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If I could seek to derive the values born from what is referred to as The American Dream in the context of present day choosing, then hey, freedom of choice right?

What I know for myself to be true is that life is empty, cruel, and meaningless.  It is harsh, painful, and honestly detestable to partake in, let alone be a bystander in.

That last sentence there wasn't about life, it is about being a born citizen of The United States of America as if that was reason alone to feel pride in myself.

Pride?  If anyone knows anything about pride, and the fact it best ought to be observed over celebrated are those who are consistent in humble faith toward Jesus Chris.

And, if anyone knows anything about celebrating pride, and the fact it best ought to be over not, are those consistent to the experience of identifying as LGBTQ+.

Let those without sin cast the first stone, I am not a humble person by any means if I could otherwise bother to notice how much I bother myself just to be noticed.

I cannot help it, frankly, and that is because I was born into a world that implicitly values attention over dignity.  Praise over feedback.  Compliments and encouragement.

Why?  Because we be fragile y'all.  Okay, I am fragile.  If fragile is an understatement.

If I could seek to establish myself for arguments sake that I am the most undeniably breakable person on the planet, then I would.

For that is what most of my experience of being could otherwise be noticed with good intent and loving grace because of how the world views the traumatized.

If you were sexually assaulted, beaten to the point of bruising, and then implicated into your own abuse by someone and your mother helped cover it up, you'd be too.

Because with that, coupled with the lack of acknowledgment of my experience as real beyond only tending to what I wanted, relief only came from act of want over need.

Time and again, or damn near every day, making the bed for as long as I can remember can easily become the most detestable part of my day.  

To the point of sometimes screaming, I would do whatever I could to avoid dealing with the tension of experiencing flashbacks that would deliver me back into the experience of being attacked while making a bed.

As we move from moment to moment in life, the blessing of our gift of experience is the having of encounters with ideas about ourselves, others, and life.  As the train of thought arrives toward the platform of the moment, fresh are the ideas that spring forth for one to bear the burden of choosing for themselves what to select from the options made available.  

Inside all of us exists an entire universe.  If you do not believe me, then let us just call it a cognitive model.  Models are oversimplified representations of a process being described by those with keen insight of experience on a matter.  Every model, therefore, has flaws and limitations of application as it relates to the assumptions made about which contexts of experience such models are applicable in producing what is described at high-level and with good intent of choosing.

As we move through life, so long as we continue to seek out new awareness of 'the way' life works, our model can evolve in scope, complexity, and effectiveness so long as we continue to operate from a place of absolute truth.

For what we select from what arrives to us mentally is a choice made of discernment through the identification of that which we believe to be as the truth.  And by truth, I mean the truth that is relevant to the context in which it was framed within, which can limited to the extent at which our nervous systems were suppressed or activated by tension.  The more tension experienced, the more activated we can get to the point of hitting a ceiling of capacity for input.  There is a limit to our ability to handle what is coming in at any given second and, when this gets exceeded, we become overwhelmed.

Overwhelm would be defined as reaching such a limitation in experience that the only rationale course of action is to shove any additional unit of tension off one's plate with haste, decisiveness, and reason.  Reason is important to distinguish here, because in the context of the perception of those who have been taken to the edge of their ability to feel like they can deal with what is in front of in life, there are reasons to consider by those in denial of our pain as real.

Therefore, in the context of the moment of having to select from the choices made available to us, the content of our experience informs us with reason within choice as life continues to move forward and presents us with our next set of ideas born from the sensations created in our next moment in the context of the choosing of the prior.  To help with clarifying that last one, every choice we make frames our experience in real-time, our perception of choices in the next moment.  This also then means that our previous choices have influenced what we perceive to be true right now.

What I believe to be true right now is that I just did the reader a favor in that last paragraph was to seek to give clarity to insight, my insight.  That insight was born from choice and, importantly, not just my choice, but the choices of others and all those who could otherwise have had a non-zero impact on the contributions that influenced the moment of arriving for me in life in which I made a decision that doomed my experience of life for decades as nothing short of living hell.

