Freed from the Underground
Email william2fday@yahoo.com
Bill_Day
. As I see it now, there are two types of innocence (innocence is the quality of existing without guilt), innocence within ignorance and innocence without ignorance. We are all born into the first type. Some don't want to awaken from this purity and remain innocent in their own unawareness - cows ready for the slaughter. Many become disillusioned by the awakening and refuse to search further: Life's bloody secrets are too much to confront, to justify and/or to handle. These people feel and fear they would be destroyed by truth. Their beings are, or they think they are, too fragile. They force them-selves to become content with what they know and what they are doing. They refuse to reach out for knowledge: contentment ready for the slaughter. Some aren't destroyed or destroyable by the facts of their situation; yet refuse to act. They refuse to believe they can do something. They think they are too small in a too-large-a-machine. They place their faith and hope in the larger forces i.e. a company, the government and/or God.
These people also do nothing: resting in their faith, blind-hope really for the slaughter. Many other types of innocence rest in a bed of ignorance with either an inability or a lack of will to arise, but the result is the same: destruction by, or in, their dreams of life.
An extreme minority not only seeks the ignorance which exists and attempts to alleviate it, but they make amends for their share of guilt. It is to these few that a clarity of sight may exist. They are not confused by their own fears nor by the falsity which exists. By their deeds, they are again born into an innocence, but this time without guilt. They have shed their share of guilt. They walk their paths without the burdens of dread and remorse and with a continuing securable and secured freedom from these types of encumbrances. They realize their responsibilities to stop their share in guilt-creating events and to erase their culpability which already exists.
Yes, we are all born into many types of original sin for which we must make amends before we can share a guiltless path of knowledge and freedom; some sins come with just being human; e.g. we must destroy to survive or we can go against our natural instincts to survive, suicide. Some sins are the culmination of the crimes which our state, country, or nation has committed. Maybe some even exist because our family has committed sins, and we inherit them with our names.
Many horrendous acts have happened and are happening because people have said that they weren't or wouldn't transpire. We are all guilty if we just let what we consider crimes happen. Of course, the main crime of which I speak right now is the unjustified war in which we are engaged. It seems we don't learn from the past but continue to force our will, our way of government, our values, our systems upon other people. We believe in choice for ourselves and then choose what is right for someone else and force our choice upon them.The guilt which we are creating for our country is compounded by both those who are in position of guidance and control and/or by our innate want to remain innocent. This guilt is not only shared by persons perpetrating this war, or even by the ones letting it happen but will be shared by future generations.
What befalls us when our feeling of innocence is unveiled? We are forced to see our guilt: our unquestionable guidance disappears; we see through the systems which have deceived us, through the falsities and lies, reality awakens us into contrition, and we see that we have allowed what we consider crimes to happen (and yes, maybe then we will see through ourselves).
The responsibility for erasing this ignorance not only lies within the systems which are in some way informing us of events and in a sense creating a type of reality, but it rests within each one of us: to seek the truth, to take the responsibility not only for our actions but for the actions of the systems to which we give consent or even help to create, and to inform each other of the events which take place within the systems and the events which the systems affect.
This is but a single reason why I write. All of the other reasons for creating this manuscript are complicated and cannot be fully sorted even in my own mind, but I'm sure they will become translucent as this manuscript progresses.
My inexperience as a writer is apparent to me as it must be to many readers. I have rewritten those last paragraphs too many times to count and still can't come up with an inclusive, clear statement. Sections seem awkward and in many places, I question whether I have used the best words. I am not a writer by profession but a teacher. After teaching English for so many years, and after reading volume after volume, writing should be easy. But no, it isn't. And one reason it isn't is that my degrees have instilled a feeling that not only I, but all writers, must have a just cause to waste energy and demand time from a reader. After reading so much writing that has not justified its reason for existence, I feel that I must justify my work both to myself and the world.
Two nights ago I had a dream, one of those dreams which are so vivid and real that it consistently presses into my consciousness. Before the dream I had considered writing this manuscript but, of course, had done nothing, rationalizing that plenty of time exists. Then the dream transpired, and with every reminder of the dream, the obligation to tell this story increased until here I am at my computer. This was a real dream, as real as any dream can be:
It had come and gone. Not seeing it, not knowing what it was, I walked through the hamlet with almost a curiosity. I could see the devastation, its result, the empty hamlet, the broken windows, debris everywhere, an over-turned donkey cart, but I knew not what had caused it. On the other side of the village, my neighbors, the residents of this community, grouped together with sticks, pitchforks, axes, and other weapons in hand. They outwardly displayed courage, but knowing them as I did, I knew they were afraid.
