Time is moving too fast and life has never been lived so wastefully. Everyone thinks with a watch in their hand and no one thinks of tomorrow - or even of today. Of course, there are probably any number of exceptions to that rule. In that case, certainly one of them would be the recovering scapegoat, for reasons we'll explore in Part II. The idea being that in this one exception lies our only real excuse for hope. Not simply because the recovering scapegoat believes in something, or even because they believe in themselves. No. The reason this possibility has shown enough promise for a handful of us to want to make it an actuality in our daily lives is because, to make it work, we have had to test and use that belief. And what do we believe in?
Which obviously presupposes a belief in oneself, or a belief in one's Self. So, with The Drive Toward Reality, we can now add Continuous Renewal to our inventory list promised in Part I.
There is no end to the testing and using of a belief. Not only because this testing and using makes any potential actual, but because such testing and using keeps the actual alive and growing. This is what is meant by Continuous Renewal.
We'll revisit our list later, adding to it along the way. Until then, it's important to point out that this list is not a symptoms list. Rather, it is both a potential list and, for some, an actual list. In other words, a list of what one could possibly experience, and what some are actually living. The rest of Part II will attempt to further clarify all of this. In any event, another way of adding to our list while extending the idea of Continuous Renewal would be to say that Continuous Renewal involves a conversion.
Now, obviously, conversions are not all uncommon in life. The difference here is that this is a conversion to a permanent de-conversion. A conversion from a static worldview, ie; I can never change, My life will always be the same, to a belief that change is indeed possible, but can only become actual if we test it, and test it on a consistent basis. Because this is the only way to keep a belief from turning into an absolute. Whether that absolute is "positive", ie, We are the best! (scapegoaters)or negative, I am the worst (scapegoats). We have been living by these polarized absolutes since forever. None of them have worked, nor, given the relation between language, us, and the world, can they work.
That's why, though there have been many conversions, it's always to another permanent conversion. It is understandable that we have made this mistake in the past, and it is a mistake, but it is no longer necessary for us to continue making that mistake in the present, and certainly not in the future. We simply can't afford to.
Continuous Renewal, or Cultural Transcendence, on the other hand, is the only alternative - for which we have a record - that has proven itself to be the only way out of a culture crisis, any culture crisis. Like, for example, the one we're living in now.
The justification for the assertion that Continuous Renewal is the only alternative to any crisis, can be found in what Peckham referred to as The Triumph of Romanticism, that buried child of cultural history. Buried or not, Romanticism was at the time, and remains to this day, the single greatest cultural redirection in human history. The great irony of Romanticism is that it triumphed while it was being buried, buried in the all too much of the modern age that it helped bring about, and so, strictly speaking, was never buried at all. This speaks to the beating heart of the greatest paradox of them all, life itself, of which, in terms of cultural history, Romanticism is the perfect compliment, or model. Which is why we're still living in it, and why its theme of Continuous Renewal will prove serviceable far into the future.
But Continuous Renewal is not limited to a culture crisis. It applies to personal crisis as well, since, as I said in a previous entry, Cultural Transcendence is Self-Transcendence. This explains the use of the phrase conversion to a permanent de-conversion. Conversion, for example, from the role of the family scapegoat, to the role of the recovering scapegoat, and beyond.
And by role is simply meant an identifiable pattern of behavior.
This is appropriate enough, given the fact that today the personal and cultural have blended indecipherably, so severe is the current crisis, which subsumes and helps explain the family and its various roles. A crisis before which most people appear to be relatively or even entirely helpless. The explanation for this being that they do not even know that there is a Self behind the roles they are being forced into by today's Super Tyranny. A Self that is the very source of their value and identity. Without this awareness, without this feeling, without this sense of value and identity, they simply submit to The Global Super Tyranny, all the while confusing the elite's tawdry puppet show for the real thing.
Submission to the puppet show can also be seen as a way to avoid facing, or to deny all together, the fact that there is a crisis. The more enthusiastic the submission the truer this is. From this perspective, enthusiasm is best seen as the mask the submissive and fearful wear to give their submission a good conscience. Either way, a greater waste of one's life would be impossible to imagine. Not that Team Puppet Show is all that concerned.
But we are. We're concerned about throwing away our lives to any tyranny, whether familial or civilizational, that is run by unhealthy and unhappy people* who not only do not have our best interest in mind, but who openly hate us. We are not here to serve them. We are here to recover our sanity and freedom. We're here to recover ourselves from a personal and cultural crisis that we did not create and for too long could not control. Until now!
