, muslim, or esoteric practitioner that has little or nothing to do with any of the religions of empire and is even more spiritual. However, imperial fundamentalist Christians who push their crap onto others are unacceptable. Same with fundamentalist Jews or Muslims who push their crap on others. And Israel has been led by imperialist radicalized fundamentalist Zionists since its founding, which could actually be said to not be real Jews but instead Khazarians but that’s another story, who push their crap on Muslims on this very special piece of Muslim land and are supported by US imperialist fundamentalist regressive collectivist dogmatist fake Christians. Should we call them IFRCDFC's? (joke).

The power structure of Israel is one of the main puppet string holders in the halls of American power and influence which shape American foreign policy and are supported by America’s war machine. All of America's Middle East debacles have had zero to do with spreading democracy and everything to do with American oil interests and benefiting Israel.

We will be getting more into this down the line in our pro democracy political philosophy series. It’s a simple issue but also a complex one in other ways, which inside the United States is starting to change more with younger generations. But the documentary "The Occupation of the American Mind" does a good job of deconstructing many of the marketing tricks and talking points of pro-Israel public relations efforts within the American Media and their attempt to continually occupy the American mind.

A Couple Q1 2023 Documentary Recommendations

Here are a couple documentary recommendations which we have recently watched. Both featuring filmmakers essentially documenting their own stories of going through struggle and hardship.

The first is “The Biggest Little Farm”. It’s official website is HERE and the trailer is here:

It’s about a Hollywood cameraman who, along with his wife, decide to leave Los Angeles and re-boot a farm about an hour north of LA in a more rural area. They do it right, working over the seasons to re-generate and create biodiversity of the land, as all real farms should do over stupid monoculture, and eventually come to learn each problem they encounter is fixed by adding more diversity. Go nature!

The second film is called "Wildcat" and is also a good one. It follows the inspiring story of a young British veteran suffering from depression and a mental health crisis after being in a stupid war and his later journey into the Peruvian Amazon. Not to drink ayahuasca, although that probably would greatly help him as well, but to connect up with animals. Specifically an ocelot - a species of wild cat larger than the domestic house cat but smaller than a cheeta or panther. Trailer:

Once down in the jungle, he meets a young woman (who becomes his new goose) who runs a wildlife rescue and rehabilitation center, and his life finds new meaning as he is entrusted with the life of an orphaned baby ocelot. What was meant to be an attempt to escape from life, turns out to be an unexpected journey of love, discovery, and healing.

Do please consider paying to rent these to support the filmmakers but naughty watch links also exist HERE and HERE.

Written Essay: Pro-Democracy Series #4: Growing Up With Authority And Love

The number one factor which determines who one becomes as an adult is, and it's not really a shocker... drumroll... "how one was raised". Good parenting has always and will always be of pinnacle importance when talking about the future of humanity. Parenting styles are behaviors that parents use to discipline and raise their children. They are so crucial because they affect everything – from the way a child sees themselves, and their interactions to other people. Affecting not only later adolescence but all the way into adulthood. Ideally, these styles support healthy growth and development because they will greatly influence a child’s behavior and personality for the rest of their life.

Whether you had one parent, or multiple parents, or multiple paternal like figures. Grandparents, aunts, uncles, older siblings, were adopted, it can be a mixed bag for many. Let's say your mother isn't exclusively the woman whose ovaries you grew inside of and then who birthed you, but instead more the woman who raised you. Which is usually but not always the same person. Same with your father, it's not just the sack you were once swimming around in during your tadpole form but the man who raised you. We have a buddy who, in junior high school his parents separated and eventually each remarried. Then in high school found out he was the product of a sperm donor. So technically he has three dads. A donor dad, a step dad, and the dad who raised him and he considers the dad who raised him, his primary dad. So however the chessboard of your adolescence was structured, you certainly had older feminine and masculine influences.

There are multiple parenting styles. Such as authoritative, uninvolved, permissive, or authoritarian. Most little people growing up are raised in a somewhat mix of these. Ideally, they would be by far raised in mostly an authoritative style - which is based on the largest amount of love. In which parents are teachers that provide a living environment while also helping their little person or people face and overcome challenges. Enforcing rules and consequences while considering their child’s feelings. Explaining the reasons behind the rules they established and putting a lot of effort into creating and maintaining a positive parent-child relationship. This is also characterized by an openness to new experiences and by creativity and experimentation. Then there is an uninvolved style, consisting of being absent. Which can happen because a parent is crap and just doesn't care but more likely does involve loving parents or more likely a single parent who is just having to work their ass off and just isn't around that much. They are thus not as directly involved or knowledgeable about their child's life. Then you've got a permissive parenting style. Which can come from a loving parent but to a lukewarm degree and is frankly, overly lazy. Resulting in an overly lax attitude, with a more or less do whatever the child wants, with minimal parental interference, in which rules are loosely set but never reinforced. We know a single parent whose child is an absolute pain and a drain which we can barely stand. They basically let their offspring continue its established patterns of being very reactionary, crass, and selfish without trying to adjust those negative traits. So we suspect this child is already on their way to being rubbish into their adulthood.

Finally we have the worst parenting style, and why this is round four in our pro-democracy political philosophy series. Which is an authoritarian parenting style that causes the most pain and societal damage. Most of the time, authoritarian parents take little to no consideration for their child's feelings. When it comes to discipline and rules, they believe that there are no other rules, but theirs. Most of the time, the child’s sentiments and good behaviors are not seen or heard. This crap style focuses on obedience, with little to no interest in negotiation, and punishment over discipline. Often teaching children that they are the problem, to feel sorry for their inevitable mistakes, while the parents themselves are said to be infallible, instead of highlighting what both the parent and child do correctly along with what they can each improve. There is little to no gray area, instead only starkness of black and white, wrong, and right - all from the authorities point of view.

Within families, there is usually a blending of these styles. While there's also often a mix of these blended styles from multiple older influences - parental or societal. Gotten either directly in the household, or via the tribe or community, or lack of community. Regardless of being scientifically based, or religious based, or mix of the two, these styles can still stand. However the first three allow for more capacity for self-criticism, recognition of complexity, and tentativeness in the expression of beliefs. While the last one is unquestioned, and unreflective and is thereby where intolerance, prejudice, and dogmatism typically thrive.

Within a family or tribe, regardless of the cultural configuration, there is inevitably a hierarchy - Meaning a system in which people or things are put at various levels or ranks according to their power and importance. Led by the head of the household, either the matriarch or patriarch or if most balanced, both. And the hierarchy of influence comes down from there. If one has a grandmother, mother, aunts, and sisters, that is the primarily feminine side of the family. If grandma has become very elderly, the leadership role and matriarch is the mother. If one has a grandfather, father, uncles, and brothers, that is the primarily masculine side of the family. If grandpa has become very elderly, the leadership role and patriarch is the father. This is standard operating procedure within humans and other mammals like elephants. As a mother elephant will be the one who makes the decisions on behalf of an elephant tribe in regards to where they search in the height of summer for the watering holes. A crucial leadership decision which can literally mean death or life for the tribe.

We have spoken elsewhere on hierarchy and how it does very much exist within nature. A small portion of any group are the tallest, smartest, and yes, more the most creative or talented. Yet, one's development and attitude toward both hierarchy and authority is a crucial factor for how someone ends up either being more pro-democratic vs more pro-authoritarian into their adulthood.

Referencing our previous essay at this point, "Gender and Sexuality Balance," we are going to focus specifically on the patriarchal dynamics within how one was raised within the family - specifically relating to being off balanced with the masculine hierarchy. For it's one thing to teach a little person to respect others, especially their elders, of both sexes. In more authoritarian parenting styles, it's the father who is the one in charge at the top of the hierarchy and gets the most respect, because they are the unquestioned authority that instills fear. And often transfers down a very tough love at best or, chauvinist, macho, or even mentally or physically abusive behavior at worst from grandfather, to father, to sons within the authoritarian parenting style. This is the power and control over the family dynamic. Giving "power dad downloads" from father to son.

