What's wrong Mr. Rabbit?

[The Wizard]

I'll tell you what's wrong. We've lost something. As a people, as a nation, we've lost something. You can call it the Revolution, Free Love, the American Dream, doesn't matter what label you put on it, it's gone. At some point in American history, we lost that part of us that made this country the Great Experiment. Maybe it was when we elected a mindless, illiterate, party tool for president, or maybe it was when we decided that Communism was more important that our freedom. There are an endless variety of times when we might have finally killed our Revolution. But when it happened doesn't matter, nor does it matter whose fault it is, or why it happened. We have given into a disease that has inflicted our species since it's very beginning.

The American public has been enslaved. Now, I'd be willing to bet that it's the same, if not worse everywhere else. We're all slaves. A million bastard machines hold our leash, each one brainwashing us one way or another, starving what little wonder and beauty we can squeeze out. These machines label us. They force us to comply to a description, to a worldview that doesn't really work for us. We're Democrats, Republicans, Muslims, Humanitarians, Radicals, Nihilists, Surrealists, Darwinist, and Sodomites. These labels are meaningless. If you're lucky they'll manage to accurately convey a fraction of what you are. Every human being is a Saint and a Devil, an Innocent and a Despoiler, we are everything and everyone at the same time, and we're constantly changing.

But the machine can't have us change. No, we have to stay in our littel 5×5 cells and thank Mother Church and Uncle Sam for taking away our identity. And we choose to let them. We're too afraid of what we really are, of facing the churning schizoid mess that is the human being. We let them apply their definitions of Good and Evil to us. They tell us that Christians are Evil, that blowing up a bus full of Children is Good. And when they want us to do things so horrible that they bypass our blinders, they use terms like "Necessary Evil" and "The Greater Good". We've bought into a moral system rather than crafting our own. We've chosen to make due with hand me downs rather than innovate. I don't know why, but we do. It's too hard possibly, or we don't have enough time to actually think about what we believe in a way that can't stated in one word.

The Machines fear creation. Anything truly new or wonderful, anything that hints to our true potential is a grave threat to them. But when they're afraid, the Machines can be quite clever. They don't bother trying to stop innovation from occuring. To do so would be greatest folly, as humanity's creativity cannot be stopped, and is only encouraged by opposition. What the Machines do is buy it. As something wonderful rises out of the fringe and starts to become mainstream, they drown it in a wave of crappy wannabes and generic brand junk. They turn an artform into just another label, with which to enslave us. And so the beautiful, magical chaos we're capable of remains forever on the fringe.

As for what can be done to stop the Machines, to break the chains? Well, I've got my methods, which may or may not be effective. I inject as much craziness, passion and absurdity into my life as I can. If the Machines cannot understand you, then they cannot enslave you. I cannot escape the labels, and hell, I use them myself. But I do my best to stay  in the weirder, more fluid labels, and I move among them, picking up ideas everywhere I go. I've gotten to the point that not a single belief or philosophy I have can be stated in one word, or even one sentence. I've thought about my beliefs, and I've carefully decided what they really are. I'm on the path to something strange and beautiful, I know it, and I'm hoping that when I discover it the Machine won't be able to absorb it.

The whole point of this little rant, of this twenty minutes or so I've spent projecting my digital spittle at you, is this; Don't let anything define you. Don't let anyone label you or say that you are something which you aren't. Embrace your depth of personality, and marvel at it's little changes and evolutions. Create what you want, be what you want, and never let anything scare you into slavery. Fear is enslavement. If you don't fear something then it cannot stop you. Live up to your goddamn potential, and make your species proud.

So what are you waiting for?

[the last yatto]

am I a machine?

[Reginald Ret]

nice.

[The Wizard]

am I a machine?

I don't know. Do you try and force other people to conform to you're own belief structure and world view?

[Reginald Ret]

am I a machine?

I don't know. Do you try and force other people to conform to you're own belief structure and world view?

I do, anyone who tries to do something i disagree with gets a fist in their face.

[The Wizard]

Hmm. Then maybe. I don't know you, so I can't judge.

[Reginald Ret]

within certain limits, obviously.
slight annoyances are not worth hurting my knuckles.