*Though one could argue that such people are happy, it could just as easily be said that such "happiness" is entirely scapegoat-dependent, and so is a defecitve and unhealthy form of happiness. Let's call it Toxic Happiness.
We now know the situation we are in. We know the people involved. We know the problem - and we have the tools.
To our list we can now add TheProblem-Solving Template.
The argument here is that the proof that Continuous Renewal is indeed possible is found not only in cultural history, and not only in any individual today, few of us as their may be, engaged in a self-conscious act of Cultural Transcendence, but also, and just as importantly, in the recovering addict. But, above all, in the recovering scapegoat. Again, we're just touching on the reasons why here, since, as I said in Part I, our aim is to direct attention to a possibility that for some has become an actuality, and also because I intend to write more about this subject in the future.
In any event, for a long time now, without our knowing it, or adequately understanding why, there has been a desperate need for us to build a solid and reliable bridge between Pop Culture and High Culture. That is, between the fast-moving world of opinion, sameness, and superficial change, and the slow-moving world of knowledge, difference, and profound change; between a world of materialistic narcissists based on money, and a spiritual world based on Continuous Renewal. Nowhere is the potential for moving out from the one world and toward the other greater than with the reentry into society of the culturally transcending individual, the recovering addict, and the recovering scapegoat. Such a journey could also lead many people away, far away, from Political Polarization and toward Cultural Transcendence.
The idea being that an awareness of, and gesture toward, a more spiritual world will correct one's vision to the point where they are able to see the Pop World not as the center of the universe, which being narcissistic is how it sees itself, but, on the contrary, as a lower-order world, which is what it is and always has been.
The potential contribution to human culture from individuals belonging to these three roles, along with the work now being done on the scapegoat*, shows extraordinary promise and will herald profound changes. Though hardly household names, these individuals are, nevertheless, heroes of culture crisis.
Again, though our focus is on the recovering scapegoat, I would like the reader to keep the other two, the culturally transcending individual, and the recovering addict, in mind throughout. Especially since there is a common bond that unites all three.
The List!
Obviously, the hostile elite has committed itself to burying the idea of Continuous Renewal for good. But this renewal is experiencing a reemergence, and those of us committed to recovery will be at the center of it. In fact, we already are. And make no mistake about it, it is a commitment that requires all of the courage, honesty, and intelligence, that one can muster.
II
The world has become a completely corrupt and power-hungry technological money machine that is quickly moving forward, and just as quickly moving downward. The whole frenzied and maniacal psycho-money machine is so accelerated that a single stone of reality thrown into its wheels is enough to make it fly into pieces. But, since desperate haste is the best way to avoid reality, those in a rush to get things done roll like the stone rolls, in blind obedience to the stupidity of the laws of mechanics.
The prime mover of this plunge into the abyss is Supremacy Inc.*
* Zionism + Identity Politics + Useful Idiots + Scapegoat = Supremacy Inc. Zionism is top-down controlling world leaders. Identity Politics is bottom-up controlling the masses. The analogy for this social system is found in the family system. Zionism = The Controlling Parent. Identity Politics = The Golden Child, Useful Idiots = Flying Monkeys, The Scapegoat = The Host Population of the entire Western world, or, as they are referred to by the hostile elite - Amalek. Clearly, the Scapegoat's task is to go No Contact!
The Super Tyranny that is Supremacy Inc. is the most powerful force in human history, in as much as it includes the two most powerful ideologies in the history of Explanation and Power, Zionism and Identity Politics.* No entity in history has had this much power over human and natural resources. A fact that makes its accusations of White Supremacy a laughable and hysterically desperate attempt at deflection through psychological projection and moral reversal. Truly corrupt and bankrupt in every way.
*Zionism being the senior partner, as Identity Politics and its useful idiots and paid proxies found out after October 7th, 2023. The amusing and long awaited result of the Left's attack on Zionism for its genocide of the Palestinians, was that the whole Identity Politics enterprise exposed its own hypocrisy. Bluntly, it is now possible for all to see what a few of us have known for a long time. That Identity Politics is to whites, what Zionism is to the Palestinians, ie; scapegoaters calling for, and acting on, the genocide of the scapegoat. Identity Politics is just as guilty of selective genocide as is Zionism. Supremacy Inc. has been exposed as a destructive force with no intellectual, social, and moral legitimacy.