In authoritative parenting styles there is usually not only a respect for elders taught, with some respect for hierarchy, but a more balanced dynamic being taught which also allows for questioning the hierarchy and even being very skeptical of aspects of authority. This is a more balanced, open minded, and growth based mindset which allows for looking more deeply at life. Because as one gets older, when they look past the facades and peel back the curtain of power, the authorities often look not only unimpressive but morally bankrupt. But in the authoritarian household they are about indoctrination into unquestionable subservience into the higher masculine authority. With a playbook to continually naturalize power and existing entrenched forms of authority. With "authority" being defined as "Legal power, or a right to command or to act; as the authority of a prince over subjects, and of parents over children. Power; rule; sway". Which in their minds is to be revered and rarely questioned.

Now, if one gets indoctrinated in the first 7 years, or 14 years, or 21 years of their life into authoritarian parenting, it's likely that the fathering style is not only hard installed but mostly or completely loveless. Loving people produce other loving people. But hurt people also have a higher ratio of producing other hurt people. If one is primarily loving, there's a good chance their child or children will be primarily loving. If they lack love to others in their family there is a strong chance their children will lack love to both others in society and their eventual children. Either the masculine or feminine side can be more the problem, but typically if one parent is really loving, and the other is very cold tough love, or no love, or straight up physically or verbally abusive, there's a chance their children can turn out okay, but it's certainly less likely than if both are loving and nurturing. If both parents lack love, it's almost guaranteed their offspring will be the same because physically and mentally abusive parents produce physically and mentally abusive children the majority of the time. Ask any school teacher, counselor, superintendent, or principal, they will tell you that when a kid is a bully at school, it's almost certain one of the parents is a bully at home. This very sadly and unfortunately cascades down through the generations. If one has one parent who's authoritative, and one who's more authoritarian, it's likely the little person can still turn out okay and be authoritative into adulthood and their own parenting. But if both parents are authoritarian, it's much more

likely the child will grow up to be authoritarian. On rare occasions where someone does grow up with multiple authoritarian parents and then still turns out to be mostly authoritative in their parenting, we should all have infinite respect for those whose parental influences were all loveless but turned out loving to others and didn't continue the cycle of pain down to their children. Which can only happen frankly through a great deal of personal self development.

The feminine side is typically more nurturing, which is a built in operating system dynamic that is designed for child raising, and that has to be heavily reduced or removed in authoritarian parenting. Because it's more heart, and they must make one heartless, usually under the guise of being strong. A fighter. A man's man. A super ultra alpha. So you guessed correctly where this is going - A main determinant of democratic vs authoritarian leanings is due to your relationship, or lack thereof, with your father. If you didn't have a father, or a shit father, or a mentally or physically abusive father, or no father with a mentally or physically abusive masculinized mother, not only is one much more prone to violence externally but internally are much more prone to looking to sky daddy as your father. Specifically within the Christian menu - sky daddy, and sky daddy son. We can always tell this is the case when someone puts God or Jesus or Allah very front and center in their speech, they are speaking about their father figure they never had and always wished they had from their youth. For they claim one can only have love through God. No other way. Ask any secular, well educated person who grew up with loving parents what they think of these types of comments, and it's usually answered with eye rolls.

Now we are about to make a major declaration here. And say that we have honestly, hand on heart, a support for the real core of religion. What we call the esoteric core. We've said this before numerous times in our work and we say it again now and will always stand by this. For we are not blanketly hostile to all religion, or irreligious, or what crazy extreme religious people would call a heathen who needs to repent. Remember, Sturgeon's law, which we've also spoken over many times before, says that "ninety percent of everything is crap". However, 90% of nature and its creations are not crap. So we would modify that a bit to say that ninety percent of everything within modern society and culture is crap - because the primary goal of the majority of modern society and culture is just about making money. 90% of bee keeping is crap because it's commercialized. 90% of fishing is crap because it's commercial fishing. 90% of music is crap because it's commercial music. And 90% of religion is crap because it's commercial religion. Which is not from the spiritual, it is a man made attempt of trying to create menus for the spiritual. So time and time again, we will continue to always give religion credit for the 10% it does well. And that is what we call the esoteric core. Which one can think of as the small two circles in the center of the dart board.

In a future essay in this series we will give a itemized whole list of each factor that separates what we call the esoteric, and thus spiritual core of religion, and the crap garbage that makes up the religions of empire, which thrive in authoritarianism, but one of which is an underlying dynamic in how the religion chooses to raise its children. Which then extends into children being loving and thus loving adults, or hateful, and thus hateful adults. And this dynamic is how they answer the age-old question... Are people, (human beings, the human race) fundamentally good or fundamentally bad?

If one looks into how Western religious denominations such as the Amish, Anglican, Baptist, Calvary Chapel, Eastern Orthodox, Lutheran, Mennonite, Methodist, Messianic, New Apostle, Pentecostal, Presbyterian, Reformed, Salvation, or Seventh Day Adventists, etc... aim to answer this question, it is that the human species is in depravity, corrupt, sinful, and primarily bad or evil. Unless one does what they call repentance. Which in theology can be said to be confessing to the pain, regret or affliction which a person feels on account of their past conduct.

Always trying to improve past bad behavior is good, but the problem here and why things derail at this point into fake commercialized religion is due to a misinterpreted concept called original sin. This Judeo-Christian concept of original sin, also described as ancestral sin, is a view of the nature of sin in which humanity has existed since the fall of man. Which is said to have arisen from Adam and Eve's transgression in Eden, the supposed sin of disobedience in eating the forbidden fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Original sin can be said to be explained as “that sin and its effects that we all possess in God’s, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster's, meatball eyes as a direct result of Adam’s sin in the Garden of Eden.”

So what is meant by sin here? What should be meant, and what the genesis story is saying, is something the esoteric core of spirituality can properly decode. Which is an alchemical metaphor about how humanity is not at its highest state. It indeed had a fall, otherwise known alchemically as a separation / putrefaction, in which it lost its real initiatory lineage. That doesn't mean everyone is bad, quite the opposite is true, it just means all of humanity has gone from singular unity down into the binary material to learn from the polarity of binary mechanics. The vast majority of despiritualized theocrats have lost their real initiatory lineage and thereby dont know how to decode the good parts of their own religious texts. So what they offer instead is a commercial solution. For what exoteric outer religion does with original sin has been the marketing job of all marketing jobs. Which is that everyone is sinful or bad, from birth, and the only way to become not that way is to buy what they are selling. So what the fake aspects of commercial religion do with the concept of sin is interpret it as humans are sinful, meaning bad, and unless they do things subservient to the religious system's top of the hierarchy - the authority, such as repent and serve sky daddy, which is then said to be the only path to provide that past missing love. And your supposed free will option he has given you is a false binary to either love him or burn in hell. Worship him or be tortured forever. Which is not a loving dynamic but a hateful and thus fearful one in which you risk banishment to an out group. By being in this culty system of authority, including, surprise surprise, the requirement to give it money, and be subservient to it, only then can you find love from sky daddy, and sky daddies son, both who are said to be your only path of love. This type of agreement is very appealing to those who grew up in authoritarian households because it supposedly provides missing love while not violating the authoritarian contract of being subservient to authority.

Now this could also lead to a much deeper and philosophical conversation about both ethics and morality, which we may touch on at a later time in this series. As morality can be said to be an intrinsic quality of things, as neither is beauty or any other quality that is relative to the subject in a relationship with an object. If one watches a video on one of the more scuzzy corners of the internet of one person bashing another person's skull in, murdering them violently, you could say the person doing the bashing is bad. But then one could watch a nature video of an alligator ripping the side of a zebra's torso open, spilling its guts out. Which is just as violent. Does that mean the alligator is bad? The Native Americans very much understood this concept. As being part of the food chain in nature, at times does involve violent actions, and even the occurrence of injury or loss. Yet when they would hunt and kill an animal, they wouldn't hate and fear the animal but instead love it and appreciate the animal during this process. And during its death thank it and honor its spirit which would live on.