But before I share what that choice is, let us talk about beliefs.  Beliefs are important, necessary to the cause of moving forward enough in life toward creating anything for ourselves, and are what any human will unconsciously protect with every might of their being's expression of willpower toward the end of exhibiting ego.  The ego is a necessary aspect of our humanity that declares us, at some point, as a distinct entity from others such that one develops cognitive processes aimed toward the end of addressing that which we need to survive at all costs.  It is the embodiment of the animal in us.

This is vital to know and dangerous to realize when taken in context with the idea that some of our beliefs can invariably present themselves to be inconsistent with the reality laid out so bare before us to the point of being confronted with the truth that not all in which we believe to be true in this world is actually true.  At this point, we experience tension in the form of cognitive dissonance as we are presented with a perceived polarity in what to choose from the emergent train of thought.  For many, acknowledging and holding onto the tension of believing two perceived opposites can be true is beyond their ability of choosing.  The brain is constrained at times energetically to make a choice and, if it decides from the signals being received that it is too costly to sift through the noise enough to understand the nature of duality, we choose.  

Now here is the fun part.  When I was five and, under the perceived care of a would-be caretaker, I was sexually violated, physically beaten to the point of bruising, and had liquid soap forced into my mouth under threat of violence toward those I loved if I ever said a thing.  To compound this experience, as my mother was informed the same day, the subject of  my abuse was brought up casually over dinner with my attacker, who lived just on the other side of a wall dividing a split-unit home, as if was something to note in passing as over seeking out justice with rage in order to protect one's kin.

Not only that, my attacker was granted the privilege of the choice of getting to speak to veracity of the claim and, in the interest of anyone seeking self-preservation, he lied.  Instead, as I sat at the table and filled a seat, my character was disrespected and lambasted to the point at which the train of thought borne from being taken to Wit's End and left to fend for myself and my own my five-year-old ability to process an intense existential threat of high caliber.  For what came about from a sensation of being excluded from my truth influenced the choice in perception that I do not matter.

That is not all, for everyone feels the sensation of being excluded from their truth at some point in their life on the basis of identity, values, thoughts, ideas, feelings, or choices.  But when a five-year-old child novel to their experience of storing any memories could later seek to recall an experience that was formative to my worldview, I will let you decide if anything could measure up to that.  But let's go further, ideas are ideas, but when these ideas are permitted the experience of choosing from our thoughts and we decide to plant them within our minds as something to believe in, we make a choice.  Such choices in beliefs are what lead to self-limiting beliefs and, assuming your family validates an experience such that unhealthy ideas about ourselves are allowed the right of passage as only visitors, we learn to become resilient to such threats to our being.  

For those who are secure in themselves, they don't even show up as an option to choose from on the train of thought because, as I mentioned before, all the choices contributing to an individual's ability to set and maintain healthy boundaries acts as a firewall to the experience of feeling excluded for even a moment's notice if they could even bother to realize there was any other way to feel in life.

This was not the case for me.  No one validated my pain, literally no one.  Instead, I went through childhood spending half my time experiencing the gravity of control by my mother and, during the off weeks, could escape to my father's home where I could feel relief from constant verbal abuse and harassment for ruining 'her' life.  However, relief does nothing toward the end of validating a person's experience and acknowledging the impact it had and is still having on them as wrong, not acceptable, and reprehensible in a moral and civil context.  Instead, my feelings were invalidated as I learned to 'suck it up' in life and learned how to repress myself to the point of becoming unfeeling to the cause of my own suffering with every dismissal I would receive from anyone I would find the courage to share my story with in life.

But I couldn't help it, I was just a child and no one helped me to process what happened enough to be able to see anything else whenever any sense of invalidation, disrespect, or perceived lack of dignified response in-kind of my own choosing to be toward others in life would arrive on the train of thought again.  So I went numb.