Both of these explanatory systems are intellectually, socially, and morally bankrupt, entirely scapegoat-dependent, and totally destructive. Naturally, the bankruptcy and scapegoating go together. Like all scapegoaters they are coward-bullies, who say Yes to Power, theirs, and No to Life, ours. Proof? Just look around! Everything Supremacy Inc. controls is in free fall.
Think about that folks. An intellectually, socially, and morally corrupt and bankrupt Super Tyranny with more power over human and natural resources in the history of Power itself.
That Supremacy Inc., the most evil force in human history, is also in free fall is certainly a bright spot in all of this. But, happily, and as this essay is attempting to show, it is not the only one.
III
In fact, the other bright spot can be found in the trails now being blazed by recovering scapegoats operating on the cultural periphery. The explanation is found in the common bond that unites the recovering scapegoat with the culturally transcending individual, and recovering addict. And that common bond is our inventory list, which at this points in our inquiry looks like this:
The Drive Toward Reality
Continuous Renewal
Permanent De-Conversion
Self-Transcendence is Cultural Transcendence and visa versa
We'll return to the list at the end of our inquiry adding to it along the way. For now, one thing we can say about the recovering scapegoat in relation to this inquiry and list is that the recovering scapegoat does not avert their eyes, to modify Werner Herzog's superb phrase. Indeed, this drive toward reality isn’t so much the reason why one is scapegoated. That’s what scapegoating is!
Scapegoating is Humanity’s Attack on Reality!
That is, as such scapegoating has been and continues to be played out in our social institutions, starting with the family, the most basic bio-social unit since the Paleolithic Age, to an entire civilization, as it is now. Nothing exposes a society’s weakness and hypocrisy more than scapegoating. And scapegoating can only come from a position of power. To the “victorious and powerful” scapegoater, the scapegoat is “weak and slow.”
But, beyond being seen as weak and slow, more importantly, the scapegoat is also seen, unjustly and irrationally, as the problem, and the only solution being the complete destruction of the scapegoat. But knowledge and experience move slower than destruction. Which is why, scapegoat recovery, as opposed to scapegoating, is so rare and so risky, since there is no guarantee. On the other hand, in taking those risks we earn our victories.
In fact, to help clarify matters, perhaps the reader will forgive another bit of autobiography. By the time my scapegoating brothers and sisters and I entered adolescence in the 1970's, it was very common for us to compare our family to Lord of The Flies, since, in keeping with the theme of irony, all of us had watched the Peter Brook movie on TV a number of times. But it wasn't until many years later, in the early 1990's, that I was able to respond by saying, "Yes. And I was Piggy." And I was. I first heard about the family scapegoat in 1989 from a man on TV who I never saw before. It turned out to be John Bradshaw. He said that the scapegoat was the one in the family with the deepest thoughts and feelings. I immediately turned off the TV. It was like being harpooned. I got the chance to meet him in the Spring of 1992 and was able to tell him about that moment and the Lord of The Flies. My point in sharing this is that, in spite of my awareness, in spite of my having met the man who was certainly a pathfinder for those of us trying to get out from under, it still took a while for me to really get it. Yes! I was Piggy. But a Piggy who survived. And now we are back once again to our analogy.
Because the same goes for all of us now being scapegoated on a global scale by Supremacy Inc. That's why, as frustrating as it can be at times, I try to be as patient as possible with those still falling for the propaganda. Some always will, but not everyone. When the scapegoat survives long enough to enter recovery, and stay there, well, then they become the solution to the problem that is scapegoating. And when that part of the world now being scapegoated - globally - become the solution to the problem, then Supremacy Inc. will begin its descent, and there will be no pause in the fall. Couldn't happen to a better Global Super Tyranny.
Still, such knowledge and experience truly does take it's time. And the fact that it does requires the recovering scapegoat to hang in there. So, with that, we can add Survival to our list.
Life rewards you for hanging in there. Which means, before the other items on our list, before the Drive Toward Reality, the Renewal, and all the rest, the recovering scapegoat has to simply survive! Life truly does reward you for hanging in there. But even more so for the way you hang in there. Recovery, for the scapegoat who makes it that far, is the way they hang in there. With recovery, and everything that comes with it, the scapegoat moves from survival to enchancing the quality of life.
No wonder it has taken until now for some to finally begin blazing the one trail that appears to offer us a way out of our current dilemma, the culture crisis brought about by the hostile elite, their paid proxies and useful idiots. That is, a crisis brought about by the scapegoaters. We seem to be confronted today with a great oxymoron - a trail toward freedom and health being blazed in an unhealthy, fast-moving world by a slow recovery.
