Enough is Enough: What Are You Going to Do?

The police are being told to stand down so that people the mainstream media call mostly peaceful protesters can riot and loot.

The mostly peaceful people cheer on the minority, actively encouraging, condoning, and providing cover for their actions. The mob has taken away your right to have a say. They boldly claim they are speaking for you, the people, as they set fire to the court house or pull down a statue.

They do not speak for me.

But what do we do? Normally I would say elect new people, go out and vote, get involved in your local party. While those things are still important, this is not a normal time.

The police we have entrusted to keep the peace have been handcuffed and are now being beaten savagely as we look on. We now have a choice, do we stand by and watch as these guardians of peace who have stood between us and the most depraved manifestations of our nature are systematically taken apart or do we pick up the responsibility abandoned by those elected officials entrusted with authority and restore peace and order?

It seems like an easy choice, but it is not as easy as you’d think. You will not be cheered for picking up responsibility, in fact by lifting this cross you will be attacked. You will suffer.

You will be called violent when someone punches you in the face. You will be called an extremist as you call for unity. You will be branded racist for loving your country. You will also be tempted.

Tempted to claim the power being used against you and wield it for good. But good fruit cannot grow from a poison tree. Both the suffering and the temptation seek one thing, to strip away your responsibility, because it is in this responsibility that you find meaning.

It is in this responsibility that you make yourself worthy of the suffering of life.

The streets have never been so crowded yet so empty. People shouting empty phrases into the air, conjuring demons out of brothers and making saints out of lies.

Calling people out does not reach their heart, it only causes them to utter false apologies in a misguided attempt to please a monster that feeds on outrage and misery. The apology, instead of satisfying the monster, only sends it into a frenzy as it justifies the outrage (inherent in any apology is an admission of guilt) and means the fruit of misery is ripe.

Our elected officials drop everything to meet the demands of the rioters but you peacefully gather at the capital in the thousands only to be shooed away with a pat on the head. I am just as guilty of this as anyone else. I post things online, I write my blog, I talk with friends and coworkers and we are all full of ideas of what ‘they’ should do. Then we go back to work, go home, and carry on with our lives.

We say things like, oh it’s Portland, if they would ever come to my town they would never get away with that. Then they come to your town, destroy your statues and loot your businesses. 

You then say, yeah but if they tried that at my house they would never get away with it. Then they show up at your house and burn the American flag on your front porch. You weakly say, well if they break into my house they would never get away with it. 

But it’s too late, they have already gotten away with it. Your house is on fire, the police are not coming, the fire department is not coming, and your neighbors are not coming. You are alone in your burning house and you wonder, why didn’t someone do something? 

All the while you never realized that you were someone, that you could have done something, but each time you were called you hesitated. As your community, your state, and your country burned, you turned on Call of Duty and ignored Duty’s Call. Each hesitation, each ignored call, etched onto your very being until hesitation became habit and inaction became your virtue. 

So what can you do? I’ll admit honestly I have no clear answer for that question because I do not know you. I am not going to lie to you like a politician and say I have all the answers for you and if you support me all your worries will go away. That is a question you are going to have to answer for yourself.

First recognize four things. 

One, work within your circle of influence. This means understanding what you are actually capable of doing. You probably can’t get elected governor, but you can vote. You can always extend your circle of influence and work up to getting elected governor, but chances are for the majority of us, that is outside of our current abilities.

Two, understand there is not going to be one magic solution. Simply changing the school system or the tax code will not fix everything. Lots of things need to be done, do not focus too heavily on any one thing or believe that if only X would happen then everything would be better.

Three we are currently in a culture war not a political disagreement or violent revolution. You cannot win the battle if your army is on the wrong field.

Four, you as an individual are needed right now. Not you as a member of a group (gun owner, male or female, or Trump supporter) but you as the unique individual with your own talents, interests and abilities.

Lastly if you know of any of these events, statue destruction, flooding of a school board meeting to read scripted ‘comments’ trying to cancel someone, or occupations, please bring it to the attention of the rest of the community. Then get up and go use your voice. Don’t get into shouting matches, physical fights or call people names but stand up tall with courage and honor.

PS. I am starting to organize people in my local community here in Oregon to do something I think is pretty cool. Looking to organize mostly young people to become the leaders we need but also looking to build a community. If you are interested, everyone is welcome, reach out to me on Facebook or in the comments of this blog, thanks!