If one traveled all over the world, and spoke to most people on the planet, they would see a similar dynamic full spectrum of incredible, too beautiful to horrendous and awful. But in the realm of Earth, even though terrible things happen every day, produced by our species, far more good things happen every day than bad, also produced by our species. So if one talked to the majority of the people, the ones not in cults, in either more free democratic societies or even in more authoritarian societies who have come to realize their authoritarian leaders are garbage, one would find that they are all for the most part good people. The main reason why humanity is in a hot mess at this point is not because people are foundationally bad, especially in the middle or lower parts of the hierarchy, but because we are commodifying the elements of nature because of the greed of the top of the hierarchy.

Saying that people are fundamentally evil and bad is also a way to keep the flock, be that it their offspring or cult members, under their wing, and very fearful and thus untraveled and insular. What very theocratic people who have never owned a passport do to denigrate travel and experience with other cultures is use words like "worldly". Which is used not as an obvious, "hey this person has gotten out there and seen the world" but instead that their someone only concerned with the mundane of the world and not the fake cult.

The only way one can unite and not divide, is by including everyone. Which also brings us to our foundational dynamic of a real faith. Is it based in love, or has it been perverted to be based in hate? Which is really just fear. Does it lovingly support all of the hierarchy of power and control, especially the very bottom of it, instead of supporting just the top? The Real spiritual core of multi faith religion, including real Christianity, Judaism, and Islam will

teach love and that the vast majority of humanity is foundationally good. Most religious people of faith throughout the world are sincerely devoted to a good and loving life. In fact, this is exactly the ground where the secular and the spiritual stand together. Since we are in the West, this is where we can safely make an initial statement that a real Pastafarian Judeo-Christian is one who follows the teachings of Christ and actually loves thy neighbor (regardless of where that neighbor is in the socio economic hierarchy) over hating anyone not in their cult. One of the spiritual reasons to back that up, is that the divine is pure love. It is not pure hate. And love is really the name of the game. Real spirituality, and then one aspect of it, a man made aspect of it, which are the formal official menu subscription systems of religion, should unite and not divide. If they are uniting, they are doing their job of moving each individual closer to the divine. If they are dividing and conquering, to protect entrenched authority, that is imperial dark sorcery. So a simplified way to look at good and bad can instead be to always ask what is spreading love and thus unity and what is spreading hate, and thus division.

So if one comes from an authoritarian household which also advocates an extreme authoritarian based religious dogma, supporting the concept of original sin and that humans are bad, and this also applies to communism by the way, which becomes authoritarian state religion, you've got a toxic combination in terms of politics. If you are forward thinking in politics and have always been baffled why certain other people think so opposite from you on virtually every single political policy, this is why. Because you know people are fundamentally good, and the other side of the spectrum who boggles your mind have been indoctrinated into thinking they are fundamentally bad. And at that point on, you will disagree on virtually every single political policy. This is why Niles has constantly been highlighting the negative aspect of what we are going to continue to call commercial fake religion in this unapologetically pro democracy political philosophy series.

If you see value in and have some care for all of your fellow patriotic countrymen, and neighboring countrymen, and even all humans throughout Earth. You want them to have healthcare as a right and not a privilege, and you value governmental systems of social uplift. However, the authoritarian thinks nobody is good, thereby thinks no one should have any right towards anything without proving their goodness by rising up the socio-economic hierarchy to becoming rich and powerful, or being part of the in group which props up that power, which is really a cult, which are actually nested cults - their faith cult, and their party cult, and their fake patriotic cult, that we'll get into later, and all they think the shared political contract of government is useful for is ultimately backed not by mutual relations of love and assistance but violence. Hence their most value is put into patriarchal military might, which uses blood spilling to achieve its goals. Because that's from the alpha macho male side of the parental hierarchy. They don't value those mother nurturing programs of social uplift, they only value the force and violence of their fake authoritarian father. With Propensity to victim blame, aggression, hate, and violence. This is why the Afghan Taliban drive around with their flags and Kalashnikovs out in truck trains and why the American Taliban drive around with their flags and AR-15s out in truck trains. Because they are foundationally based in fake religious cults. Only supporting their own cult members. Because in their tiny rotten brains everyone else who is not like them is considered bad and are then more pro-authoritarian in their political politics.

Jeff Sharlet, has written two books called The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power and C Street: The Fundamentalist Threat to American Democracy. Books which the docuseries The Family, is based after. It focuses on an organization that pretends to have something to do with spirituality but is really led by dark imperial agents called - The Fellowship, or The Family, or the International Foundation. We will also get into the dark tentacles influencing the halls of power later in this pro-democracy series but this organization is one of them. Amongst other things, it hosts an event in the United States called the National Prayer Breakfast, an annual event attended at least once by every sitting president dating back to Dwight D. Eisenhower, which is sponsored by the Fellowship, and brings thousands of leaders and influencers from around the world to Washington, D.C. every February. The group's known participants include ranking United States government officials, corporate executives, heads of religious and supposed humanitarian aid organizations, and ambassadors and high-ranking politicians from across the world. If you read the books or watch the series you’ll be able to see the pattern which we've been decoding here. Which is not the reality that each human is a direct conduit to the divine, but instead the opposite dark sorcery view that the divine only speaks through people of influence and power - the authority. Who are always attempting to influence policy through back channels.

Raising children to be self-educated, critical thinking, as well as sympathy, kindness, and respect for others of all ages in secular households along with non-culty, real spirituality including, indigenous, pegan, multi faith practices, as well as formal religious menus, should all love thy neighbor. So if you are educated, including sexually educated and not repressed, secular or faith based people who question authority, and spread love for both sexes and know they are both foundationally good? Then you are pro-democratic. But if you grew up with no love, lack of love, or extreme tough love and were indoctrinated to be subservient to authority and then strive to become the authority with power over others, regardless of your education level or travel level, there is a near guarantee you will be regressive in your politics and a pro authoritarian cold bastard who looks to scumbag strong men as your leaders. Whether that person is living alone in a cabin in the woods with zero standing in the hierarchy, or a board member and / or CEO of a mega corporation or a dictator at the top of a hierarchy, we promise you they got that way growing up with a lack of love, being forced to fear and not question patriarchal authority, and also with one other major factor that we will dive into in the next essay - which is due to the mass psychology of sexual repression.

Essay: Gender And Sexuality Balance

In what seems like a rather none-ominous title mixed with a well, also a “here we go” title ”Gender And Sexuality Balance”, we are going to state some things here, specifically one main concept, which may make small minds absolutely steam with anger. We are also going to make a room splitting statement of truth in the later half of this one that will make these same minds absolutely boil. As always if you are a stark dogmatist, do not proceed any further.

We live in the material binary realm. Material meaning made of matter. From a material scientific perspective this is from atoms and molecules. Binary meaning relating to, composed of, or involving two things. Within this natural dynamic of the material world we have poles and opposites. The primary examples of this being night and day. And continuing examples being cold and hot, positive and negative electric poles, and what might even be the most obvious example, the two genders of female and male.

Yet, we come from unity. Oneness. Which we can think of as the unified mind, the collective of all things, highest genius, non-duality, highest aspect of the human soul, white light void of unity consciousness, the divine, etc... Which is pure light, pure love, pure energy, at infinity. This is what all timeless, ancient practices of philosophic, spiritual, highest level thought have always realized and communicated in their teachings. In Hebrew it is called Yasheda. It is non physical, non corporeal - meaning not having a body. From the most pedestrian standpoint, it can also be said to be the white light one transmutes into in a near death experience. For who can say for sure what happens when one dies but we suspect that it is a full sensory experience of melting into this pure overexposed light and a leaving of one's physical vessel which can no longer function, rejoining that highest frequency and thus none material light, you are a drop rejoining the cosmic ocean.

So we have two things. Two poles. Two opposites with a spectrum in between. Carry this idea on down the list as to how nature is structured. Which, alchemically can be divided further by a trinity of sulfur, mercury and salt. Then down into earth, air, fire, and water. So shall we say, from a spiritual perspective, 1 becomes 2, 2 becomes 3, and 3 becomes 4 to make up the basic building blocks of nature. If you want more detail on said dynamic, give a read, perhaps followed by years of study, to a book "The Golden Chain of Homer". Also called "Aurea Catena Homeri" which was originally written in German by Anton Josef Kirchweger, first printed in the early 1700's, it very well may be one of the most important books ever written which gives insight into how the world was made alchemically. With the idea that all creation, no matter what its nature, is closely interconnected from one secret correlation.