How does one do this?  By being permitting the choice of a dream that one day, one would create meaning from their pain in a way that would give them their time of day in the sun such that they would be witnessed for their struggles and get the due recompense they deserve in the form of dignity they felt robbed of in that experience. 

Just like Jesus Christ, who spent his days tending to anyone he encountered who he noticed could be dignified by his presence alone if he could bother to help at all.

For people were in pain, his world was suffering needlessly by the gripping of hope in tomorrow while not recognizing it is only they who can save themselves.

All the while, he was otherwise persecuted and crucified for not being that which the empire of Rome would have sought to entertain the likings of for a second.

For Jesus embodied radical choice at the time and, in the context of the simulation, clearly was the first to go out in such a way of dignified self-expression that one could not help but find themselves in awe of the idea of anyone even coming close to that level of style in choice again without being labeled a sycophant in their cause.

For whereas the consequence of his choosing to live with immaculate fidelity of integrity with honoring his beliefs led to the outcomes he wrought, the consequence of my choosing to seek to live in accordance with my own beliefs of choosing resulted in 30 years of perpetual pain and suffering, leading to countless experiences of being crucified socially in every context of my imagining in life and the unfortunate outcomes of feeling forced to commit social seppuku time and again just to dignify the beliefs others had about me.  

Why?  Because quite the grave assumption is being made about the world as true when one otherwise seeks to dream of meaning over finding it in that one's legacy in greatness would be evidence as to why one had to go through what they did in the first place instead of, say, recognizing meaning in context can only be self-derived.  

So, instead, other things, people, experiences, stories, systems, and even the dreams of others.  I'm an American, so when one considers from the stack what would permit themselves the greatest passage toward greatness, one sought to embody the ideals of the dream in full such that my ego's will was of megalomania.  

But when one's constant pushing through life with nothing that could be seen other than embodied force of will to keep that dream alive, one could not help but notice the system in place that is keeping it all alive today in thought within the hidden ideals of any person impressed by even a remote understanding of it.

Simply put, a system can be defined as an interdependent group of items, people, or processes working together toward a common purpose. Organisations are made up of teams, functions, processes and equipment. The performance of a system is dependent on how these component parts interact with each other.  A unified whole.

The "American Dream" is a phrase referring to a purported national ethos of the United States: that every person has the freedom and opportunity to succeed and attain a better life, a comfortable one even.  This can be found within what all those who came after refer to as The Declaration of Independence.

So then, what happened to that one huh?  As it would turn out, the values given to us by the Founders are not what we ended up coming to value as a nation and, in lack of meaning arising from the pain of being born into a dream and told what to value, what festers beyond is a crisis in existence constantly at a razor's edge to protect.

Now, mind you, what follows is merely heresay from a ghost and, if one could impress anything from this read, is to try and see for yourself in life what to believe.

However, in the meantime, this is my platform so proceed forward from it will this train of thought onto something feeling mighty real from lived experience of my own.

Instead of valuing Strength, such that one can create space to grieve their experience of pain as necessary to the cause of noticing its truths, we value Survival of the next thought because it's all we have to struggle with in the moment these days.  The embodiment of Strength in heart requires internalizing the experience of not being enough at times and, since many believe America is the greatest place on earth, what is there to mourn or grieve?  Thus, denial of such through the keepings of pride is ever present to avoid, even for a second, the shame we stand to bear as our own creations in thought that to be anywhere else is a travesty toward being 'free'.

Instead of valuing Well-Being, such that one can create space to enjoy their experience of presence as necessary to the cause of noticing the gift of life, we value Wellness in order to thrive forever because all we can do is present what we feel we lack.  The embodiment of Well-Being in the mind requires gratitude for what is already there enough to notice that a better life is only attainable by shifting our perspective.  But if Well-Being defines winning as a function of inclusion, then Wellness is more in keepings with pulling oneself up by their bootstraps and those who do not are lazy and are just pretending to be happy.