Logos and Skyrim: Shouting Order From Chaos

The video game The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim was released on November 11^th 2011. Having played the last two installments in this series I eagerly awaited this game. I watch trailers, I read articles on it, and looked through reviews of early game play.

The game revolves around the story of the hero, the Dragonborn, and the return of dragons to the world. A hero using sword and sorcery to fight dragons seems like pretty standard video game fair but the game was a huge success.

It was not until 2017 that I realized the story of Skyrim was more than just a game, but rather a retelling of a powerful older story full of symbols that I knew but never recognized. This is the story of the hero and his journey.

This significance came to me as I was replaying Skyrim and listening to Professor Jordan Peterson. This is my attempt to untangle the importance of the hero’s journey to the individual and society through the game Skyrim.

The Hero’s Call

The game starts with the hero in the back of a cart with rebels and criminals, bound, on his way to his execution. This is an odd place for a hero to be yet this is how the journey starts.

The people with the Dragonborn are dangerous. This hints at the idea that the Dragonborn himself must be a dangerous person as well. The philosopher Carl Jung would say that the hero has integrated his shadow. Meaning that to be a hero you must accept that you are capable of evil and struggle against that capability.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn describes this more clearly when he wrote in The Gulag Archipelago that “Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either -- but right through every human heart -- and through all human hearts.” This is also seen in the Judeo-Christian concept of original sin. Meaning that sin or evil is within all of us and that is something we all must struggle with our whole lives.

Failure to recognize that you are capable of evil (Pride?) or recognizing it and refusing to resist it will cause an individual’s evil side to grow. It is this internal struggle within ourselves that we see played externally in the hero’s story.

The Dragonborn is also bound and on his way to execution. He was captured while wandering, seemingly without aim. This points to the idea that without a goal and without responsibility a person will find themselves in a bad place and on a fast track to death. This is seen played out clearly in young men without direction joining a gang or someone getting into drugs.

Humans have evolved our eye sight in order to have aim so that we are better at finding food. On one level humans have evolved the ability to aim in order to survive. Yet in order to aim clearly on a conceptual level we need to be able to articulate what it is that we want. It is hard to hit the target if you do not know exactly what the target is. Speech helps us clarify the thing at which we aim.

The Dragons Return

The hero is taken into a town and has his head placed on the chopping block. As the headsman raises his axe you hear someone shout, “what is that?!” A dragon lands on a tower above you and shouts, causing a hail of rocks. Chaos ensues.

It is this dragon’s shout (Speech) that frees the Dragonborn. He is freed from the execution as well as aimless wandering. In a very real, giant and dangerous way, responsibility hits the hero hard and calls directly to him. It says I am the biggest problem here, you need to deal with me or watch your world burn.

Dragons as a concept have been around for a long time. Professor Jordan Peterson sees the dragon as an amalgamation of predators of our early ancestors, combining the traits of snakes, birds, and large cats (like lions). If that was not bad enough it can also breathe fire and is intelligent. Despite the danger of dragons they possess gold, meaning there is something of value to be gained by defeating them.

Professor Peterson goes on to say that dragons as a symbol are the problem of all problems. From an evolutionary stand point the biggest problem our ancestors faced were predators. The dragon, the ultimate predator, logically stands in for the idea of problems.

It is from this reasoning that you see hero stories. Of course people would tell stories of the person who willingly went out into the world and killed those predators. Not only did they end the problem that predator posed, but they would be able to bring back food and perhaps a fir to keep them warm.

This is the reason dragons have gold. If you extract the idea out farther it explains that within problems are something useful and solving those problems will allow you to be rid of the predator and to bring back something of value to make things better, for yourself and society.

The society the Dragonborn finds himself in is in the middle of a civil war. On one side you have the Stormcloaks and on the other you have the Imperials/Empire. The motivations of these two groups are complex but for now all we need to know is that they are at war with each other, they were both at the execution and they both know that the dragons have returned.

If you approach these groups in the game it is clear that they are refusing to deal with the dragons and are still focused on fighting each other. To them it is more important to battle one another than it is to deal with the return of the dragons. They are blind to the real problem, the dragons, and what it could mean for the world. Instead it is up to the hero to take on this problem himself.

The dragons are returning all across Skyrim, but as you progress through the game you find out that they were not hiding somewhere but were in fact dead and are being brought back to life. Relating it to the real world you can see these old problems coming back to life.

