The wise man´s fear and the black shadow of the moon - a skóggángr man´s stance

Now many of you readers expect me to take a stand towards what happened in the political scene worldwide. But you must be mad, and I won´t put my finger into the mincer. No one can take any other stand than wait and be prepared for the very worst. What becomes increasingly obvious to me personally is that war will be inevitable. Not because of one or the other dark lord madman rising. Not because of a balance of terror and counterterror.

I had to learn only but recently that there is something far more terrifying going on.

It has been coming a while: Working for one or the other club means you get involved into discussions. It only occurred to me when Ron from Home is where the Hearth is blog pointed out that he made the same observation, that there is something wrong. In those discussions, no one actually talked to each other, just as Ron pointed out, too. He put it that way:
"It isn't that I have nothing more to say; I am actually a bit behind. No, it is more like the motivation to say things has kind of left me. What's the use?
I see and hear many so-called discussions all around me and I do get involved in quite a few myself, but there is no discussion. People take a stance or have a view and they do not discuss that. No, they force that upon you. Their view is right and you have to be converted to see it their way. Having a different opinion makes you a heretic, an infidel. Maybe even a threat? Listening to each other's arguments seems like an old fashioned etiquette. Furthermore it is no longer in fashion to actually back up one's opinion by facts or arguments. Mere feeling or believing something is enough to revert to step one; conversion. And if someone can not be converted, they you just shout them down, point with a finger and call them names. You're either with them or against them.
So I'll back away from doing that for a while....." (Flyingwoodsman.blogspot.com)

I do not have anything else to add to this. Now personally I am well aware that it might not be exactly easy to listen to my arguments in a discussion. What´s most grave and an actual mistake is that I sometimes have it back-to-front, if you get my meaning. I am working on this.

The next thing is that I have a lot to say. I personally think that if you take a stand, you have to give the listener the information he needs not only to understand the basics, but also how you came to this conclusion, the process of your getting to this stand, to offer him the possibility to point out potential logical mistakes, so that you can get to a syn-thesis. This technique of critical discussion was attained in arduous academical training and I will quite certainly not work on it nor part with it. But, recently I had a discussion in a group where they constantly were urging and pushing me to "get to the point". Some of this was due to a mistake on my part (getting it back to front), but most of it was due to their impatience. They did want a stance to shout down. In fact, they were forcing speechturns not only upon myself, but also on themselves. Since I was in a leading position, they said they wanted orders, not discussion. Since I did not succeed in convincing them, I finally gave in and gave non-compromised orders. Then, like a pack of wolves, they tried to undermine my authorities by biting and growling. Now I am not to be growled or snapped at, so I now have to use force. I regret this.

A recent study by Microsoft corporation pointed out that gold fish nowadays have a longer attention span than most humans, no joke. This seems to be due to the digital lifestyle, where attention is a commercial good, and has to be divided amongst the competitors on the market. So most people are simply incapable of processing information one-by-one. The teleological capacity of semantics is diminished or better, organized more selectively. I do not use digital media other than at work or for this blog and one forum. I read my E-Mails once, maybe twice a week, I do not have a smartphone, tablet, nor TV and seldom listen to the radio. My crafts require a sometimes very long attention span, e.g. when forgewelding. So I might not be better than average Joe, but I differ. I daresay someone like Ron differs, too.

But we are not average Joe, so to say. Society is made by and from average Joe gold fish, and they are the ones who make the rules. They are far more capable of using social media and modern implements than me. What is dangerous, however, is that they can but process information at first glance. So they need a stance and have but a doctrine to live by, and thus base their decisions upon logical mistakes, for, philosophically speaking, a doctrine technically IS a construction of logical flaws.

The change in the human mind was inflicted due to the influence of e-commerce and advertising. Most any social media are run by corporations. Most any human being in Western society is dominated by social media. Governments rely on social media. The use of social media in itself is neither good nor bad, but inflicts changes upon human neurology and thusly, the human species. The internet and therefore social media are virtual reality, and thusly a reality that is existent only virtualiter, "by its virtues", i.e. potentially or implied. People who use social media excessively lose the capability to process information in a way that makes a dedicated concentration on one task for longer than five seconds, and often lose a sense of reality.