Instead of valuing Ownership, such that one can create space to detest their experience of having to the cause of noticing the role we play in each other's suffering, we value Opportunities in order to seek to reclaim that which we feel we have no choice in.  The embodiment of Ownership seeks to act on the information we have available to us to do so at any given moment instead of just acting in life by merely ideating possible outcomes and speaks to the toxicity of leadership from an office that has a clear view of the sky and no semblance of what is going on down on the street.  But, hey, so long as we're getting paid right?  The homeless obviously should have known.

Did I mention the founders were a collection of elites?  Did I have to?  Yes.  Oh yeah, and they were only men and only white.  Which leads me to the next value.

Instead of valuing Relationships, Respect wants respect even when it disrespects you.  The people who demand respect for what they believe themselves to be giving you in life are the rudest people in the universe and in modern times, embody the sterility of expression within corporate culture, feigned decorum of character as kind, and having no clue that getting others to buy in on and RESPECT your ideas is of mutual appeal to respect them first as people with needs such that you dignify their experience of living as valid.  Valuing respect means you choose to discard the expression of others at will and upon receipt of the idea that, if they are challenging you, your worth diminishes.  But if what we valued was Relationships, which is what those blessed with the time of having the chance to look up from their struggles in life get a chance to notice, then the passings of disrespect would be taken as a given toward the cause of seeking to understand oneself, others, and life as more than just a game of appeasement of choice.

Sometimes choices are not worthy of appeasement, such as the choice to value Devlopment of one's ideals as anything more than living into one's fantasy, even while awake, such that one's dreams are no longer worthy of our attention because to seek anything for oneself is to invite more onto our plate to work on when our plate is already full of food we have dismissed as vital to the cause of serving our needs over our wants.  Should we have noticed the embodied 

Development never stops, it must grow grow grow, whereas devotion imparts a limit to one's own growth enough to notice others need help to grow too and serves to push people to grow only to feed the dream and not themselves.

The American Dream masquerades as a gift to those who benefited from it And relayed for itself possibility for those just beyond its reach To jump on a hamster wheel and run into the dead only to go nowhere, so long as They continue to be influenced that it's just a little bit further, Enough to call the quitters lazy or not passionate enough or insert excuse here, Those who would question it as unpatriotic if not insane (this is the best place on earth), And those who would fight against it as nothing short of heretics to the cause of the keeping hope alive in us enough to give ourselves permission to return back to our own caves of thought to look at the shadows dance on the wall because you just never know what they're gonna do next (Television Programming).  

All the while, never asking oneself: what am I going to do next with the information that I have now as just a given when you are otherwise seeking to survive in life with the means you have and what curiosity you can stand to muster as we continue to normalize productivity of outputs over capability of inputs.  And thus, we dim and never ask why it seems the ability to dream for ourselves, others, and life diminishes and wades to the point we disregard it as a flicker in time that is best left where it is because we're so far in and no one knows the way out so why even bother try?

Plus, for the having, their number one given driving themselves is how to keep their fantasy alive?  

Rule #1 for those with power is to protect their position of sovereignty.  By any means necessary.

For it is the only experience we get to have in this existence that could even remotely vanquish the idea that we are always vulnerable to something much worse than we would otherwise seek to acknowledge.  Which is the need to have to fight to the point of death in life if what we seek to value most, our next breath, is threatened to the breaking point of fight or flight.

For me, not many would know what to do in the face of such tension.  

And that is one of the first memories of my childhood.

So when it comes to the idea of having to sometimes let my ego hang out to dry for the spectacle of others in order to exact what I want most for myself in life, which is justice in the form of grace.  Then by all means, tell me where to be and you will find me.

For I know, at the end of the day, there's nearly a totality of people out there who would balk at the idea of giving the exchange a moment of their time.