Nowthat is an innovation! That is irony! To begin solving society's problems by moving against the tide and times of society. In doing so, the scapegoat does say Yes to Power, Spiritual Power. The scapegoater only says Yes to Political Power, theirs of course. And in so doing says No to Life.
IV
Scapegoating has always been an attack on Reality by those who can’t face it. A reality the scapegoat represents, not because they own the truth, and certainly not because they think they do. No. They are attacked simply because of their drive toward reality.
Note: Of course, they're primarily attacked for simply existing. But one gets the point.
Because this drive gives us a knowledge about ourselves that most people do not want to have. Hence, their dependency on scapegoating. But, and it has to be said, that what applies to Supremacy Inc. also applies to any explanation of the world that refuses to expose itself to the gritty recalcitrance of a reality that doesn’t care what any of us believes in. That is why no change will come from the masses and certainly not from Supremacy Inc., since whatever change it values is only measured in destruction. Which, as they have proven time and time again, is the only thing they're interested in or capable of. Change will only come from those now on the cultural periphery who are willing and able to expose their explanation of the world to a process of continuous feedback and correction for the purpose of continuous learning, change, and growth. In short, change will only come from those dedicated to a life of Continuous Renewal. An important reason for this can be found in what is arguably the most important component of The Drive Toward Reality:
Self-Criticism without Anxiety!
Specifically, the ability to engage in self-criticism without allowing any anxiety to interfere with that self-examination.
And though that change will include those from all walks of life, it will ultimately be led by recovering scapegoats. Not just because they were scapegoated (again, some don’t make it). But because of what they had to do to survive long enough to recover, and what they will have to do to stay there, and what they have learned about themselves and others along the way.
And exactly what have recovering scapegoats learned? Well, many things, of course. Certainly too much to go into here. But one very important thing worth mentioning is what I refer to as Disparity Awareness. To quote from a previous entry:
As to the relationship between Disparity Awareness and the subject of this essay there is much to be said, again, too much.
What can be said now is this. Problems can be said to produce three things in the responder: intellectual tension, psychological disorientation, and emotional disturbance. Not surprisingly, the normal response is to ignore the gap between situation and demand. And exactly what is that gap? Reality! The normal response to a problem is to ignore the disparity. It's worth pointing out that a problem is not only part of Reality, but can take us deeper into it in our attempt to solve that problem, whether or not we are successful.* Nevertheless, the preferred response to a problem is to ignore it. A fact easily confirmed.
*Though it could be argued that the opportunity to experience more of Reality is greater when we're unsuccessful. Or, as G.H. Mead once put it in so many words, a scientist is happiest whenever their theory turns out to be wrong. Of course, because then they get to be a scientist. That is, they get to practice what they love, assuming, like G.H. Mead, they love science. And let's face it, many today have been so indoctrinated by an ideology that has nothing to do with science that it's pretty obvious that they do not love science.
So the normal respose is to ignore the disparity between situation and demand, that is, to ignore a problem the solution to which could improve the quality of life for those involved. But in three categories, in three social roles, that disparity is not surpressed. The roles of the culturally transcending individual, the recovering addict, and the recovering scapegoat. And, to repeat, the common bond between all three is The Drive Toward Reality.
*Traditionally the only two important areas of social activity where the disparity was not surpressed was in the Arts & Sciences. But, unfortunately, as mentioned above, they have been severely compromised by a crude, blunt, and idiotic power ideology - Supremacy Inc.
This is why they are the future model of human consciousness. Not because I said so. But because what I have said is part of a larger culture movement that is much needed and spreading.
And it is spreading because it is healthy, because it is honest, certainly more honest than anything scapegoaters will ever offer. Above all, it is spreading because its joy is much deeper than its sorrow. And no one knows sorrow and the need to recover from it more than a family scapegoat who was not loved by his mother, father, brothers and sisters, but lived to tell the tale.
But the other two groups know this sorrow and joy as well. And though the emphasis in this essay is on the recovering scapegoat, the ultimate aim is to join all three, whether as separate groups united as one, or all three in a single individual. As someone who has integrated all three into one life, I can affirm that, in this case, the potential can most definitely become the actual. And this takes us to another item on our list, and a personal favorite.
To transcend sorrow so as to experience joy requires that the recovering scapegoat Embrace The Fucked-upness! Needless to say, this is one thing scapegoaters can not do. Exactly because it requires the ability to engage in self-criticism without anxiety.
