I also think courage is something that has to be “practiced.” If one can’t be courageous in small things, it will be difficult to find the courage necessary when the inevitable big events come. I myself can look back on a few points in my life where I would have been a sheep and have been one. I let cowardice control me. I didn’t like it at all. I want to be a lion. I have been working on it. I can only pray I have the courage to give up what is necessary and accept the backlash if and when the time comes. But what about the wolf? Sometimes I think I can see a wolf in myself as well. How do I confront the reality of the wolf while I overcome the sheep and nurture the lion? That is where wisdom and God come in, I think. I do think we are at a point where things could get very scary very fast. There is something that is just not right, that feeling of the calm before the storm. It is incredibly difficult to go against the crowd. The sheep have safety in numbers and they are a very powerful tool used against the lions. But, I just can’t live the lie. The last 2 years have been so ridiculous and stupid, that if someone made a series 5 years ago that portrayed the exact events the pandemic, people would wonder how the hell people could be so foolish. The audience would literally hate the idiots in the masks and wonder how so many people would trust the very institutions that lied to them for over a year about everything, then line up by the millions and allow themselves to be injected with experimental drugs. The irony is that the hero’s would be the ones that refused the obvious con. In reality they are attacked and labeled as evil “anti-Vaxxers,” and murderers. Yet, here we are. Great article. Great food for thought. I also have it pretty easy in my life. I think recognizing that puts a lot in perspective. Many of the sheep out there think the “pandemic “ is the worst thing to have ever happened in the history of humanity. The scary thing is when they soon realize that Covid is a disaster of our own making and that Covid was the Trojan horse that brought in the real evil.
Great comment. Courage, like saying "no", really is a muscle. And for those of us living in western society up until 2020, we really didn't have to have much courage. Except...we did. The slippery slope of wokeness and government authoritarianism didn't happen overnight or in a vacuum. We should have been standing up at every point. I'm glad Covid galvanized our will, but I'm ashamed it took me this long to start roaring.
To your point about the wolf inside. YES. To go to the spiritual aspect of things, this is the war between our fallen, dead, worldly flesh and our spiritual self. In Christ, we're made alive and a new creation. But we will constantly deal with the flesh, the wolf, that's seeking to devour us. So we fight powers and principalities that originate in the spiritual dark places that manifest in the flesh, and we struggle daily to beat them back through the power of Christ. I know the wolf inside of me is powerful, and I know when the wolf is stronger than the lion, and vice versa.
About the movie...it's a movie we've seen Hollywood tell so many times. Epic evil against the good, underdog resistance. It's celebrated throughout so many of our stories. V for Vendetta, Equilibrium, The Matrix, Avengers, Star Wars, The Terminator, LoTR, etc. We root for the small ragtag rebels, scrapping and fighting against the empire. Yet here we are. The same people who root for the underdog in fiction are condemning and persecuting the underdog in real life. They just remind me of Gollum, arguing against himself. But I guess that's the lion and the wolf or the wolf and the sheep having their own conversations, huh?
I also am ashamed it took until recently to start roaring. I started finally saying no shortly before Covid started and it cost me a lot. I backtracked a little bit and then had to learn some hard lessons on what happens to you when stand up to the wolf and when you cower. I was shocked when Covid came and so many just went along with all the foolishness and defended it. I was equally surprised when so many were truly afraid and still are. Looking back, I probably shouldn’t have been.
It is hard to admit that the wolf exists. I do have to deal with it everyday. If not for God, I would be in a very bad place now. I have much to learn and I have been foolish and arrogant in the past, thinking of myself as better than I actually was. I will have to battle my weakness forever.
I like your gollum comparison. I agree with it. It is interesting to watch people who root for the underdog and likely see themselves as the underdog while actually being the ones to try and destroy the underdog or look the other way. The more things change, the more they stay the same. I keep having to remind myself that this is a spiritual battle and not one against a virus. When I look at it that way, what is happening makes more sense.
Somehow, as a society we have forgotten that our souls are eternal and that we can only affect the quality of the light for that brief moment in which we are part of the physical world. I will judge myself tomorrow with first hand knowledge of my actions of today.
Thanks so very much for the time and effort put into this work.
The scene that I remember the most from American Sniper is the childhood scene where the father explains there are sheep, wolves, and sheep dogs,. I can't remember it well enough, but it's fantastic. it's here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ar1WygVl_Vg
Well, it was also based on a true story. It was really well done, but man, there have always been monsters out there. And there have always been sheep dogs and lions.
I just saw an outraged comment on that youtube video saying "Jeff Kyle hated how this scene portrayed his father: "My father is a rough man, but not once did he slap his belt on the table, and go on a rant about sheep and sheepdogs and that kind of stuff.""
But that's the movies for you.
I have the unauthorised bio of Clint, but I haven't read it yet, as I don't think I want to know...
Right. We can deconstruct EVERYTHING in hindsight, but sometimes it's best just to leave the past the past. That's what woke culture simply can't do. Everything needs to be deconstructed according to what the current acceptable thought is RIGHT NOW, and that's just absolute foolishness.
