The Notebook

I suppose I’m like a lot of people who use social media on a somewhat regular basis, going through the usual ups and downs, at once hopeful that I’ve found a like-minded community, then despairing over the people who are not privy to such enlightened knowledge, then frustrated with all the emotional turbulence associated with politically-based community, then taking some time off to recollect my scattered nerves, then succumbing to curiosity over what’s going on over at social media, then pleased to find that there are still people who think like I do. Then despairing, frustrated, taking time off, back to curiosity, happiness, and on the cycle goes.

All this to say that this has been brewing in the back of my mind for at least a few months now and is not a reaction to any specific post/comment/meme/persona/etc., although watching the Twitter drama unfold has provided a particularly fascinating case study in communal behavior.

I think I’ve come to the conclusion that, whether it is Twitter or Gab, where the train derails is on the assumption that spiritual problems can be solved through physical means. I don’t say this in the sense of passive, “All you need is love and Grandma’s prayers,” but the idea that evil, as we understand it on this mortal plane, exists in a “thing” and once that “thing” is removed, then everything will be utopia.

Take, for instance, the idea of who is to “blame” for our current woes. On Twitter, popular answers include whites, males, Christians, and the all-encompassing “bigot.” On Gab, popular answers swing more toward Jews, blacks/immigrants, and the alphabet lobby.

 

But we can say that on Gab! You just have a problem with free speech absolutism, you retard (report me for hurty words, bitch, I dare you)! *fireworks and bald eagle flyby*

 

I’m not saying you can’t. I’m not saying you shouldn’t. I’m not saying that there aren’t evil people in the world who have literally sold their souls to Satan and would kill everyone given half a chance.

 

What are you, a fking pacifist? People are trying to kill us/our way of life/etc. and you just expect to take it up the rear?

 

First we come back to the idea of assigning a physical solution to a spiritual problem. If a river is being polluted and poisoning people, you don’t blame the river, you remove the source of the pollution. It’s an easy, simple fix that is measureable and has a beginning and end. If evil only existed inside a thing, then removing that thing would remove evil. Therefore, if all evil rested within whites/blacks/Jews/Christians/etc., then one would expect that eradicating the world of that particular group would also eradicate evil.

So, let’s make a timeline. Did evil exist before Christians? Of course it did. Did evil exist before Jews? Not only did it exist, but it got so bad that God had to flood the world to be rid of it. And the one family that survived would be the basis for all human genetic diversity, so whether or not evil existed before blacks or whites becomes irrelevant. On top of that, if your worldview is not predicated on such things, then, quite frankly, there is little to no basis for any bitching because this is the just the natural progression of mankind’s bestial nature and it just happens to be our turn to go, whatever we do to fight it.

You might say, then, that I am calling for the opposite of pacifism. Some will immediately take this as a call to arms. Yes and no.

I don’t need to save the world. The world has already been saved, destroyed, and rebuilt for the saints. Let me repeat that: the world has already been saved, destroyed, and rebuilt. The end is already written. You can read about it, seriously.

 

Well then you’re just a pacifist/nihilist. Kill yourself. Jesus is coming back on a white horse with a sword.

 

Yes, He is. And He is going to vanquish evil. Not humanity. Evil. The evil residing within our souls, corrupting us since the Fall. Those who cling to Him and are not possessed of evil will live. The flesh is evil and will be cut away, but the souls who have been cleansed will remain. When the Bible says that we are created in God’s image, do we really think it’s just talking about eyelashes and knobby knees?

The point then becomes, who am I? Who am I in all of creation that I should be special? What makes me just so darn special that I have to trample on others? Do others not exist? Do they not have souls?

 

What does this have to do with Gab or free speech?

 

Gab is an echo chamber, just like every other social media site. The tides of culture dictate that you have your fads, your fifteen-minute celebrities, your niche icons, and the ever-shifting pool of pariahs. In the old school, such trends came around about every generation, every decade, which is how you can just state a 20th century decade and everyone has roughly the same stereotype in mind. Forties: World War II. Fifties: baby boom and American diners. Sixties: hippies. Seventies: disco. Eighties: bad hair and rock and roll. Nineties: birth of the digital era. And so on.

In the twenty-first century, especially with the rise of social media (RIP: MySpace), those trends began to shift to every five years, then three. Now it’s about every year and that gap keeps shrinking. It’s almost nauseating to honestly try and keep up.

And yet, the pool remains utterly stagnant on Gab. The same personalities in the parking lot on the Explore page, the same mob with nearly lockstep opinions, if such ramblings of 99% of them can be called opinions and not regurgitated word salad.

 

But that’s free speech! The public square will sort itself out!

 

Will it? Honestly, will it?

Guns are the great equalizer, because it means that I, as a 5’2”, 110# woman don’t have to fear a 6’2”, 250# attacker. In this sense, if everyone is armed, no one is defenseless, and, as the saying goes, an armed society is a polite society. Words and actions should be carefully considered.

The internet and social media was, perhaps, intended to be the same way. Give a voice to the voiceless or those who might not have the reach or ability to speak otherwise. Give people a way to connect and converse.

It has not turned out this way. Both entities are physical solutions to physical problems. Guns, equalizing combatants. Internet and social media, bringing communication to isolated or powerless people.