There is a much deeper story about what the one thing really is and why it created a material sub-division. But we could call it the creator, the divine, God, or in reference to our previous essay - The Flying Spaghetti Monster. The book would be a good source for diving  deeper into this concept, so we recommend doing so. But this this light brush over of the concept it is important to know that when things subdivide, and subdivide again, they still contain both aspects of the previous division. It is not all or nothing. For example a woman is a female externally, but a male internally and a man is a male externally but a female internally - both with various degrees on a scale. Where a tiny frail woman can be macho and a big male bodybuilder can be gentle.

Everything in the binary material has a scale of degree and it's actually not possible to have perfect balance. Although the best example of balance in the material realm is what nature shows us. For nature has near, but not perfect balance. Which translates to longevity and nature has lasted eons - meaning millions and millions of years. But nature is still evolving. Becoming more and more perfect yet can only be absolutely perfect when returning to complete unity. So certain dynamics here will graduate away from the material, back to the spiritual, the only place where this can be achieved.

So to recap, there is no binary in unity, but instead complete unity. Conversely, there is no complete unity (or perfect balance) in binary. So why in the heck man do we mention this now in round three of our pro-democracy political philosophy series? And here goes the dogmatic heads steaming part... Because a supreme being, in complete unity outside of binary, can not be exclusively a male. God does not have a penis. No supreme being, which is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent, has soly a pair of testicles with no ovaries. It has instead evolved to the point of achieving complete unity in all things including the masculine and feminine. It has evolved into becoming non-binary. Hardy har har.

So whenever we hear the word “he” as referring to God, which likely happens millions of times a day in the realm of Earth, those doing so get the celestial red buzzer of incorrectness. To be fair, and in never ending attempts to seek more balance, on the other side of this coin, it is also not fully accurate to say mother nature. For nature is not inherently feminine. Peyote taught us this one. For our Peyote experience was very nature based in the masculine.

At this point it's important to state that the words "Man" or "He" in older language typically referred to both sexes. With Webster's 1828 definition of "Man" being - "Mankind; the human race; the whole species of human beings". And in Genesis 1:26 of the Bible, it says "And God said, Let us make man in our image." Man, not meaning soly males but females and male. So what is key to state here is that from the past there was often an inclusion of the female aspect of the species using languages from multiple hundreds of years ago all the way back to multiple thousands of years ago when the bible was written. Yet outside of that, there have been centuries of off balance giving the masculine, the male side of the gender, more importance within traditional religion. Which is bollocks. Fast forward to the blood spilling of the crusades all the way to today, most religiously affiliated folks, even the more lightly religious ones with more balance, Actually think of God (or the FSM) as a male, not female. Not in what it really is - androgynous.

Those who have been de-spiritualized, which is most of modern society and culture, can only have other's higher level experiences be most easily communicated to the largest groups of people via fables and myths literalized. IE, things in these old religious books are claimed to have really happened. We will get into the cons of the religions of the empire in due course but one of them is to take what is really inside and claim it is only outside. So a being which is so supreme, without body, in such an expanded, higher level, or dare we say risking sounding woo, higher dimensional state, which each and every one of us is a micro branch of, a node on its network, that can be accessed through the inside psychologically, is instead claimed to be a humanized corporealized form - A big man in the sky. This is why in the stars over eons constellations we're made from the clusters of stars turned into large man like characters. The astrotheology, degraded by theology, to corporealize (meaning give bodies to) what ancients thought of as their external, gods, up above. It's easier to try and understand what is such a spiritually expensive, non-languagable, psychedelic, experience of divinity and reduce it or degrade it, or simplify it, or water it down, or mirror it back to front by simply instead saying its physical and corporeal, and then take that long standing age old recipe of inaccuracy and simplicity and then unfortunately carry it into only one aspect of the binary. Which over time was more often than not, only one of two poles. The male one. For example, the Christian Trinity is said to contain the father, son, and the wholly ghost - what about mother, daughter, and the holy ghost? They are removing ½ of the equation. So the young keen mind who's not buying the indoctrination may already be able to tell they're being bullshitted.

Jordan Peterson is a Canadian psychologist, professor, and author who initially became famous from pushing back against a bill advocating "compelled speech" regarding gender pronouns within the Canadian university system that he was a part of. Compelled speech, from either side of the binary political spectrum, absolutely does have issues but we will save discussion of this at another time. Peterson has argued that there is an ongoing "crisis of masculinity" and "backlash against masculinity" in which the "masculine spirit is under assault" due to modern cultural attempts to "feminize" men. Have one look at Korean boy bands and you'll 100% agree with him. As they look like plastic hybridized manikins and you can't quite tell if they are guys or gals. So some of his work we very much agree with, including that men need strong masculine role models in their lives but some we very much do not agree with. For we appreciate the masculine and this is not meant to be an exclusive hit piece against the masculine while only speaking positively of the feminine. Strong masculinity is important. We are a male and like being so. Engaging in chopping wood, carrying water, creating man glitter (otherwise known as sawdust), at times in recent years have wanted to punch someone in the face, have wanted to use our sex organs way more often than any female we've gotten naked with have, occasionally do accelerate our car very fast, and part of us very much sees the appeal in owning various stabbing and shooting weapons. We know someone who is a bit of a cowboy, who when upon returning back home from a flight, his wife picks him up from the airport and brings a soft pouch with his weapons. So that he can immediately put them on. It's marked "Husbands weapons". In much of the US, which has never matured beyond cowboy culture, its standard procedure to have your glock as part of your everyday carry. The feminine part of us thinks this is ridiculous and unnecessary but an aspect of the masculine part of us sees the point and thinks, fair enough, they should have the freedom to do that - in certain public areas. A strong male who is a protector and caretaker is important and not to be undervalued. But so is a strong female who is also a protector and caretaker and what we are talking about is balance. Which is finding equal importance in each.

Peterson happens to also have become quite heavily religious, which he and anyone else are more than welcome to be, but in doing so is increasingly part of a system where those who become more  fundamentalist within said system disagree with obvious examples of patriarchy through the past and present. Where the King had higher control than the queen. And bloodlines of male heirs were encouraged over female ones. Which still continues to this day by male dominance in the majority of the authoritarian world, and even still has reminiscence in the more democratic world. With it being commonplace still to shake a man's hand over a woman's hand. Or mention the man first in speech before the woman. Which has led to the statement "ladies first" as a modern day counter weight. Patriarchy has certainly very much been the name of the game in both the political and business worlds. But no one, not even the ultra modern day boiler rooms of wall street are more patriarchal than what Peterson is on the team for - religion. For in the most extreme forms of religion male dominance is the absolute way. This is being seen as the time we write this by the Afghan Taliban who are declaring women unable to attend school or even have employment. In extreme sects of Mormonism polygamy has long been a thing. In which a man can have multiple wives. Increasing the value of the male, because there's only one of them and decreasing the value of the female, because there's multiple of them. One can tell us there’s no patriarchy when a woman can have multiple husbands but not the other way around. Or in the extremes of the Muslim world when a woman has to wear the Hijab but the men can wear almost anything they want. No matter how much skin is showing. Let's see a man wearing a full body covering with his wife walking in the 114 degree weather with a thong bathing suit and flip flops. Show us that along with not referring to God as "he" and then there will be no religious patriarchy. And to be fair, since we often advocate for the shamanic, we have also spent time with a shamanic tribe which leaned patriarchal, where only men seem to be taking up the shamanic path, but not the tribe's women.

Energetically, Western cultures tend to see the sun or son as male. Which spreads hotness or the positive pole of polarity. Being associated with the element of fire. While the Moon spreads coolness or the negative pole of polarity. Being associated with the element of water. The moon has a relationship with ocean tides. My wife is an OB/GYN doctor which encompasses the two subspecialties of obstetrics (covering pregnancy, childbirth, and the postpartum period) and gynecology (covering the health of the female reproductive system – vagina, uterus, ovaries, breasts and all those wonderful things). She and I know in our marital schedule that it is guaranteed that she’ll be doing at least one, if not multiple baby deliveries on the full moon because it's so common. Like an egg timer. Our daughter came on the full moon.