Another thing scapegoaters can not do is tell truth. Hence their talent for inverting reality. This would explain why it is not at all uncommon to hear scapegoaters actually posing as scapegoats, as victims. But they are easily found out, now more than ever. Not only because we know so much more about it all than ever before, or because it is just so obvious that they are lying, about themselves, and about their scapegoats, but because, as was said before, scapegoating can only come from a position of power.
Which brings us to another thing recovering scapegoats have learned about - Politics. By which I mean The Politics of Human Behavior, or more specifically, of social interaction. No doubt, this might sound, with good reason, like a non sequitur to many, but not to recovering scapegoats, and not to the many for that matter, that is, at least not after an explanation has been offered.
Of course, as with any subject, there are two explanations one can offer, something long, and something short. Because I intend to go into this subject in more detail in a future entry, and certainly can not go into detail here, I will, perforce, choose the latter.
The basis of all politics is sado-masochism. The idea in a civilization is to reduce that relationship to its bare minimum or, depending on the cooperation of all involved, eliminate it, if, in fact, such a thing were possible (in itself rather doubtful). From this perspective, it could not be more obvious and disturbing that
sado-masochism is the beating heart of all scapegoating.
Scapegoats are trained masochists. Just as scapegoaters are trained sadists, not to mention trained predators and parasites. To recognize this unpleasant fact is to definitely possess a knowledge that most people do not want to have about themselves. But, not surprisingly, if there is anyone who can face this it is the scapegoat. In fact, it is exactly this recognition that separates the suffering scapegoat from the recovering scapegoat.
The worst thing an individual or group can do to another individual or group is to make them feel completely helpless. Nothing can be more humiliating, and ultimately infuriating. Because, to survive, the individual or group must, for a time at least, submit. That is, until the worm turns, and the scapegoat turns the tables and comes to dominate. However, unlike their scapegoaters, they do not want to dominate their scapegoater, or anyone else. They want to dominate, to guide, direct and encourage - themselves. The journey to this achievement, and that is exactly what it is, a great personal achievement, is extraordinarily painful, humiliating, infuriating, and lonely.
But, again the rewards are incalcuable - for many reasons. Not the least of which is that the recovering scapegoat has, in a sense, transcended Politics itself. At least in as much as it has been practiced throughout the world since the beginning of recorded history. Needless to say, without knowing it, such an individual has transcended their cultural as well. And in as much as that culture has operated out of the same political model as has all human culture throughout history, they have transcended not just politics and culture, but history as well. And now we're back to why the recovering scapegoat represents the future model of human consciousness. The answer as to why is found in their drive toward reality. And that drive requires - lento! It requires that we move slowly and think carefully. Satisfying the drive toward reality requires the aforementioned courage, honesty, and intelligence - three qualities essential to Scapegoat Recovery.
Again, there is no grandiosity in this claim. On the contrary, the genuinely grandiose and unhealthy are those who, with arrogant presumtuousness, call their belief the “truth”, or refer to themselves as the chosen*, all the while abolishing the search for truth, and everyone else’s choice in the matter. Namely, our choice as to whether or not we get to live well or die badly.
*How is that not racism - against all races? A rhetorical question of course.
That is why recovery is about restoring, not just the right to choose, but the ability to make choices, which is exactly what was damaged the most in scapegoating. Of course!
Because, with the choice making ability damaged early in life, before it has the chance to develop, as a result of the abandonment, rejection, abuse and neglect, we have little choice but to submit to the scapegoater's will. That is why it is the one thing the scapegoat attacks first! Just as any tyranny has always done as soon as it takes power - it attacks the choice-making ability in those they are attempting to enslave, which is what scapegoating is - a form of enslavement, of sadomasochism.
Without the ability to make choices, the individual can not experience the sense of identity, which can only be experienced when choice is offered. When the ability to make choices is denied to us we can not adequately respond to reality. And that is what the tyrannical scapegoater is really at war with - Reality! This explains why, to put it bluntly, scapegoating is an insanity.
So, no, the truly grandiose are the fast moving scapegoaters, starting with the family and moving out to our social institutions, and culminating in The Global Super Tyranny of Supremacy Inc., which, it will be remembered, is also fast moving downward.
They are the ones who can’t wait. They can not wait to be “right.” They can not wait to have power. And they can not wait to scapegoat those willing to look life in the eye and take their time doing it, since they know that life requires all of the respect an individual can muster. While scapegoaters, by definition, do not respect life. Above all, the scapegoater can not wait to punish the scapegoat for even existing, but especially for standing up for themselves, because by doing so they expose the scapegoater. More than anything, this explains the insane hatred and unintelligent wrath, the sadism, of the vengeful scapegoater. Obviously, all of this is why they are fast moving downward.
