Compassion

The world has never valued kindness.

Kindness in this world of limits has always been relegated to a sign of weakness.

To be kind is stupid.

Ignorant.

You care for your own first.

Blood is thicker than the welfare of the stranger.

If you don’t know, I’m an empath.

I was diagnosed late in life after years of suffering at the hands of the words of everyone around me.

Their anger, their hate, their ignorance, their prejudice, their racism, their bias wore me down to the breaking point.

It broke me.

What kept me from taking my life?

Love.

Compassion.

Caring.

A simple act that cost the person who saved my life absolutely nothing.

But what it did was allow me to be here today talking to you about it.

There is redemption.

There is hope.

There is reconciliation with those that deserve it.

I’m not here to say that those who commit egregious acts upon you are to be forgiven and forgotten.

No.

Never.

I’m here to say that you need to forgive yourself first and foremost so that you can heal.

Never forget.

Never forget the cruelty.

The heartless acts of violence and selfishness meant to hurt, to punish, to destroy.

Compassion is about a standard of morality.

Compassion does not need a religion.

Compassion does not need a doctrine.

Compassion is the act that love tells us to do.

Compassion is stronger than hate.

Stronger than anger.

Stronger than fear.

It can heal the deepest wound.

It can bridge the distance between minds.

It can do the impossible even in the hands of the smallest forgotten person.

Compassion resonates through the centuries.

The love that men and women had in the past is why we are here today.

They fought the good fight.

They stood up to the intolerant.

They ignored the impossible and made it possible.

Compassion is defined as weakness by evil.

You will learn that those that fear a thing call it out as weakness.

As the child who is afraid of the dark calls out, telling the darkness they are not afraid of it…

BOO!

They are.

I have learned that my empathy is a two-edged knife.

It cuts to the truth, but it also cuts me.

It’s hard every day to feel the pain all around me.

It can bring me down.

Yet, it can spur me on, too.

To find a way to lift every voice.

To push for that day when hate is seen for what it is.

Weak.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Changes

Since the beginning, humanity has used every ounce of strength in its imagination in wanting to believe that change doesn’t happen.

Cave paintings, scrolls, religion, books, plays, philosophy, photography, film, radio, TV, politics, and war all have espoused a belief that change shouldn’t and can’t happen.

Big problem, though…

The fundamental property of this universe we all live in is change.

Everything from galaxies to microbes all change.

Evolve or…

Die.

So, anyone or anything trying to stop change from happening is on the losing side of the universe.

Trying to stop change from happening just can’t win.

It’s called impossible.

Now, understandably, change is not always welcome.

None of us want to get old.

None of us want to lose the people, the things we love.

But their all going to change.

It’s human not to want things to change.

It’s fundamental to the origins of humanity to want things to be the same.

Repeatable.

Established.

Regular.

Predictable.

That way, we all can make plans and not have them ruined by a rainstorm stopping our picnic.

But… shit happens.

So, if you think about it, and it’s obvious not many people do, why do we invest our time, our money, our blood, sweat, and tears into ideas that try to prevent change?

Fear.

Fear is the spider at the center of the web.

Change represents unpredictable outcomes.

What if people are free?

What if people can marry who they want?

What if people can be who they are?

What if people want to be equal?

What if people want to be loved?

All these and more represent a community and the individual to take a chance that change will not affect their picnic.

Yeah, so it was okay to free black people from slavery as long as no one was inconvenienced.

It was all right to give women the right to vote because most women couldn’t be bothered.

It was fair to desegregate schools and communities because we weren’t going to fund those schools and communities after.

My point is that change, for better or worse, will continue to happen, but not as expected.

With change there will always be outcomes that are not predictable.

That’s what change is.

That’s why I’m trying to get the attention of my conservative brothers and sisters and help them put into perspective their fear of change.

When gays got the right to marry, did frogs rain out of the sky?

When blacks got to vote, there were no more white elected officials, right?

When women entered the workforce, no man was ever hired again, correct?

When change happens, will things be different?

Yes, they will be different.

And that’s the beauty of change.

Where once there was a dead, dry seed, once planted, from that seed grows a tree under which the children and the children’s children of the planter will live, love, and know peace.

Change is gonna come…

Peace

Daniel J. Frey aka Toby

Do You Hear What I Hear?

Wokeism.

Bad side of town.

Freaks of nature.

Infecting our Democracy.

New York values.

Our country.

Our God.

Coincidence.

Poisoning the blood of our country.

Make America great again.

Take our country back.

These and more are what is being said out loud in Conservative America.

Have you asked yourself, does it matter?

What does it mean?

What does it mean?