The positive pole goes outward and the negative pole goes inward. Positive and negative not to be confused with their emotions. For positive is not good while negative is not bad. Same with growth, powered by the sun, and decay, powered by the moon. Both of which have equal importance. Masculine energy is said to be more the mind (thinking), while feminine energy is said to be more the heart (feelings).

Physically men typically have more upper body strength, in their chest and arms. While women typically have more internal body strength in their lower body. With men having larger wider chests and shoulders and women having wider, more curvy hips and butts which are both thought to be signs of beauty. One is certainly more designed to chop wood while the other is more designed to birth children. This does not mean that a male is not a culinary rockstar or a woman can't crack skulls in battle while wearing warrior regalia 6 months pregnant. It also doesn't mean either has greater or lesser value, but they compliment themselves perfectly.

Men tend to do things more externally. Which materially does extend to being outside. As men evolved to be more hunter gatherers while the women evolved to be more the child bearers staying with little ones inside. Womens threshold for being cold is typically lower than mens. The males facial hair, as a tool of keeping the face warm in colder weather is an obvious evolutionary example of such. Foraging for nuts and greens or killing meat and bringing it back to the shelter to feed the woman so the woman can then feed the baby via the boob have equal importance.

Women have concave sexual organs. Going inward. Men have convex sexual organs. Going outward. Without getting into the birds and the bees we know they are designed to work together. In binary material both human genders, each containing their own sexual organs and plumbing, must combine to create another human and hermaphroditism - meaning having dual sexual organs only occurs in botany (plants) and most invertebrates on the outside. In these groups, hermaphroditism is a normal external condition, enabling a form of sexual reproduction in which either partner can act as the female or male. Using their dual organs at the same time, but they lack the ability to undergo self-reproduction. In very rare circumstances, a mammal, including a human, can be born with dual sexual organs, but without the inability to self replicate. Outside of androgyny in some species, it is not possible to do without one of each of the sexes. Not only should this be proof that a creator, which can self-replicate, must contain both sexes, it brings us to androgyny in mythology. The androgyne (from the Greek words gune "woman" and andros "man,") is a creature that is half male and half female. In myth, such a creature is usually a god (because it can only exist out of the binary) and in terms of its sexual hardware is called a hermaphrodite, after Hermaphroditus, son of Hermes and Aphrodite - "herm" "aphrodite" - In religious parlance, androgyny is a much more comprehensive and abstract concept than is implied by the literal image of a creature simultaneously male and female in physical form. To say that God is androgynous differs from saying that God is an androgyne. But if we limit ourselves to the relatively narrow interpretation of the bisexual god, usually a creator, we are still dealing with a very broad and important religious concept. So we would encourage, if you are taken into occasional reading of religious texts, trying to find the minority amount that's the good stuff, to pay attention to Gods referred to as androgynous.

Now remember when we said that the God / Flying Spaghetti Monster creation subdivides, its divisions contain both aspects of the previous division? Also when we said women are men on the inside and men are women on the outside? The internal sexuality becomes inverted when one is homosexual, and just like with religious beliefs or practice, this is a sliding scale. When one is heterosexual, being attracted to the opposite sex, their internal sexuality is mirrored back to front / front to back. When one is bi-sexual, these internal dynamics are more leveled out the same. When one is homosexual but you wouldn't know it from their behavior or mannerisms, their internal sexuality has slightly flipped. When their sexuality is more externally predominant to the point where they begin to externalize their flipped pole exponent, their internal sexuality has also become more amplified. Examples being where you see a gay woman externalize her male aspect, with a more butch style masculinized lesbian who might look like a construction worker or a feminized gay male man with the lisp - both who prefer to somewhat cross dress. This is also seen in more of an extreme degree with drag queens. Where they amplify their opposite sex dress to a very heavy degree. Within the more extreme sexuality component flip amplifications, this is also where one is transgender or transexual. Meaning their gender expression does not correspond with their sex assigned at birth. Where they likely have always had feelings of being the opposite sex in an incorrect body. In the early stages of being trans, at whatever age, they are likely going through a sexual identity crisis, not being sure where they stand, meaning trying to figure out who they are and then once moving past the denial stage into the acceptance stage of their underlying urges, further along become in the physical process of transitioning to the opposite sex through hormone treatments and gender reassignment surgery. Which is a process that can not only be quite expensive, but take years. So due to numerous circumstances, one being a lack of resources, many trans people throughout the world, such as let's say financially impoverished gay male who lives in the slum favelas of Rio De Janeiro will spend the remainder of their life with breasts and a penis. Being a “tranny” which are never able to fully flip their inverted internal and external sexuality toward their preference during their lifetimes.

Since we are on team democratic love over team authoritarian hate, we will caveat that it's important to be understanding, accepting, and supportive of others' struggles through life. Virtually every bi-sexual, lesbian, gay, or trans person deals with psychological difficulties in their lifetimes due to their composition of their internal and external gender and sexuality and if they come from religious households this struggle is even more amplified. But at the same time there has been an attempt within the trans community, supported by the larger gay community to allow certain people to label themselves as "non-binary" which is simply not accurate in the binary material. We accept and understand that the gay community is always adding new language because we personally are also all about new language. At the time of this writing the gay community's current labeling has expanded to LGBTQIA+ and will likely expand more in future years, but at the same time it must do things accurately to fully educate and not undermine itself. For a variety of reasons within culture and society, one being legal forms, if someone claims they are something they are not that's called lying. This was seen by an attractive, very feminine blond woman, with heavy makeup and a cross around her neck (as a sigil of her faith), going into a sympathetic LGBTQIA+ organizations building to fill out paperwork with a camera crew. She then requested the paperwork label her as a man, which she obviously was not. Which was her way of trying to highlight on camera what she perceived as ridiculous and what she would claim as a non-traditional or non-natural way of it all.

While in extremely rare occurrences it is possible for a human being to be born with dual sexual organs, they will always have one intended primary external and internal sexual gender. Folks who claim that they are non-binary are simply in the subset of homosexuality being transgenderism / transsexualism undergoing some stage of their transition period. Wherever they are in their personal fashion or hormone treatments, and regardless of what other titles like pansexual, asexual, or intersex they are using. The claiming of they or them would be more accurately and truly described as "female transitioning to male" or "male transitioning to female" and would also help reduce confusion and lack of education around such issues. Such as when someone who is born a woman, with ovaries, realizes they are gay, and trans, then begins to adopt male dress and a male haircut, then takes on male hormone treatments, then grows male facial hair, then decides before they have gender reassignment surgery, they would like to have a child, then has artificial insemination through their soon to be removed vagina to their still remaining ovaries, then becomes what appears by all view from the outside, a pregnant guy with a beard.

If someone is oppressing their internal sexuality, it tends to amplify extremes. So back to the flamingly gay drag queen, they are a bible-thumping homophobic hater on the inside. And yes, homophobic bible thumping hate spewers are repressed gay drag queens on the inside. This is why the bible belt in the United States, has been for year after year after year, by far the highest viewer of gay pornography. Instead of openly accepting gay cities in which horny gay consenting adults, in the privacy of their own bedrooms, are free to go at it with each other without needing to masturbate to gay porn, and more power to em, those who secretly would like to do that, are instead repressing it. It's also why, in the United States you see anti-gay, gay supposed Christian Republicans. Who advocate for and attempt to pass legislation which limits the rights of gay people. Even though they are secretly gay themselves.

Ultra macho, pickup, hookup and leave one night stand, chauvinism is off balance. My wife had a lesbian female patient, who had a female partner. They were not the usual loving gay type, but the man disliking gay type. When my wife asked some questions about the father they were so off balance offended against the masculine that they corrected her by saying “you mean donor”, with a “how dare you mention the male aspect of our pregnancy” attitude. Not healthy. These are all issues of being off equilibrium. For over Masculinity is off balance - over femininity is also off balance.