Let me give you an example. There is a group of blackmiths or people with an affinity to crafts gathering at an ironforge. The ironforge is half ruin, i.e. the roof went in. One part of the smithy still stands, but the remaining roof beams are standing out nearly unsupported. You do not need to be a carpenter to tell that an excessive load of snow will bring the rest of the roof down in no time. In the remaining part of the smithy those hobby craftsmen and - women practice their forging. They like it and for many of them it has become a good balance for their everyday lives, and essential part of their weekly wellbeing routines. Now there is a call to put three dead shore support pistons on. There are roundabout ten people actively forging. Putting those pistons on would require turning nine screws while working on a construction platform, round about half an hour work. Keeping in mind we are possibly faced with a real winter with some snow loads to be expected, one can safely postulate that, provided this is the case, the roof will come in furthermore and thusly make forging on site impossible. For roundabout one year these men and women are stating they were not obliged (by law) to do this. And, in case you ask, I am afraid of heights, but I will have to be the one who does it. But this is not about ranting and whining about how unfair this is, but to illustrate how reality loss works. I should say it is paired with a loss of imagination. It just seems impossible for them to make the connection between their actions and the effect thereof, which is a commonplace, for most of them find blacksmithing that "relaxing" because of the actual nature of the work, and it balances their otherwise not very concrete lifestyle out. In their everyday working lives, they normally are not capable of seeing the effects of their work. In blacksmithing they can come home with a project they actually finished and had control over from start to finish.

Now let us return to global. Keeping in mind people tend to have the attention span of a gold fish, they are nor prone to gathering information and discussing their stances. They want simple answers and simple solutions. But life, and especially human society, can never be that linear. But since most humans in western civilisation are not accustomed to seeing the effects of their behaviour, well, take effect, they simply do not care. Not out of indifference, but because they lack the cognitive potential to do so. In fact, according to the requirements of reality, not virtual reality, and along the lines of traditional psychopathology, they could be called psychologically impaired persons. But they pose the majority, so the norm is defined by them. You cannot possibly convince them, and you cannot heal them, for they would not accept the need to do so in the first place. You would be the one deviating from the norm, and the sorry truth is, there is no chance of stopping this development. They are about to become an altogether different species, and another sorry truth is, we forest people are about to go the way of the Neanderthals.

I have always thought violence was not an option. Violence will only lead to more violence, and in the case of contemporary history, can easily lead to the extinction of the entire human species. Violence is natural, but it is more of a natural catastrophe than an option to solve problems. It solves nothing, but happens. Violence could be dismissed, if discussion is an option. Now keeping in mind that discussion can be rarely possible these days and the majority of western civilisation has the attention span of a gold fish and thusly is cognition-impaired, those individuals are just discussing on the basis of doctrine. Since doctrine in itself is a logical flaw, and doctrine will ultimately become the foundation of society, this society is wrong, but strong, and will use violence and oppression to pursue its goals, not caring a shit about the fact that it lacks essential information.

Patrick Rothfuss in "The wise man´s fear", an author that is far more to me than just another fantasy novelist, states that there are three things the wise man fears:

-the sea at storm,
-the wrath of a gentle man
-the moonless night.

I have seen the sea at storm, on a ravaged seashore by the Northern sea.

I despise violence.

I tread paths at moonlight other fear walking in daylight.

I have to postulate that people using social media and virtual reality excessively and making up the rules of society are therefore responsible for the current global situation, not personally, of course. They are evolving into a different species. In itself this is neither good nor bad, but just a fact. I postulate there are the following aspects involved:

-loss of cognitive capacities in favour of a more selective procession of information and increase of the speed of information processing
-loss of corporeal capacities, overweight, degeneration of the skeleton and muscle in favour of an increased ability to coordinate external devices

Any evolution process is accompagnied with a strife to prove the biological superiority of the species. The inevitable war that will come up soon will also inevitably bear the stamp of that process.