It means that the idea put forth by our founding fathers that America was created for white, male protestants who owned the land they took, and it was this destiny that guaranteed that from sea to shining sea, the white man would always and forever be in control and dominate was established by their white Christian God… forever…

It seems that idea still persists today.

There is a group of our fellow Americans who both believe in the sanctity of their religion, having a metaphysical control on their lives, the lives of the non-believer, and the nation as a whole, as well as the real expression that Jesus Christ established this sanctity that white males are in charge no others need apply.

Any lapse of control is a sin.

These expressions are code to the true believer who is willing to fight for their whiteness as ordained and established by their white Christian God.

It doesn’t matter if Donald Trump is scum.

He could be the worst human on the planet, but he has two things going for him you don’t see.

One, he’s a white male.

Two, he’s fighting for white America to re-establish a pre-white-male patriarchy.

He can actually do anything, and none of it matters to these supporters because he’s ordained by the White Christian God to save the White race.

Do you hear what I hear?

I am constantly reminded of South Africa.

The white peoples of Europe, specifically England, discovered South Africa and declared it white.

Declared South Africa White?

Think about how screwed up inside and out you have to be to be in such a mindset whereby you deny reality that much.

They were white and in control.

But, on the horizon, their hold on the country was going to slip out of their hands.

However, that didn’t stop them from descending into a brutal police state.

Apartheid.

It got far worse for non-whites as the day approached as the white demographic minority grabbed and killed to keep control.

America is slipping down the same slope.

That hardcore group of conservative Americans is not fighting for a political party.

Are you kidding me?

They are fighting for what they believe is their race.

They will not go away without a fight.

Words are a gateway drug to actions.

When somebody tells you what they believe, you better damn well believe them.

So listen up!

Peace

Toby aka Daniel J. Frey

To See Too Much

Imagine seeing germs.

Imagine you could see germs on the people around you.

Imagine those germs are the untruths, the myths, the self-deceptions, the stories, the lies, both big and small, that people tell each other and themselves every day.

That is what it’s like to be an INFJ empath like me.

For the first 55 years of my life, I suffered under the delusion that everyone was like me.

I couldn’t fathom why people were so, so inhuman and inhumane to others and themselves.

The casual untruths, the blatant lies, why did it only seem to affect me and not everyone else?

I had no idea that my psyche was missing a fourth wall.

That fourth wall that the 97% of humanity has and I don’t.

That fourth wall that keeps them disconnected from life.

This fourth wall allows them to act independently without regard to how their actions affect others.

This fourth wall I didn’t have brought me to the point of screaming, ”Let me out!”

After 55 years of taking on the sins of the world, I had painted myself into an actual black pit of darkness.

I saw no relief for the world or myself.

I couldn’t take it anymore.

The suffering, the pain, the hypocrisy, the betrayal, the lies, the anger, the hatred, the anger everywhere.

Like a dark black rain, it poured every day non-stop.

A ghost kept screaming in my ear I was useless.

Unloved.

I needed to end it.

As the day approached, a fairy light appeared in my dark oubliette and asked me to believe in love one last time…

If you know an INFJ empath, you know, even in the end, I couldn’t refuse to listen.

I found out that empaths do exist.

I found out it wasn’t science fiction like I thought it was.

I found out that all of the lies I saw were real.

My depression was caused by real-life circumstances, like losing my job, dreams, family, and love.

Those were real; any normal person would become as depressed as I was.

However, being an empath made it incomprehensibly worse than a normal person's.

I couldn’t separate other’s emotions from my own.

I fell into a spiral of doom.

I also found out that I needed to establish healthy barriers to my psychology to regulate the flow of the pain of this world.

I learned that everyone needs to have a mental health check-up at least once a year.

You probably don’t realize how screwed up you are and how many people know you’re screwed up but won’t tell you because they think that’s the way you are an asshole.

Now, I’m 63.

Now, I have built back love and restored hope.

I still see too much.

Being an empath is not a blessing unless you feel seeing everyones darkness is a happy thing.

But I’m here to say to fellow empaths it can be managed.

I learned it a bit late in life.

But I learned.

Peace

Daniel J. Frey aka Toby

Shoes

When you walk in another’s shoes…

Been told that ever since I can remember.

But what happens when you try on another person's shoes and find out they fit?

What happens to that story you told yourself about your place in society?

What happens to that ego you have believing in your own entitlement?

What happens when the shoes fit?

Somehow since, before the American Revolution, the People convinced themselves that they were exceptional.

Disregarding the French, who had already overthrown their Aristocracy, Americans told themselves a story that they were first.

They were the first to stand for liberty, for freedom.

But they weren’t the first, no far from it.

They weren’t the first white people who carved out for themselves a special place in the hierarchy of the universe.

American Exceptionalism is a unique kind of myth.

There are many kinds of myths that we get along with every day.

