{"id":9999,"date":"2020-11-01T14:16:39","date_gmt":"2020-11-01T22:16:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/?p=9999"},"modified":"2022-10-17T10:49:47","modified_gmt":"2022-10-17T17:49:47","slug":"thered-been-something-nagging-at-the-back-of-my-mind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/2020\/11\/01\/thered-been-something-nagging-at-the-back-of-my-mind\/","title":{"rendered":"There’d been something nagging at the back of my mind…"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"TheIt was one of those little things, a thought not quite remembered. But it was somehow important, something that could potentially help me, if I could only remember it.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been bugging me for weeks.  Not that I thought it was the end all be all, but something that could help me surf these all too strange waters we find ourselves in.<\/p>\n

It was philosophical, intriguing, and dead on.<\/p>\n

Not only could I not remember the thought, I couldn\u2019t remember its source. That meant I had no starting point until I remembered something the Marines call \u201cThe Suck”<\/p>\n

Once I had that starting point I kept pulling threads until I found what I was looking for.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t get me wrong, The Marines are 100% right about The Suck, we\u2019re clearly in some serious suck. Thank God for The Marines. They have a way of expressing things that is awesome.<\/p>\n

What I was looking for was something else that was more apt to our current circumstances and the way I was feeling in particular.<\/p>\n

I finally found what I\u2019d been trying to remember.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s from \u201cThe Expanse”<\/p>\n

One of the characters is having a conversation with a spy. The spy is kind of slippery but he\u2019s never encountered up close and personal someone like Amos.<\/p>\n

The exchange is as follows:<\/p>\n

Kenzo: It must be nice, having everything figured out like that.<\/p>\n

Amos: Ain\u2019t nothing to do with me: we\u2019re just caught in the Churn, that\u2019s all.<\/p>\n

Kenzo: I have no idea what you just said.<\/p>\n

Amos: This boss I used to work for in Baltimore, he called it the Churn. When the rules of the game change.<\/p>\n

Kenzo: What game?<\/p>\n

Amos: The only game. Survival. When the jungle tears itself down and builds itself into something new. Guys like you and me, we end up dead. Doesn\u2019t really mean anything. Or, if we happen to live through it, well that doesn\u2019t mean anything either.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

We\u2019re in The Churn.<\/p>\n

\"AmosThe rules are changing, it\u2019s beyond our control. The only option is to survive\u2026 or not. Either way it doesn\u2019t mean anything, except to us as individuals.<\/p>\n

Individually we may be lucky or not, but in the grand scheme of things, our presence really doesn\u2019t matter.<\/p>\n

The best we can do is surf the churn, allowing our survival instincts to dictate our choices.<\/p>\n

The thing is, nothing will ever be the same again because our jungle is tearing itself apart. We can\u2019t predict what the new configuration will be. We\u2019ll only know when it\u2019s done.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m pretty rule based. I can exist, even happily, in chaos but only by recognizing that I\u2019m in a chaotic situation. I\u2019ve been laboring under the assumption that the chaos we\u2019ve been in was transient and things would return to normal next month, the month after, maybe the one after.<\/p>\n

But that is a lie. It\u2019s a lie we\u2019re being told to keep us complacent and prevent us from fully engaging in The Churn. The effect is that all of us are attempting to live in some shared delusion that this will all come to an end and our lives will be returned to us, based on some external force.<\/p>\n

If in fact there is a \u201cNew Normal\u201d, a new jungle, then we all have to go all in. We need to stop nibbling on the barrel and accept it. If that means rejecting all the laws that have previously bound us, so be it.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve all pretty much come to the conclusion that COVID while real, isn\u2019t the killer, set your hair on fire and run in tight circles<\/strong>, that we\u2019ve been told it is. But still people are obeying arbitrary and capricious laws, & made up regulations.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

We\u2019ve all seen live, that rioting is becoming more common over the slightest of perceived infractions. As the police departments are defunded they will be less and less able to provide the protections that they were established to provide. Leaving average people to fend for themselves.<\/p>\n

While at the same time witnessing harassment of average people on the streets just trying to go about their lives. We\u2019ve seen that protecting ourselves results in imprisonment while our politicians are telling us that they\u2019re releasing career criminals due to concerns over COVID.<\/p>\n

Rampant and obvious corruption is visible and yet the talking heads charged with providing timely and accurate information, are doing their absolute best to look the other way.<\/p>\n

We know that at least one candidate to our highest office is unfit for the job and clearly ill. We\u2019re living in a barely suppressed anarchy. Regardless of a vaccine, regardless of the election, regardless of changes to the police forces. This will not stop. We\u2019ll never get to the old normal again. The only reason the anarchy is suppressed at all is because we\u2019re all waiting for something to magically fix it.<\/p>\n

Waiting for magic, is waiting for a train that ain\u2019t coming.<\/p>\n

We must recognize that the only way through this is full speed ahead and embrace the Anarchy. Someone screws with you while you\u2019re minding your own business, punch their lights out, or punch their ticket to where ever they\u2019re bound for. For good measure rob \u2018em. It doesn\u2019t matter anymore. Who\u2019re they gonna call? You were strong enough to take their shit, it\u2019s yours. If they die well they aren\u2019t going to be needing it anyway.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re all predators, the only reason we don\u2019t kill each other more regularly is because we\u2019re generally law abiding and mostly polite. That doesn\u2019t seem to be working for us anymore.<\/p>\n

In The Churn it\u2019s better to be the top predator than prey. That\u2019s the law of the jungle and apparently it\u2019s the current law in places like Chicago, Seattle, Portland, LA, Minneapolis, New York, and Pittsburgh, these days.<\/p>\n

If the whole country is gonna be like these cities then fine. I may not make it, but I\u2019m not going alone. Simultaneously, don\u2019t expect to arrest me for doing what every other predator is doing.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s time to embrace it, time to let all that rage and predatory instinct out. Time to decide what do we really want. I\u2019d be happy with law and order.<\/p>\n

But I will not accept that I have to obey laws that are stupid or pointless while others are immune to those same laws.<\/p>\n

If it\u2019s to be no law, okay then, let\u2019s all go back to the jungle en mass. When the blood and destruction reaches some critical point\u2026<\/p>\n

Then I\u2019d imagine a new jungle will have been created, and the survivors will beg for law, order, and justice again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was one of those little things, a thought not quite remembered. But it was somehow important, something that could potentially help me, if I could only remember it. It\u2019s been bugging me for weeks.  Not that I thought it was the end all be all, but something that could help me surf these all … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “There’d been something nagging at the back of my mind…”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[87,6],"tags":[181,187],"class_list":["post-9999","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-musings","category-rants","tag-musings","tag-rants"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9999","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9999"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9999\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10405,"href":"https:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9999\/revisions\/10405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}