I didn't like the video clip. I thought the father's aggression words his sons was more like someone who is a wolf, not a sheepdog. Yes, sheepdogs have aggression, but optimally in humans the aggression isn't cut off from protective heart.
It's ironic......during the '90s I thought Rage Against the Machine were just a bunch of 'edgelords' (though the phrase didn't exist then) saying 'FUCK' a lot be rebellious.
Now I'm much older and I'm all "FUCK YOU I WON'T DO WHAT YOU TELL ME!"
To be fair, RAtM was fucking ridiculous at the time, and still remind me of potheads running around in Che Guevara shirts acting like their lives have been hard.
I was a huge Doors fan. Jim Morrison was my teenage goals. I tried eating as much acid and drinking as much alcohol as humanly possible, just like Jim. My friends and I had a plan that if we ever got in too much trouble in Pittsburgh, we'd all just pick up and move to LA and try to live the rock and roll beach bum lifestyle. Thank GOD that didn't work out.
Point is, he was the archetype for rebellion in my mind, but I believe he'd be either irrelevant, silent, or doing what these other "rebels" are doing now...lining up directly behind The Man. Because whether they want to admit it or not, they ARE The Man now.
To be clear, Wolf didn't execute our grandparents in nursing homes. The Walrus Queen did that. Wolf simply saw clear for PA public health to exercise "emergency powers" the constitution wouldn't let him exercise.
Same thing Governor "I'm An Utter Piece of Shit" Whitmer did.
This clarification is very important, because it will be key to dismantling the undemocratic system of "emergency powers" that state governments have tyrannized us with.
A great many states, PA among them, bypassed the safeguards and expirations of gubernatorial emergency powers by DELEGATING THOSE POWERS TO THE PUBLIC HEALTH SECRETARY, a move for which there are no established restrictions of power. So, every state with a gov and public health dept. that are very closely aligned realized they could essentially have unlimited salad and breadsticks at Fascist Garden by having their covid restrictions happen under their health dept. authority.
PA did this, Michigan did this, many other did this, and the system hasn't changed. That's why it wasn't enough to curtail Wolf's emergency powers this past year; a friendly dept. of health can proxy a gov's bullshit any time in the future.
I also think courage is something that has to be “practiced.” If one can’t be courageous in small things, it will be difficult to find the courage necessary when the inevitable big events come. I myself can look back on a few points in my life where I would have been a sheep and have been one. I let cowardice control me. I didn’t like it at all. I want to be a lion. I have been working on it. I can only pray I have the courage to give up what is necessary and accept the backlash if and when the time comes. But what about the wolf? Sometimes I think I can see a wolf in myself as well. How do I confront the reality of the wolf while I overcome the sheep and nurture the lion? That is where wisdom and God come in, I think. I do think we are at a point where things could get very scary very fast. There is something that is just not right, that feeling of the calm before the storm. It is incredibly difficult to go against the crowd. The sheep have safety in numbers and they are a very powerful tool used against the lions. But, I just can’t live the lie. The last 2 years have been so ridiculous and stupid, that if someone made a series 5 years ago that portrayed the exact events the pandemic, people would wonder how the hell people could be so foolish. The audience would literally hate the idiots in the masks and wonder how so many people would trust the very institutions that lied to them for over a year about everything, then line up by the millions and allow themselves to be injected with experimental drugs. The irony is that the hero’s would be the ones that refused the obvious con. In reality they are attacked and labeled as evil “anti-Vaxxers,” and murderers. Yet, here we are. Great article. Great food for thought. I also have it pretty easy in my life. I think recognizing that puts a lot in perspective. Many of the sheep out there think the “pandemic “ is the worst thing to have ever happened in the history of humanity. The scary thing is when they soon realize that Covid is a disaster of our own making and that Covid was the Trojan horse that brought in the real evil.
Great comment. Courage, like saying "no", really is a muscle. And for those of us living in western society up until 2020, we really didn't have to have much courage. Except...we did. The slippery slope of wokeness and government authoritarianism didn't happen overnight or in a vacuum. We should have been standing up at every point. I'm glad Covid galvanized our will, but I'm ashamed it took me this long to start roaring.
To your point about the wolf inside. YES. To go to the spiritual aspect of things, this is the war between our fallen, dead, worldly flesh and our spiritual self. In Christ, we're made alive and a new creation. But we will constantly deal with the flesh, the wolf, that's seeking to devour us. So we fight powers and principalities that originate in the spiritual dark places that manifest in the flesh, and we struggle daily to beat them back through the power of Christ. I know the wolf inside of me is powerful, and I know when the wolf is stronger than the lion, and vice versa.
About the movie...it's a movie we've seen Hollywood tell so many times. Epic evil against the good, underdog resistance. It's celebrated throughout so many of our stories. V for Vendetta, Equilibrium, The Matrix, Avengers, Star Wars, The Terminator, LoTR, etc. We root for the small ragtag rebels, scrapping and fighting against the empire. Yet here we are. The same people who root for the underdog in fiction are condemning and persecuting the underdog in real life. They just remind me of Gollum, arguing against himself. But I guess that's the lion and the wolf or the wolf and the sheep having their own conversations, huh?