A universal myth that cuts across all cultures, ethnicities, races, and religions is that my myth is the only myth that is true, and all the rest drool.

Exceptionalism is everywhere.

You can’t get past the exceptional trees to see the forest.

It’s a human thing.

Humans convince themselves of a lot of nonsense.

It's what keeps us from all having nice things.

What happens when the shoes fit?

What do we tell ourselves?

Those people don’t feel pain; that’s why they don’t need health care.

Them folks don’t know how to cut their lawn, so take away their property.

They buy stupid things; don’t give them a bank loan.

These people are animals; they don’t deserve justice.

It’s all bullshit.

People, and I’m telling it to you straight because I’ve been raised with a lot of white racist people; they tell each other whoppers every time they are together how bad everyone else is.

White people in America have an exceptional problem imagining being in another person's shoes.

Why this self-imposed ignorance?

Why the hate?

It’s fear.

Fear of losing exceptionalism.

It is quite literally the fear of standing in line with everyone else and not getting to cut to the front of the line.

A fear that someone will catch on to all the exceptionalism bullshit and force you to the back of the line.

The first will be last.

What happens when the shoes fit?

When that day comes, what rejoicing there shall be.

When young and old embrace the fact that none of us are getting off the earth alive.

When we understand, we all bleed.

We bleed for the sake of love.

To love and be loved.

We bleed for respect.

We bleed for freedom.

For justice.

Take a look at your shoes.

Peace

Daniel J. Frey aka Toby

The Rain Is Here

All around us, the rain is falling.

Since Dylan put it into lyric, by the way, that was 1964, the American public has been at odds with learning how to swim versus sinking like a stone.

What I'm talking about is leaving ignorance behind and learning we can do right.

The rain falls…

The rain falls, and what it's doing is revealing truth.

In the 20th Century, the rain fell, revealing fascism.

The rain fell, and segregation was revealed.

The rain fell, and we discovered the poor were in need.

We discovered that women had rights.

The rainwater rose, and white nationalism was thrown into the spotlight.

If, by the 1980s, you weren't swimming, you were sinking.

Why?

The rain kept falling.

The rain washed away our delusion that authority, our leaders always told the truth.

The rain fell.

The rain fell, revealing a rainbow of gentle souls wanting to live their lives without fear.

It revealed that religious leadership preyed upon its followers' hearts, minds, and bodies.

The 21st Century arrives, and the weather forecast looks cloudy.

The rain fell.

They're hiding in plain sight; our social servants charged with protecting us instead abused us.

The rain fell.

No justice, no peace.

No justice, no peace.

The rain fell, washing away the delusion that justice was applied fairly and evenly in America.

We rediscovered that some people believed themselves more equal than others.

The rain falls.

It will continue to fall.

Because love applied will never give in.

Love applied will open the eyes of the self-ignorant.

Love applied will openly ask will you change and join us in a great community?

Or will you prefer to sink like a stone?

Wish you love.

Daniel J. Frey aka Toby

We Help

What are you doing with your life?

There is only one thing we all have to do to fulfill the purpose of living.

You help.

A person is coming through the door you hold it open.

That man needs a meal you feed him.

That girl needs a new school book; you get it for her.

You help.

That woman is grieving; you sit and listen.

That young man needs a job; you hire them.

The old man at the store is lonely; you say hello.

You help.

If you’re not helping, you’re hurting.

If you’re not lifting up, you’re putting down.

If you’re not caring, you’re evil.

Life is about growing out of your comfortable shell and caring for those around you.

What does it take to make the blind see?

What does it take to make the deaf hear?

What does it take to make the heartless love?

The truth?

The truth is nothing.

There is nothing any of us alone can do to make the stubborn self-righteous, selfish person join the human race.

Nothing.

What we can do is join with the living, move forward to that bright community of love, and just in case…

We can keep that door open to freedom from fear.

That someday, in some way, the fearful, selfish person will open their minds and join us.

Until then…

We press forward.

We open doors.

We expand liberty, freedom, and justice for all.

We help.

Not just for those we love.

But also and more importantly, for those we don’t know.

Love has no limit.

The only limit that can be put on love is in our hearts and minds.

Cut loose, be free, and see what is possible when you pursue truth.

Peace

Daniel J. Frey aka Toby

Last Thing

Feeding yourself.

Buying that new pair of shoes.

Ordering online.

We’ll do that.

Flipping someone off.

Talking behind a friend's back.

Getting high.

We’ll do that.

Not stopping hate.

Not comforting the lost.

Not smiling.

We’ll do that.

We will do a lot of things, too many to count.

And we will do them gladly if not out of a sense of duty, of pride.

What is the last thing you’ll do?

Love.