The ghost of Communism has spread across college campuses and work itself into a multi headed dragon (hydra). Authoritarianism attempting to shut down free speech, people in masks looting and rioting in urban areas, and religious extremists murdering innocent people being excused due to Political Correctness. These dragons have been resurrected and are currently running free across the world until a hero is willing to step up.

Sky Shattering Thu’um

In Skyrim the hero has the power of a Thu’um or a shout. This is a type of magic that allows the hero to do amazing things simply by speaking words. The way the hero gains this power is by slaying dragons, absorbing their power and reading words of power from the past on dragon walls.

Words, spoken or written, are a person’s attempt to manifest an idea into the real world. By reading these words on the dragon walls, what the Dragonborn is doing is building his power based on the foundations of what has come before. He is resurrecting the culture and giving it new life.

The benefit of slaying the dragons is to gain power in order to use additional words. When the hero finds a dragon wall he cannot read all the words, only part of it stands out. This is the logos revealing itself to the hero, who will carry it into the world.

Logos is the root of the word logic and comes from a Greek word meaning, ground, plea, opinion, expectation, word, speech, account, reason, proportion, discourse. Logos in the West is a term used when describing Jesus as being the Word of God. Yet before that in Western philosophy the term was used by Heraclitus to mean “a principle of order and knowledge.”

It is a complex word and concept which Jordan Peterson describes as meaning something like “the articulated Truth.” (A YouTube video of Peterson explaining Logos here). When the Dragonborn kills a dragon and gains the power to shout, the game is acting out this idea. The idea that if you willingly go out and face down problems (dragons) you will gain knowledge and power (logos) which you can bring to the world to make it a better place.

Rescuing your Father from the Underworld

This is a common theme in mythology as well as in video games. Beowulf goes into the depths and fights Grendel’s mother, Pinocchio goes to the bottom of the ocean to save Gepetto, and the Dragonborn makes his way to Sovngarde.

These are all great stories in their own right and to dismiss them as superstition and fairy tale would be to miss out on the essence behind the story. First we must look at what the Underworld and the Father is and why the Father is in the Underworld.

The Underworld is the place you go when you die, an unknown place, a place that cannot be known. The Father is the old king or rather the culture built by those in the past. In these stories death is not the end, but rather a turning point. It is same idea that is represented by the tarot card death. Culture is always dying and being reborn because chaos is always pushing against order and to maintain order change (or chaos) is needed.

So the hero goes out into chaos, brings a part of that chaos back so that the culture can change in an attempt to maintain order. The hero going into the Underworld (chaos or the unknown) is his attempt to bring back something of value that will, hopefully, update society so that it will not collapse into chaos.

In Skyrim the main adversary is Alduin, a soul eating dragon that can rain chaos from the sky with a shout. He was defeated in the past through the use of an Elder Scroll (a fragment of the divine), yet this was only a temporary defeat. The Dragonborn must use the Elder Scroll and learn what the heroes of the past knew so that he can deal with the problem of Alduin and restore order to the world.

The hero does not destroy culture or society, but instead builds on it to make it better. He joins with the old heroes to defeat Alduin, using their power and his own to defeat the problem once and for all.

It is with the defeat of this dragon that order is restored to the world. Yet when the hero returns from the Underworld he sees several dragons flying overhead spreading across the world. This means that there are still problems in the world but the world is a little bit better with one less problem.

The Hero’s Song Lives On

The hero’s journey is the journey of each individual. The man who wakes up at 5am and goes to work all day so his kids will have a better future then he did is a hero. The mother who spends countless sleepless nights caring for a sick child is a hero. The hero is inside of us all and in order to access it we must understand that we are both hero and monster. That both good and evil is inside of all of us and that the first thing we must do is recognize that struggle and actively take part.

Each individual must use his logos to find what he is aiming at and shoot. There is no guarantee that you will hit your mark or that you are aiming at what you think you are. Yet by speaking the truth as clearly and as best you can you will have a chance of hitting the mark.

If society is falling apart the answer is not to tear it down and start over. Rather it is to deal with the problems by building on and renewing the foundation. Preserving the traditions of the past while updating them to meet current situations.

The story of Skyrim and the hero’s journey is so popular and powerful because it is the story of ourselves. We must look honestly at ourselves, recognize the problems in us and in our world and try to solve them by taking willing responsibility of them. It is in the solving of these problems that we ease the suffering of life for ourselves and those around us as well as in the world at large. The great thing about the story is that anyone no matter how inadequate or useless has this potential inside of them. That potential could be called the divine spark within us all.