V
This willingness to stand up for themselves, however awkwardly, ineffectually, and out of context, is the one part of the scapegoat's choice-making ability that wasn't entirely damaged by the abuse. In fact, it is exactly this that makes a full recovery possible.
Speaking of recovery, now would be the right moment to explain the reason I chose Malevich's White on Whiteas the image for this essay. Briefly, the painting has one square inside of another. But the inside square is not actually a square. It's a bit off. Just as the white inside the interior square is different from the white outside of it. So, in color and form, there is something about the inside square that sets it apart from the outside square.
The outside square is the ideal, the norm, the expectation!
The inside square is the reality that violates the norm! Get it?
By recognizing the distortion we recover our vision of the world.
A better visualization of the drive toward conformity versus the drive toward reality would be impossible to imagine. And, as I've tried to make clear in this entry, it is exactly this drive toward reality that separates the scapegoat from the scapegoater. But it is also what separates the suffering scapegoat from the recovering scapegoat. Naturally, there is more to that painting and its relation to scapegoat-scapegoater. But, for now, this will serve.
Lastly, unlike the scapegoater, once the recovering scapegoat has restored their ability to make choices that are satisfactory for them, if for no one else, and are ready after a long, solitary, and painful struggle to reenter society, they still, nevertheless, do not expect what they offer to be believed. Not at all. They only want to be heard and understood. Toward that end, they only ask that whatever ideas or explanations they offer be tested and used.
And that is all that I am asking here, to be heard and understood, though the reader might choose to withhold final assent.
Concluding Remarks
When it comes to the question “What would you rather be, “right” or happy?”, the recovering scapegoat thinks of what the scapegoater's idea of “right” is, and has always been, and chooses happiness instead. And since happiness can never be a direct aim, since happiness can only be a by-product of something else, the scapegoat finds their happiness in their recovery, in taking their time to satisfy the drive toward reality. In short, the scapegoat finds their health and happiness in a life of Continuous Renewal.
It is for this reason that one is justified in seeing the recovering scapegoat as the future model of human consciousness, as our only real excuse for hope. It very well may be. Certainly, Continuous Renewal is far better than applying old solutions to new problems, which is the preferred response of scapegoaters and those under their spell, whether in a single family or an entire civilization. In fact, it seems to be their only response.
Be that as it may, we are now ready to take a final look, at least for the time being, at our Scapegoat Recovery Inventory List.
The Drive Toward Reality
Continuous Renewal
Permanent De-Conversion
Self-Transcendence is Cultural Transcendence and visa versa
Problem Solving: Situation, People, Problem, Tools
A Bridge: Between Pop Culture and Higher Learning
Heroes of a Culture Crisis
Innovation: Slow Recovery in a Fast-Moving World
Survival: Learning to Hang In There (better than we already were)
Self-Criticism Without Anxiety
Disparity Awareness
Embrace The Fucked-upness
Sadomasochism: The Foundation of Scapegoating
Self-Defense = Self-Respect
Restoring The Choice-Making Ability in Recovery along with The Sense of Identity and Value
Innovation Revisited: From Imprisonment to Freedom
Free from Scapegoating, Free for Recovery
Saying Yes to Life and to Ourselves and No to Scapegoating Happiness: Not a Direct Aim, But A By-Product of Recovery
And now we're back to the great theme, not just of this website, or this essay, or this essay's title, but to life itself - irony. But life isn't just ironic, it's also inspirational. Or, at least it can be.
Life without inspiration, to amend Nietzsche's famous remark about music, would be a mistake. And that was the real point of this list, to inspire. Not just those of us who have already experienced, and will continue to experience, each one of the items on our list, but to inspire those who might one day make their own potential - actual. They are the individuals I had in mind while writing this essay - and with good reason. We can't be limited to a symptom's list. We need lists to inspire us to make our potential actual. This list is one man's attempt to do just that.
Those of us who have been able to move beyond potential long enough to begin forging our own paths toward the actual know what life is like for those still struggling. Just as we know what life might be like for them tomorrow. We are here to inspire them, and to continue inspiring each other. And we can because we now know that the source of that inspiration will not be in what any one of us believes, but in our willingness to muster all of the courage, honesty, and intelligence we will need to test and use those beliefs in the real world, where all of us find our home.
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