I turned and walked back through the village. All the shops and houses were empty. Just small bands of people wandered the deserted streets.
I turned when a voice shouted hoarsely, "They went that way! That way." He pointed in a nebulous northern direction. Two groups of town’s people were coming from different directions when he shouted. Everyone looked where he pointed, but only a few turned and began to move in that direction. The others stared with shocked blankness, or fear; some returned from which they had come.
I began to move in the direction he pointed but stopped as I saw someone throw a large book on the ground. It appeared to be a Bible. He seemed to be taking great pride in the loud sound it made as it hit the ground. Was that going to be a weapon? Insanity and fear predominated.
Small groups of people were heading in the direction the force had gone. I followed slowly until I could see their destination: a barren, light brown small dusty canyon where many were climbing the crumbly rock canyon walls with their weapons. They were preparing for the force's return. The preparation was being accomplished with a mood of excitement and even terror. People moved about chaotically. No-body took charge. Nobody gave directions. Nobody even spoke a word.
I was wandering around, not approaching the ravine but trying to figure out how to help. What weapon should I get? A big boulder? I looked for one. But I did not know the force: what it was or how to stop it. A stillness spread over the crowd. The people on the canyon walls stopped climbing. Then I heard it, the roar, the screeching, the chaos. Now, panic and horror possessed all these people. Had anyone expected the roar to be so dense, so loud, so strong, so devastating? It was approaching. I realized that it was a huge mass of people running toward the gully. Then I realized neither this gulch nor the people would stop those charging mass but just slow them. The people on the walls with their logs, rocks, spears, and clubs were not enough. I began to run. Others around me began to run, in all directions.
Knowing that the multitude would not gain on me, that they could not travel any faster than I could, I felt fairly safe just jogging. I had almost reached the hamlet when I heard the wave of people hit the ravine. The screaming increased to such a point that it seemed right behind me. Panic grabbed me, and I began to run faster. When I reached the other side of our small village, I was the only person running. Did those fools expect the hamlet to stop the masses? Were they hiding in their houses, under their beds? My increased pace lasted until the roar of anguished human beings seemed to lessen, and I entered the forest. Rays of sunshine penetrated the dense overgrowth illuminating sections of greenery, moss, trunks of gnarled trees. Everything seemed so beautiful, yet frightfully desolate. Knowing that the further I ventured into the forest, the safer I would be; nevertheless, I was hesitate in slowing my pace to a walk.
How many people who once fortified the canyon walls were now running with the masses? They had become a part of the threat and not its defiance. I laughed at myself. I had run. I had become them. I was just the tip of the chaos, the forerunner. But now I was by myself, isolated.
A clanging sound in front of me caused me to stop. Armored men marching in my direction frightened me again. Did I escape the masses to die here? I didn't have time to turn and run, so I slid behind a tree. The armored foot soldiers without taking notice of me passed on both sides of the tree behind which I hid. Almost all passed without giving me the slightest notice. Near the end of the procession, two men on horseback approached. They stopped on both sides of the tree. They spoke in a dialect which at first was hard to understand but finally what they said became clear. "From which direction were they coming?" I pointed in the direction from which I had just run. The two men dismounted and took me to a commander and a wizard who was dressed in a black robe. As we approached, the wizard was talking to the chief knight. The wizard's eyes rolled in his head as he waved an ax. When we approached they both stopped talking and turned. We three followed the chief and the wizard to a tree stump on which the wizard brought down the ax.
"Here we are. Now, show us where they are," commanded the Royal Chief. As I began to tell them everything I knew, I awakened.
I can see from the dream that I am the informant. It is my duty for I have seen the waste of human beings, not necessarily as in the dream but in that the people whom I have known to have the greatest capabilities, the greatest minds, have not been able to fulfill their potential in a constructive, useful way. Who is to blame for this tragedy; the present situation of the world, the systems which raised these people? Perhaps they themselves have to accept the blame. I guess all of us have to carry the burden of blame. I am writing not so much to place the condemnation but to prevent a continuance and a reoccurrence. As I have said I write also to make amends for the guilt that I have shared in these tragedies.
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Preface to A Fear and A Warning by John James Jacoby