I also am ashamed it took until recently to start roaring. I started finally saying no shortly before Covid started and it cost me a lot. I backtracked a little bit and then had to learn some hard lessons on what happens to you when stand up to the wolf and when you cower. I was shocked when Covid came and so many just went along with all the foolishness and defended it. I was equally surprised when so many were truly afraid and still are. Looking back, I probably shouldn’t have been.
It is hard to admit that the wolf exists. I do have to deal with it everyday. If not for God, I would be in a very bad place now. I have much to learn and I have been foolish and arrogant in the past, thinking of myself as better than I actually was. I will have to battle my weakness forever.
I like your gollum comparison. I agree with it. It is interesting to watch people who root for the underdog and likely see themselves as the underdog while actually being the ones to try and destroy the underdog or look the other way. The more things change, the more they stay the same. I keep having to remind myself that this is a spiritual battle and not one against a virus. When I look at it that way, what is happening makes more sense.
Somehow, as a society we have forgotten that our souls are eternal and that we can only affect the quality of the light for that brief moment in which we are part of the physical world. I will judge myself tomorrow with first hand knowledge of my actions of today.
Thanks so very much for the time and effort put into this work.
thank you for that, great piece.
The scene that I remember the most from American Sniper is the childhood scene where the father explains there are sheep, wolves, and sheep dogs,. I can't remember it well enough, but it's fantastic. it's here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ar1WygVl_Vg
The comparison is originally from the book "On Combat," which I recommend anyone and everyone read.
guttermouth.substack.com
great movie BTW although I could just say it's a Clint Eastwood movie and that'd be saying basically the same thing.
Well, it was also based on a true story. It was really well done, but man, there have always been monsters out there. And there have always been sheep dogs and lions.
I just saw an outraged comment on that youtube video saying "Jeff Kyle hated how this scene portrayed his father: "My father is a rough man, but not once did he slap his belt on the table, and go on a rant about sheep and sheepdogs and that kind of stuff.""
But that's the movies for you.
I have the unauthorised bio of Clint, but I haven't read it yet, as I don't think I want to know...
Need to keep some things intact.
Right. We can deconstruct EVERYTHING in hindsight, but sometimes it's best just to leave the past the past. That's what woke culture simply can't do. Everything needs to be deconstructed according to what the current acceptable thought is RIGHT NOW, and that's just absolute foolishness.
I didn't like the video clip. I thought the father's aggression words his sons was more like someone who is a wolf, not a sheepdog. Yes, sheepdogs have aggression, but optimally in humans the aggression isn't cut off from protective heart.
The book was great too. Much more detail on his life.
Same here.And I've been walking around wondering where's Kyle when we need him.
Woooof, that was a tough movie. But that's a great reference. I forgot about that, good call!
It's ironic......during the '90s I thought Rage Against the Machine were just a bunch of 'edgelords' (though the phrase didn't exist then) saying 'FUCK' a lot be rebellious.
Now I'm much older and I'm all "FUCK YOU I WON'T DO WHAT YOU TELL ME!"
Haha, it's certainly come full circle, has it not? In many ways.
To be fair, RAtM was fucking ridiculous at the time, and still remind me of potheads running around in Che Guevara shirts acting like their lives have been hard.
guttermouth.substack.com
almost all the aging rockers are cowards and mental midgets. It is a shame.
Maybe all the 27 (dead at) club ones would have been different
I was a huge Doors fan. Jim Morrison was my teenage goals. I tried eating as much acid and drinking as much alcohol as humanly possible, just like Jim. My friends and I had a plan that if we ever got in too much trouble in Pittsburgh, we'd all just pick up and move to LA and try to live the rock and roll beach bum lifestyle. Thank GOD that didn't work out.
Point is, he was the archetype for rebellion in my mind, but I believe he'd be either irrelevant, silent, or doing what these other "rebels" are doing now...lining up directly behind The Man. Because whether they want to admit it or not, they ARE The Man now.
To be clear, Wolf didn't execute our grandparents in nursing homes. The Walrus Queen did that. Wolf simply saw clear for PA public health to exercise "emergency powers" the constitution wouldn't let him exercise.
Same thing Governor "I'm An Utter Piece of Shit" Whitmer did.
Thanks for the clarification. I never realized there was that separation.
You in PA with me, Guttermouth? And you started your own Substack!? Looking forward to that, also kind of scared 😂
Yup. York country in da house!
This clarification is very important, because it will be key to dismantling the undemocratic system of "emergency powers" that state governments have tyrannized us with.
A great many states, PA among them, bypassed the safeguards and expirations of gubernatorial emergency powers by DELEGATING THOSE POWERS TO THE PUBLIC HEALTH SECRETARY, a move for which there are no established restrictions of power. So, every state with a gov and public health dept. that are very closely aligned realized they could essentially have unlimited salad and breadsticks at Fascist Garden by having their covid restrictions happen under their health dept. authority.
PA did this, Michigan did this, many other did this, and the system hasn't changed. That's why it wasn't enough to curtail Wolf's emergency powers this past year; a friendly dept. of health can proxy a gov's bullshit any time in the future.
Great post, I love to the YouTube video about tyranny and courage.