 

So what are you calling for? Gun control?! Censorship?! You Nazi/fascist/bigot/traitor/etc.!

 

To what effect? They would be, again, physical solutions to a spiritual problem.

I am not going to suggest taking John’s gun away because Phil shot Larry.

I am not going to suggest banning Joe because Steve said hurty words to Tom.

 

Then get in the fight, you lazy bitch! Make some posts, share some memes, argue your points!

 

On the first point, I’m not much of an on-the-fly debater. I have to sit down, think about things, and write them out, like I’m doing now.

On the second point, the problem of social media overall is that, I think, it gives too many people a megaphone. Just on the whole, it’s a crowded room and literally almost everyone is shouting. Screaming. All vying to be heard. All wanting to have the one spicy take that gets them a few likes and maybe a follower. And when the turnover ranges from seconds to maybe a day, the quality of conversation decreases exponentially.

I’m not saying that there aren’t thoughtful posters who are diligent in their work. I’m not saying that someone screaming at the top of his lungs isn’t correct in his arguments. But adding one more voice to the cacophony isn’t actually helping. All it does is use up time and provide a tiny dopamine rush when someone comes along and gives a like for agreeing with the group (or maybe a dopamine rush from luring someone into an argument).

 

Well if you don’t like it, then build your own! This is a parallel economy we’re building! Go take your censorship somewhere else! *American flag and another bald eagle*

 

Really? A parallel economy? Please, remind me of the definition of insanity.

Free speech? Quite frankly, you can say anything you want. You are in charge of your own lungs and vocal chords.

Parallel economy? To my eyes, it has amounted to little more than a small business directory. It’s nice, yes, but what is parallel about it? And why should it be parallel? Why not diverge completely? If banks are the great evil in the world, why are you still trying to trade in the same system? Where is the new currency? Or shall we just barter? Do you want to exist in the same state or don’t you? What is the end goal? The parallel economy isn’t reducing inflation by any means.

And none of it addresses the fact that if the Great Mortal Evil (be it CIA, WEF, WHO, or some other entity) actually wanted Gab gone, it would be gone. It would. If I had infinite resources and firepower, I can think of ten different ways to take it out.

Gab is not a threat. Because it is a social media echo chamber where people of certain approved opinions go to bitch. Those people of certain approved opinions that are disapproved by the Powers That Be are being catalogued so they can also be taken out.

 

What do you expect, then? Are you running away? How do you hope to wake up the masses?!

 

There are 330+ million people in the United States alone. 8 billion in the world. And there are, what, a few million regular users? I’m not talking about abandoned accounts or those bot news accounts, but actual users, both loud-mouthed and lurking. People made fun of Twitter because even its total user base was only a few million, and then 80% of them were bots. People made fun of Twitter because its users were so consumed by the hyperreality. Yet even normal people treated it as gospel and the real pulse of humanity, the way things were going.

Gab is no different, internally. There is no mass awakening. God has sent His delusion on the people so that they would believe a lie. When people talk about Him saving a remnant, a remnant isn’t 80% of the population. It’s not even 50%. I’d doubt it’s even more than 10%.

The world has already been saved. It’s already been destroyed and rebuilt. The end is not only near, it’s already happened. The remnant already exists; the saints have already been saved. We just have to find each other. But because we exist in linear time, rather than an omnipresent being like God who Was and Is and Is To Come, the other saints might not be obvious to us yet. In linear time, they might not yet be saints. We still have to find them. We have to strip away the evil, a spiritual solution to a spiritual problem.

I don’t think I’m going to find too many saints on social media. For one, I’m really not social. I joined Gab because I was hoping to promote my books and share what I think is a unique take on the nature of God and the universe. It’s done me no good on the marketing front (partly on me, because, as I just said, I’m not overly social), and as for the rest of it, it’s just exhausting and disheartening. I don’t really know anyone. I don’t really care. Every day I’m bombarded with all the different ways I’m going to die and how I’m a stupid retard for not thinking the same as someone else. I have never been called a stupid retard to my face in my entire life, even as a kid. I have never said the same to anyone else.

 

Yeah, well, there are people out there who will kill you just because you exist!

 

Satan wants to kill me because I exist, because I am God’s child. And he will use any means to do so. This is a spiritual problem, not a physical one.

And who am I? What is my life? I’m sure a number of people would be happy to volunteer their opinion, well-formed or otherwise, on what I’m supposed to do with my life and how they think I need to contribute to society as it is today. But what is this moment in time that it is so important, so critical that I provide a physical solution? There will have to be physical integration, yes, as we live in a 3D, linear, mortal world, but the physical is a tool, not the goal. Everything will pass away one day. In fact, it already has.

The saints will be found in the real world where real people live, in a room where people know each other and have the benefit of tone and body language (that alone, the lack thereof, I think is the cause of about 60% of internet fights). Where people have real problems, real solutions, real hopes and dreams and triumphs and failures. Where people can feel the texture of an object and not just look at that object on a screen.

 

So what are you going to do, then, huh? Go back to sleep, drown yourself in video games, write more books that will be censored even though no one reads them?

 

Quite frankly, it’s none of your fucking business what I’m going to do. And that right there is free speech.

 

Stay your blade from the innocent.

Hide in plain sight.

Never compromise the Brotherhood.

 

Nothing is true. Everything is permitted.