I do not belong to the species of "digital man", at least not completely. I refuse to be killed, abused, enslaved or oppressed, out of principle, and this is MY doctrine.

I still hope that violence is still avoidable.

At the moment, all this put together with "interhuman quarrels" in my closest periphery, which I hinted of, I am not in the best of moods, so to say. But whining is not an option and will not change anything. After all, nothing has happened yet that would require putting up a fight. It is easy to forget that even if one or the other dark lord threatens the world with nuclear arms, if you get into a familiar forest, the trees are still the same. Slowly, deliberately, life runs through their stem and branches, and while they lose their leaves and "winter cometh", that is nothing of surprise. And even on the disaster site of Tschernobyl, nature is taking over. It is changed forever, but it still grows and prospers in spite of the radiation that still can kill a man. This gives me hope. For even the process of the diversion that the human species is faced with to date is natural. It makes sense.

Into a familiar forest I went, rich with the scent of resin, and the sun was shining, not that warm any more. Of course, I am not the same any more. And yet I walk there, unchanged.

I have seen the sea at storm, I have seen mighty oaks uprooted. I have seen death, and I have seen life.

And I feel the mycelium under my feet, and I see tentacles sprouting up from the dark, entangled, entwined, reaching up towards the life - force of the oak. The oak still prospers, and its roots reach deep down into the dark in their own right, interwined, entangled with the mycelium, the mysterium that weaves in the darkness.

I the oaken grove a golden twilight shines. The sun was out, as was before, and yet the light you see is never the same and older than the world, and at the same time always new and young.

Along forgotten roads I travel. I travel with my feet, and I travel with my mind. I do not fear the black shadow of the moon or the dream road through a wood of steel. I do not fear the gates unlocked. I am the moon-in-the-water and the flame mirrored on the sword´s blade. I am the hard bulging spear in my own right; my spine is the spine of the roaring dragon. I unbecome human on my stealthy stride; and I will stride unfathomed even if I will fall.

 

The trees told me a secret that cannot be shared, for human speech knows no words for it; the trees told me an art of war that cannot be taught.

 

I am the violent twilight. I am the black shadow of the moon. I am the flight of the owl and the fox on its prowl; I am the wolf unleashed.

In a world that unbecomes human, I make a solemn decision. I unbecome human by my own will. By the power of the trees, by root and mycelium, by will and not-will, by the Awen and the Holy Wind, and by the name of the unfathomable, the first cause on high, I will take up the weapons granted:

I will take up the crystal bow and the sword of lightning upon my brow; I will take the dark spear that flies above the hosts, slurry and honey on its two edges. I will take the Ati - gaiza of a satirist, slashing and stabbing and piercing arrow and the hewing treasure of the Giant´s hoard.

And forging I will do: I will forge the chain of strength to guard my loins. I will forge the silver mask to inflict terror upon their hearts. I will sew a cloak of shadows and a knife of darkness. I will haft arrows with tips from the seeds of moonbeams.

Violence was not an option, but the forest is not violent. From the depths of its roots there rises a secret art of war, an art so secret that it cannot be fathomed by human beings. It is not even a martial art. It is no art, and it is not martial. If you can feel it, you will understand. But you will never be able to put it into words, not even under torture. And if you would be able to understand, you would not be entirely human anymore. It is hard to describe. You CAN feel it, underneath the deep peace and solace. But to even be able to try to feel it, you would have to be able to listen, and listen intently for hours on end.

And the root crushes rock. And the owl claws at the heart of its prey. And the fox kills out of lust. And the bear rages. Swiftly through the rustling grass blades moves the viper, venomous and deadly. The wolf is howling on the hunt.

And doom will come upon them. Inevitably. And no one will be responsible but they themselves. No one is doing, and no one does.

Just the root that crushes rock.

Listen. Listen intently. Listen intently for hours on end, until no one is left to listen. Listen to the stream running through the woods, foaming. Listen to the frost biting at the trees. Listen to life and death. Listen to the bristles of light and the black shadow of the moon.

Listen, and the gate will open. Listen, and you will unbecome human.