We will get into another component of the real and noble and good spiritual core of religion vs the religions of empire in the next essay - which is the love aspect or hate aspect (both to do with the feminine heart), but even though a classic talking point of more extreme religion is its claim that it is always under prosecution, the truth is that bisexual and homosexual people have had a long history of discrimination from religion. Engaging in attacks against transgenderism. Claiming heterosexuality is the only natural way when in nature we find all forms of sexuality. Other mammals such as bull cows or certain primates if left alone without females constantly start humping one another of the same sex. To give credit for less extreme modern aspects of religion, some conventional abrahamic systems of faith have made much progress in this area in just our lifetimes. Supporting democratic societies which allow for private practices of any type of sexuality amongst consenting adults and its surrounding education. Because that includes everyone, not just a select group. While authoritarian, patriarchal societies disapprove of, or dis-allow, or punish anything that is not solely heterosexuality. And usually a very repressed form of it.

Now, we approach the room splitter and dogmatic mind boiler. Just as not all gay men have a lisp in their voice. Feminizing it on the outside, only gay men have a lisp. Not all religious people are against birth control and abortion but only religious people are against birth control and abortion. Being anti-choice or anti-abortion or even anti-birth control has fuck all nothing to do with life. Pro-life is a lie, lie, lie. If anti-choice folks were really pro-life, they would care about the loss of species biodiversity, which they do not. If they were really pro-life, they would care about the lives of migrant refugee children dying in the Mexican desert on their way into Texas and Arizona, or drowning in the Mediterranean, which they do not. If they were really pro-life, they would care about the lives of animals being slaughtered in factory farms, which they do not. If they were really pro-life, they would care more about the lives of second graders more than the second amendment. Which they do not. If they were really pro life, they would care about the lives of children born into households where they are not wanted and unloved, which they do not. They are forced birth don’t care about life because that removes the final decision from the woman, and turns her back into a mandatory baby factory. Limiting women's access to abortion and contraception is about power and control. Specifically patriarchal control over the divine feminine. Full stop. This is because both birth control and abortion are tools which empower the feminine. The store font marketing campaign against abortion claims to be advocates for the unborn, allows for a faux quasi highest morality stance while then hiding their actual not giving a shit about the acorns which they claim are oak trees after they are born. So women who are crusaders against a woman's right to choose have been mind controlled  to be self-disempowering.

Doing some research of what life was like for women prior to the advent of birth control, which is a preventative, and abortion, which is a much more difficult decision but an available option of choice, and you'll find it was staggeringly more difficult and disempowering for them. Women were basically considered second class, completely subservient to males, and sperm repositories who were only valued for their bodies and the ability to continue the population instead of for their leadership capabilities and infinity other possibilities. Strong women in democratic society control access to sex. In authoritarian past cultures like fascist Italy, women were pushed to have as many children as possible - by force. In more authoritarian cultures of today, male to female rape within marriage is still essential legal. This is because all woman can then do is stay at home and raise children, even from a very young age. And then have less say in their own plans for education, independence, travel, career, politics, and say outside of the household. This is why we are amazed why any woman is heavily religious. And why any woman votes for authoritarianism is a contrary position, and can only occur because of a heavy indoctrination into a system of patriarchy. For the religions of the empire have always dis-empowered the feminine.

Not only do more free & democratic leaning societies always allow simple access to birth control and abortion, they are always more co-balanced on their gender importance. While those who are more pro-authoritarian are patriarchal. There is also evidence in the historical record that in higher consciousness ancient civilizations, before the religions of empire spread, that the patriarchy (those going outward from their society) were the decision makers, and the matriarchy (going inward for their society), were equally respected decision makers and both had just as much say in terms of their tribe, culture, and society. But guess who were the final when all what said and done decision makers? The matriarchy. The wise female elders who often lived longer than the males. One piece of evidence carried down in culture and myth still to this day which is proof of this can be found in the ancient game of chess. Where the queen is actually more fluid than the king. Not only being able to move one square per move, but the entire length of the board per move. That’s power. So it’s not surprising that educated, smart, strong, independent, and spiritually powerful women, who are each capable of one day becoming the Queen of the chess board, don't like attempts at having their rights reduced.

Essay: Pastafarians and The Flying Spaghetti Monster

Pastafarianism (not to be confused with Rastafarianism) is the world's fastest growing carbohydrate-based belief system which worships the Flying Spaghetti Monster. An omnipotent deity consisting of a moist heap of spaghetti which floats around in a zero gravity like state with two large meatballs and a pair of eyes in stalks. The Flying Spaghetti Monster is the Supreme Being, invisible, and omnipotent. It is also undetectable; therefore, it is impossible to prove that he does not exist. Outsiders call the group's members satirists, enemies call them heretics, and landlubbers call them scallywags or deceitful pirates, but one thing is certain about Pastafarians – they sure love carbohydrates such as pasta and beer!

If you haven’t figured it out yet, simply switch out Pastafarianism for Hinduism, Judaism, Catholicism, Islam, Buddhism, Christianity, etc.... and the Flying Spaghetti Monster (otherwise known as FSM) for GOD. This applies to all mentions of both going forward throughout the body of our work till the end of time.

The FSM, according to Pastafarians, is a benevolent supernatural entity who created the world some 4,000 years ago while very drunk. Although they assert that in their religion “anything that comes across as humor or satire is purely coincidental”, the Church of the FSM also knows religion in general does not require literal belief in order to provide spiritual enlightenment. Pastafarianism is obviously a parody religion in a similar vein to other past religious parodies such as Discordianism and the Church of the SubGenius. Founded by Bobby Henderson, a self-described hobo and hammock enthusiast, the FSM was revealed to the world in 2005. As a physics graduate, Henderson wrote a letter to the bad shit crazy Kansas State Board of Education satirizing its decision to primary creationism in the state's school curriculum by arguing that his belief that “the universe was created by a Flying Spaghetti Monster” is as valid as intelligent design.

Parody religions are a comical and clever way for those not buying, not signing up for, or otherwise analyzing, stepping back from, or being critical of religion to essentially make fun of it and some of its absurdities. For mainstream religions far too often than not take themselves way too seriously. We personally have absolutely no allegiance to any religion nor do we ever have any plans to and also find it hilarious when any stand up comic makes fun of religion. Such as Australian comedian Jim Jefferies, who says "asking questions man, that's fucking cancer to religion". My grandparents, parents, and then myself each grew up in an agnostic household where no one was indoctrinated into religion nor were they hostile to it. They acknowledged anyone to believe what they want to. However, for us personally growing up, from as far back as we can remember, we have never been impressed by it. And came to know by the time we were teenagers that the faiths of the world have some good things, but far too many bad things as well. Into later adult life, we have become more and more spiritually open, but without subscription to anyone's pre-set menu.

An initial problem with a religious based system (parody or not) is that it requires you to essentially do, just what we said, follow it. Meaning buy what they are selling. Pre-packaged and wholesale. For what in the West we call Abrahamic based religions, those centered around worship of the God of Abraham, and other mainstream adapted religions of the East such as Hinduism or Buddhism, essentially present menus, which you essentially swear your allegiance toward. But why swear your allegiance at all? Why not instead look at what they all do well, and not well, take the best bits and look even further back to where they each acquired their separate but similar knowledge? That's what we do and what you are likely most interested in as well, for we like a balanced culinary diet. For those who want to limit their diet into less range, or variety, they order off only one type of selection menu. Such as saying, "I am a Pastafarian" I will now only eat this type of food for the rest of my life. Which, in this case, due to the deities' meatballs and noodly appendages, would surely be Italian. So the problem with joining these preset systems is that one has to somewhat swear their allegiance to them, through family, community, or sometimes their entire country. Essentially claiming "I'm only an Italian food eater, and will only eat Italian food for the rest of my days." But why not like different foods from all over the world? Or perhaps have your half a dozen or so favorites, but give yourself the option to access any down your gullet at any future time.

