The Screaming World

The lady with the neckbrace, a result of some accident I’m guessing, stood at the corner of the sidewalk, screaming. Her partner, joined in, only more light-heartedly.

“Oh, good for you! Just drive through! Did you not see my brace? What the fu** is wrong with you?” the lady shouted. She looked like an Italian in the middle of a full-blown rage, the way her arms were tackling the sky and her body enveloped in emotion, only she was very white and freckle-covered, and likely not European at all.

Yes, I noticed a lot in a few seconds. I tend to—to take in a whole movie in a matter of no time at all. That’s me. And I guess that’s what made the occurrence that much more troubling.

I’ve been processing this scene of the outraged, neck-braced caucasian in my mind for three days now, and have come to the conclusion of why the situation bothered me so. It comes down to fear, and how, as a result of fear, humans often assume the worst about other people.

In terms of fearing others, most people with Aspergers are over-trusting, at least for the start of their life; until they are more than likely hurt by not one but a multitude of people; primarily because others exhibit actions and behaviors the person on the ASD spectrum did not count on, and perhaps wasn’t able to understand. However, for the most part, individuals with Aspergers start out very trusting; and even after continual “let downs” and hurts, they tend to remain trusting, despite their best efforts to emulate the anti-trust phenomenon all around them.

I used to think I lacked an ability to adjust and adapt to the surrounding societal roles and values of fearing others. Now I believe the attribute to over-trust is a spirit-born gift and an ability to transform our world.

Throughout my life, I’ve been warned by various people not to over trust, not to be naive, not to expect that another will be there for me. And especially not to expose myself. I was taught through experience, and from others, that if I was myself I would be rejected, shunned, compartmentalized and ostracized. I am still warned, that if I over-share, people will have more ammunition to use against me. In essence, I have been taught, through experience, example, and through others’ cautionary words, to not trust and to not be myself.

What a terrible way to live: to carry within my being a perpetual fear of being me because I might be hurt.

But that is my world at this instant.

Despite the warnings and potentially looming dangers, I have made the conscious decision to be me.

I know enough to understand that no matter the preparation and shielding, the pretending and hiding, that ultimately people cannot escape fear; and that the fear does not reside outside in the scary world, but inside in the choice to not be real, and the fallout of non-genuineness that causes people to lose touch with who they are.

In looking at fear-based living, what is troubling, beyond the potential loss of self-understanding and authenticity, is the way society perpetuates fear.

Today, I readily view the fear indoctrination through our media, big business, and government. Although, with the sharing of beds, big business, media, and government, are potentially all one ancestral family.

Presently fear is perpetuated through the bombardment of looming cancer. Even at the amusement park, I went to yesterday, there was a huge  pink ribbon symbolising breast cancer awareness painted on the concrete. And the whole ride was painted pink. When I shop, I am asked to support cancer research. When I drive down the freeway, I see billboards about sickness and cancer. When I turn on the radio, television, or read a magazine, I view cancer, cancer, cancer.

My world is painted with the fear of cancer. It’s not that I am against awareness or finding a cure; it’s that I am against fear. Or not even against it, but tired of fear being put on a throne set upon a pedestal. Tired of fear being the foundation of my society.

Fear has been indoctrinated into my mind since I was born. American born and bred, I arrived fresh and innocent into a world that had for over a decade already been pushing fear into society to encourage others to buy, buy, buy, to stimulate the economic market. Then it was only television that reminded my generation and the ones before and after me to buy to subside fear. Now everything is media. I can’t go anywhere, beyond the beauty and grace of the forest, without the fear-factor.

And cancer research and awareness are not the answers, nor the solutions to our problems. The problem is literally the problems—the view and bombardment set upon us that everything is a problem.

And in considering these presented problems, we already have solutions, solutions echoed by the Native Americans long before us. Cancer is not the disease and enemy. Cancer is merely a result of our overly polluted environment: the toxins in our food, water, air, and prescription drugs. The disconnection and disrespect for our environment and nature. The disconnection from ourselves.

Food has become our poison. Much of what is added to our processed foods, in the form of corn syrup, in mutated form, is actually classified by the companies themselves as pesticide. It seems rather simple to me, a first step in fighting cancer and illness, would be to stop selling pesticides disguised as food.

Also, in America, it is fact that economically deprived neighborhoods don’t even have grocery stores. There are no opportunities to buy fruits and vegetables. Why? Because grocery store establishments have deemed the low-income areas non-profitable and have as a result pulled out of those neighborhoods. Cancer, diabetes, and obesity are on the rise everywhere, but particularly in the areas where the people are under-educated and living at poverty-level. In these neighborhoods, the giant fast food industries move in to make up for the lacking. So our young generation is being fast-food fed on mutated, poor grade meat and poultry, loaded with chemicals and over treated in fat and oils, and are without the money to travel to find a store with real food, and without the education or mind-energy fueled by nutrients to know better. Suddenly a corn-fed, antibiotic, disease-ridden, slaughtered mixture of multiple cows added with toxins, additives, overly processed oils, and fat, has become the staple meal of the poor. Suddenly an apple is deemed not as nutritious as poison. Or not so suddenly, in actuality, I suppose.

So what does this have to do with trusting my fellow human or the lady on the street screaming?

First off, the lady was yelling because there was a misinterpretation. I thought she wanted me to drive through the crosswalk, that she wasn’t ready to cross the street. She thought I was going to wait. And then she went further to think that my intention was to be inconsiderate and down right rude. She chose to see the worst in me, to believe I didn’t care about her, that I wasn’t willing to bother to stop. She chose not to trust me.

And that bothers me, because the more I think about it, the more I realize, as a collective we don’t trust. We have been raised a fear-based, paranoid society, made to fret over each moment of our day, to wonder what traumatic event will befall us, and to spend our last dime in creating a reality around us of distractions and comforts in hopes of diminishing our fear. We carry an emptiness around that we believe at moments can be filled with food or material goods. We believe solutions are found in a pill, not in nature. We believe the only way out of turmoil is through polluting our environment more through consumerism and over spending. We carry an urgency for a way out and not a way in.

We have been taught to live a life escaping death, escaping loneliness, and avoiding ugliness.

We have been taught that we are dying, we are unworthy, and that we are ugly.

We have been taught we are wrong and in need of fixing.

We have been taught to give of ourselves completely in the wealth of our minds, our bodies, our spirit, and currency, in order to be fixed.

We are trapped in a cycle of fear feeding fear, trying to fix that which was never broken with placebos that only injure at every level.

We are ready to return to the spirit, who knows awareness without fear.

We are ready to stop fighting and fearing and to become aware that we no longer need to build our world on a foundation of fear.

Because despite all of this indoctrinated fear, this misshapen world that has been painted onto our souls, some of us still carry hope. Some of us still trust. Some of us are not afraid to be our true selves, to shine and be authentic no matter the imaginary threat.

Despite the lies we  have been told, the trickery, the sadness, and devastation, we can choose to not fear, to see the light in people. We can continue to carry hope wherever we travel. We have the spirit-given eyes to see through the illusions, to know that this reality is temporary, that we are in transition, and that together we can transform our reality into a place of soul awareness.

This fear can be leached out and drained away, the more we pour in love and truth.

We must see the lady on the street screaming as pure beauty in disguise.  An instigator of change. A symbol of our screaming world. An obvious sign that the world is not happy and not trusting.

We can choose to look at the person screaming out as the innocent submerged in the sea of sadness perpetuated by the ongoing waves of fear and mistrust.

We can bring her out with a gentle hand to the shore and let her shine.

But first we must crawl out of submersion ourselves and stand in the light of authentic being.