All self development training systems, and especially systems related to spiritual self development, whether veiled in religion or not, generally have rules for those who wish to train in them which have to be followed to progress. There is nothing wrong with that and, like military training, discounting some lite to heavy brainwashing, can actually have some good things such as inspiring hard work and discipline. But a major problem comes into play if someone decides they no longer want to be in the system. Real spiritual training systems demand you ask questions, you do not move forward unless you ask continuing questions. And a real spiritual one, such as the esoteric mystery traditions, which expect constant questions, will essentially dump you or drop you, or amicably separate with you, and happily send you on your way if you do not pass their tests. But a CULTY one, will not let you leave without pain. For you are then reducing the size of the flock. So one of the beauties of a parody religion such as Pastafarianism is that if you’re not satisfied, the parody church offers a “God-back guarantee” in which “your old religion will most likely take you back.”

Now here's the main reason we lay this out at this time as a second essay in our pro-democracy political philosophy series, if someone wants to believe in and worship The Flying Spaghetti Monster, and do it within a specific menu of Pastafarianism, they should have absolute freedom to do that. Denying them that would be the most oppressive, Communist thing ever. Yet what is equally as terrible as Communism is a theocratic, Fascistic attitude that one must force the flying spaghetti monster and Pastafarianism to be imposed on others. This leads us to the first amendment of the United States constitution. Which states:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

So in this line written multiple hundreds of years ago with three commas and two semicolons we have valuable things said. In regards to religion there are two main clauses mentioned. One is the establishment clause, and the other is the free exercise clause. The "establishment" clause prevents the selection by the government of an "official" church. It would be an "establishment" of a religion if the Government financed one church or several churches. The "establishment" clause protects citizens also against any law which selects favorability to any religious custom, practice, or ritual, puts the force of government behind it, and fines, imprisons, or otherwise penalizes a person for not observing it. This is unfortunetly, a very outdated operating system which still continueds to run it's software in parts of the Muslim world today. Even though the founding documents of the US do have mentioned an analogue of The Flying Spaghetti Monster (the God word) in its language, which certainly implies that the founders supported the idea of a creator, they were conscious, wise enough, and sophisticated enough to make sure there was no official state religion. So the Government plainly could not join forces with one religious group and decree a universal and symbolic creepy and mandatory genital mutilation circumcision on its youngsters. Nor could it require all children to undergo what is secretly an occult ritual - a baptism against their will or give tax exemptions only to those whose children were baptized.

“The First Amendment commands government to essentially be free of one's interest in theology or ritual and admonishes government to be interested in allowing religious freedom to flourish or to either produce in the long run atheists or agnostics. On matters of this kind, the government must be neutral. This freedom plainly includes freedom from religion, with the right to believe, speak, write, publish and advocate both pro-religions or anti-religious programs as freedom of speech. Certainly the "free exercise" clause does not require that everyone embrace the theology of some church or of some faith, or observe the religious practices of any majority or minority sect. Which is stating, as would be the freest expression for all, neutrality. This is super awesome because it gives full free exercise to the country's citizenry to practice respect, worship, or swear private allegiance to the Flying Spaghetti Monster and also simultaneously have full freedom to ignore, discount, or be extremely critical of both the belief of FSM and the practice of Pastafarianism.

Probably the most beautiful part of the founding documents is what's said in this line from the first Amendment and followed up in other founding and early documents such as the Treaty of Tripoli. Which is the beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, Separation of Church & State. A philosophical and jurisprudential concept for defining political distance in the relationship between religious organizations and the state. Conceptually, the term refers to the creation of a secular state and to disestablishment, the changing of an existing, formal relationship between the church and the state. Although the concept is older, the exact phrase "separation of church and state" is derived from "wall of separation between church and state" which is a term coined by Thomas Jefferson. The concept was promoted by Enlightenment philosophers such as John Locke - a person the red cult, and we'll get into the red cult later, loves to hate. The philosophy of the separation of the church from the civil state parallels the philosophies of secularism, disestablishmentarianism, religious liberty, and religious pluralism. By way of these philosophies, the European states assumed some of the social roles of the church and the state, which the US also eventually adopted.

In all seriousness, we want anyone who reads or listens to this, whether you're tolerantly atheist, agnostic, religious, or perhaps any combination thereof to feel welcome here. But an underlying foundation to those things co-existing is a mutual respect for allowing each to have their own way within people's private lives, and keep the shared contract of government neutral on the subject. For as the founders knew, neutrality leads to the strongest form of democracy. This is very important to state at this time in our pro-democracy series because there is a type of person, who blends across these spectrums, who has aggression against subordinate groups. The extreme nature of their one menu means they want to dictate not only what they are allowed to do in private but what others must do to abide by their one and only menu in public. They discount neutrality as well as the shared social contract of society, putting everything into a friend-enemy dynamic, and not only does not respect and aspires toward true democracy but instead has pro-authoritarian political leanings, and then completely denies what is fact versus what is fiction.

In short, they want their deities' noodly appendages to stretch into every branch of your life, whether you're into that or not. Details and deconstructions are what we are leading toward in regards to this will be followed up on in the next essays.

An Infinite Path Exclusive YouTube Channel

Updated art for the podcast generated in Midjourney AI. Which is one of numerous AI art generators that can be found at https://www.midjourney.com/.

We are giving the podcast containing the freely available half of the spoken word essays its own YouTube channel. Knowing it could be zapped at any time, even with more tame public episodes, we’re open to also trickle uploading the archive and future episodes to alternate video platforms as well.

But for YouTube, which is BY FAR the best technically functioning video sharing platform to date, do find it here:

https://www.youtube.com/@aninfinitepath/videos

The Inferior Nature Of Black & White Imagery

Here's the first mini documentary piece which represents our shift into more photographic based content. We're never going to lose the dynamic with our work mixing art with more philosophical content, but are simply using photography as an initial entry point into that. While saving anything related to more spiritual philosophy to the essays and perhaps longer form film projects.

We're aiming to do one video per month at most or quarter at least, and same could be said with the essays going forward. While the current plan is to continue to keep this member access section free for the coming months.

Documentary Recommendation - How We Found Kiely Rodni

There's a surprising amount of people who go missing each year. Either by getting lost, human trafficked, abducted by aliens (joke), kidnapped, etc... We've had on our to-do list to not only write an unforgettable horror script, but to also write and direct an unforgettable thriller about someone who goes missing. For we find those thrillers some of the most intriguing movies to watch.

On a more non-fiction note, there was a 16-year-old California girl who went missing recently named Kiely Rodni. Very sad. Also what is sad is that since, like this girl named Gabby Petito, she was a cute white girl, the media covered her disappearance quite extensively. Which they sadly would not do if she was brown or black. As the vast majority of women who go missing annually are brown or black and get little to no media coverage, then suddenly the media globs onto one case which is very much an exception to the norm. If you watch the documentary "14 Peaks" about a gentleman named Nirmal Purja who is considered one of the, if not the best climbers in the world, having ascended all 14 eight-thousanders (peaks above 8,000 metres or 26,000 feet) in a record time. He's also Napalese born and in the documentary says at the end after having accomplished the task, "Let's be brutally honest, if this was done by some European or Western climber, the news would be ten times bigger." He's very well respected within the climbing community but because he's brown, he's still quite obscure and very under-appreciated anywhere else. So the case of cute caucasian Kiely Rodni which happened in Northern California, and this got a lot of media attention, also sadly ended with them finding her body two weeks after she had gone missing submerged in her car in a reservoir.

We mention this here for two reasons. Because the small group that actually found her body, after a massive statewide search using thousands of people and hours by state authorities, were actually a small team of guys working on their own called "Adventures with Purpose" who also happen to be documentary filmmakers. They made a short documentary about it, which we are sharing now, but this case is also a bit more relevant to our life personally because although we didn't know, Kiely, we did go to high school with her mother whose name is Lindsey Rodni-Nieman and send our condolences to her and the rest of the family. We were in the same class so a group of my high school buddies and I have actually been following the case since it began.

Here's the 47 minute long documentary on YouTube. They did a good job of documenting their process while being respectful to the material. Not doing it for fame or fortune but actually now having become quite more well known because of their success with this case.

We can personally attest that it's life changing when you're making a documentary, are not sure what's going to happen as you're filming it, then what crescendos not only meets your expectations, but exceeds them - and you got it all on camera. Which not only makes all the previous work more worthwhile but results in what we think is the best possible filmmaking. While we wouldn't call this one cinematic or artistic, and it instead has more of a standard newscast feel, it definitely accomplishes that and is worth a watch as a result. For the end is very good.

National Zero

For those of you in the United States, it’s another round of political primary season.

If we were living in times of higher consciousness, we’d have a more direct democratic system without representatives who far too often don’t represent the people. Or at very least, if we were more logical like various other progressive countries we’d have something like instant runoff voting allowing for a half dozen political parties with shades of differences to compete. Instead we have a two party system consisting of two corporatized parties that have still become hyper polarized because one of them over the course of my lifetime has continually become more and more bat shit crazy. Kabbalistically, this is what’s referred to as “Nachash” (otherwise known as the division force of binary reality) increasing on a societal level.

The result of which is that the US voter’s options currently are a halfway decent (but could be way better) democratic party vs a bottomless red cult clown show anti-democratic party who wants authoritarian fascism. The latter’s attacks on our semblance of democratic structure has really shown us how important the judicial branch of the system is. Meaning the courts and the rule of law. Which for the majority of the time have allowed elite criminals to circumvent accountability. But now the leader of the red party, has told so many thousands of lies, and felt immune to accountability for his criminal actions so long, he and his enablers have become such a threat to the US constitution that the two options for the country now are literally to either hold him and his most anti-democratic cult followers accountable or else ditch democracy. And every day we hope and try and do our part to work for the former.

So to not stick our head in the sand during crazy times, amongst our other research in various areas, we admit to being a somewhat political headline junkie. So if you want quick updates on what’s going on outside of the propagandist dungeons of disinformation of the red cult, or better but still corporatized legacy media that is very limited in its scope of ideas, National Zero is worth your time. It’s got short update posts on what’s going on from a general forward thinking point of view with a ton of personality. Here are two examples from some of their recent posts:

Post Example A:

“Ghoulish criminal kingpin and head of the National Republican Campaign Senate Committee Rick Scott has been forced to cut back campaign advertising support for his rogues gallery of Republican Senate candidates – feckless quack Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania, Reptilian Humanoid Blake Masters in Arizona, and demented conspiracy theorist Ron "RonAnon" Johnson in Wisconsin – canceling $10 million worth of spots reserved in the three states, the New York Times reports.

The Times doesn't go too deep into it beyond noting that the move comes amid a general slowdown in online small-dollar fundraising for the GOP. Still, it's kind of impressive that the guy in charge of the NRSC is a white collar criminal who masterminded the largest Medicare fraud in history but apparently can't use that experience to figure out how to "creatively bookkeep" enough money to keep his shitty candidates on television constantly. Could be an early sign of a larger problem facing the GOP in the final stretch before the midterms.”

Post Example B:

We already wrote basically the same article a few months ago about a different, similarly successful sweep by Homeland Security but we couldn't leave this one alone given the MAGA-QAnon scumbags losing their fucking minds in reaction to their Orange Messiah's lair getting raided by the FBI last week. Both of the two most prominent QAnon fans in Congress, Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Greene, called for the FBI to be defunded and Greene on Friday tried to file impeachment articles against Attorney General Merrick Garland. Former Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne said the FBI were looking for the incriminating evidence Trump had on them. And so on and so forth.

It says a lot about how fucked up the whole cult is that, aside from one questionable effort by a small Q-aligned group to intercept coyotes that could be trafficking kids across the border that there is nothing else done by Q fans even remotely close to within the scope of actually helping vulnerable children. You might think that QAnoners would be opening shelters for abused transient children, running "To Catch a Predator"-type vigilante stings to lure in scumbags, organizing search parties to respond when a child goes missing, whatever. To our knowledge there is nothing like that going on in the name of QAnonism. Instead they just jerk off on the internet, "baking" their theories, and just waiting for shit to happen and freak out when it doesn't end up happening. They might as well be playing Super Mario Bros and saving Princess Peach from Bowser. It's about as real and arguably more productive than playing "soldier" in Mike Flynn's "digital army."

https://nationalzero.com/

Trapped In The Marvel Cinematic Universe

So the main reason for our slow outputs on our personal work over the last year and still ongoing is simply due to money. Both having too much thrown at us and also a lack thereof. A lack in the since that if we were independently wealthy, we could just work on our feature documentary films, photojournalistic outputs, and essays - which we would love nothing more than to make our full time employment.

In terms of having too much thrown at us, that means doing freelance jobs which we work crazy busy overtime at that pays well but sucks us away from our own personal outputs - thus we don’t particularly want to be doing. So basically we’re always in the push / pull where our personal outputs which use a good chunk of our full creative skillset being a documentary filmmaker make us little money, while our freelance jobs primarily as a digital artist use only 1/10th max of our skillset, yet make us good money.

Much of our background professionally over the last 20 years has been as a digital artist in post production capacities and some on set capacities as well. This is what we got our first job doing once graduating from university because of the plethora of work available at the time over just doing live-action work. The industry has seen a great deal of change with numerous ups and downs and we have spoken of this in various places in regards to our background. However, to this day, and almost especially due to Covid, the industry has moved very much to remote work when it comes to artistry, because it’s mostly all done in software on computers.

In our younger years we lived in Toronto for about six months as a low level Visual Effects Supervisor for the film “The Incredible Hulk” when Marvel was just getting going as a movie studio. But we stepped away from that career a bit to work on our own documentary projects including our first feature Transmutation. Very bad decision financial career wise with what Marvel has now become as a powerhouse studio but an extremely rewarding one for our personal artistry and life path. Yet because of the ease of now doing various post production roles from home combined with the advent of the streaming platforms rising to the forefront over the movie studios, there is just a constant amount of work out there for talented artists as they always just desperately need employees. Especially for these superhero movies which take hundreds if not thousands of people to make. So this is us admitting that we’ve gotten sucked back into our old industry over this last year, spending most of our time working on other people's projects, which are not always but often superhero ones, just like we use to do before we made Transmutation.

So our endless struggle these days, which isn’t really that much of a struggle and to be honest, a good problem to have in life, as there are gazillions of people who would love to be working on Marvel movies, is constantly getting sucked into working on these projects and trying to find time to get to our own stuff. Yet, one could call these problems first world problems.

Here are trailers for the current two projects we’re trapped inside:

Our Girlfriend Who Runs Empire Files

Abby Martin is an American journalist, activist, and artist who’s founded various independent media journalistic endeavors, had her own show on RT of all places (when it wasn’t state sanctioned Russian propaganda), has interviewed folks such as Julian Assange and Oliver Stone, and like with all truth tellers, has had to now go off a do her own thing via community support.

The main thing we really like about her work is it focuses on and does a hell of a good job tracking the skullduggery of Empire. Specifically American and Israeli of which there’s zero shortage.

She actually grew up in the Bay Area of California right near where we did yet unfortunately we have never met. We would love to collaborate with her in the future so perhaps one day that will manifest. As we love powerful sophisticated women who talk about real things and fight for a better future, it doesn’t hurt that’s she’s beautiful as well so even though we’re happily married we also consider her our girlfriend. ;)~

Her venture “Empire Files” is here - http://theempirefiles.tv

TakeOverWorld

The majority of conspiracy is hot garbage. However, some conspiracy is totally legit. One could even say the framing and use of the word “conspiracy” itself is a conspiracy.

The first thing that’s good to ask oneself when a source of conspiracy content is found to see if its legit or not is… “is this just a tool of right wing politics in disguise?” and if it’s denigrating the left while giving the right a pass we throw it in the garbage can. However if it’s denigrating the right for protecting the top of the socioeconomic hierarchy, that’s a good initial smell test to moving onto absorbing more of its content.

http://www.takeoverworld.info/ is one such place and is quite a rabbit hole. It is an old school site yes that hasn’t been added to in quite a long time, dealing primarily in parapolitics. Defined as covert political activity that is hidden from the public or a complete (de facto) political system, typically comprising elements of the military and intelligence apparatus, hidden from the public; political actions of subterfuge, secrecy, and deceit; and is increasingly used in discussions on democracy to describe the behaviour of coalitions of institutions and corporations who operate above or outside of elected governments.

As always, not perfect, but has some very worth while material at the same time.