The last thing too many will do is to love.

Why?

It’s too hard for too many of us.

We don’t know where to begin, so we never start.

Too many of us lack the foundations of love.

We don’t love ourselves.

If we don’t love ourselves, then loving others, the stranger, represents danger to our existence.

If we don’t love ourselves, we are handicapped unable, unwilling to reach out and restore hope.

To not be just sympathetic but to attain the highest human ability empathy.

If we don’t love ourselves, we are doomed to be turned inward, focusing on feeding our desire at the expense of all life around us.

What is the last thing you will do?

Love to be effective must be exercised.

Love is not something to keep locked away.

If love is locked away only for ourselves, then it is a wasted expression.

Love to become real, to grow, to mature must live in the light of life and grow.

What do you represent?

Selfish desire or giving love?

What is the last thing you will do?

Peace

Toby aka Daniel J. Frey

The Trouble With Truth

Truth is not widely accepted.

Truth is inconvenient.

Truth will set you free only if you want it to.

Humans have told themselves stories in place of the truth since speech was a thing.

Their stories, myths, and beliefs all feel better and right and are easier to swallow than the truth.

It’s perfectly understandable; it’s perfectly human that we prefer our stories over the truth.

Our stories feed our prejudice.

Our stories feed our selfishness.

Our stories feed our entitlements.

If we had to face and accept the truth, the consequence would be responsibility.

What would we be responsible for?

The truth reveals that we are responsible for justice.

For equality.

For freedom.

For peace.

For the planet.

For each other.

We can eliminate poverty.

We can feed the hungry.

We can care for the sick.

We can live in a clean world.

We can control guns.

We can make the world and everyone living their lives fuller, richer, and free from fear.

That’s if we want to.

That’s if we want to let go of the stories we tell each other.

The stories that put the blame on other people.

The stories that say our deities will sort our problems out for us.

The stories that make us deaf, blind, and dumb to the suffering and despair in our world.

Our world is in balance.

The world teeters between the past and the future.

Our stories find their origins in our past.

The future is yet to be written.

Love can see us through, but love alone won’t get us over the mountain of ugly lies we prefer to believe in.

If love alone could have overcome our stories, the human race would not continually find itself on this carousel of doom it likes to ride.

What will break humanity from chasing its own tail of self-deception?

History, yes, history demonstrates it takes just one person standing against the darkness and saying no more forever.

Are you the hope the world is looking for?

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

What Love

You tell me to love, why?

Love never tells you to do anything… it expects you to.

I love my family; that’s enough.

Love expects you to love your family and your neighbor's family and your neighbor's neighbor's family.

Why do I have to love them?

You don’t have to do anything.

It’s all up to you what kind of a day, a week, a year, or a lifetime you want to spend your time in.

When we love our neighbor, we open a door that lets the fresh air of truth into our lives.

If we only love ourselves, we shut the door to the world.

The air of truth can’t get to us; we recycle our own thoughts over and over and over again.

We twist reality and bend it till we create a monster.

A monster that tells us only what we want to hear, what we want to know, what we want to see.

No more rainbows.

Only a dusty dank darkness cocooned in a web of self-delusion.

What?

We lie to ourselves, and we believe our own lies.

I can’t trust people I don’t know.

Trust is always earned.

So I love other people, but they don’t love me back.

Love doesn’t expect a dividend.

Love is not a business transaction.

Love gives; it doesn’t take.

That’s how you can measure the quality of love.

Love doesn’t wait.

Love is now.

Love doesn’t keep 90% of the profit and gives the remainder to those in need.

Love doesn’t just show up on a day of the week.

Love doesn’t arrive on one day a year.

Love is constant.

Love waits.

Love listens.

Love moves.

Love stands for justice.

Love fights for freedom.

Love means honor.

What is love?

Love is the force that binds all people together of goodwill.

Love will take us to the stars; love will lift the forgotten out of misery.

Love is not an easy partner.

Love will always ask more never less.

A life of love is a life fulfilled.

What love?

Peace

Toby aka Daniel J. Frey

Purpose

Do you have a purpose?

Do you care if you have a purpose or not?

If you don’t have a purpose or believe in having a purpose, you are in the majority.

The majority of us do not have a purpose.

What is a purpose?

Your job is not a purpose.

In fact, anything that is a function by its very nature is not a purpose.

Function does not have a purpose, and consequently, a purpose has no function.

Many of us mistake their function for a purpose.

As I said, your job is not a purpose; it’s a function.

Everyone has a job.

Functions are a common set of actions that any and all life can do does do.

Having children and raising them is a function.

Taking care of the sick and old is a function.

Teaching is a function.

Eating, traveling, entertaining, preaching, fighting, sex, and more are all functions.

If any living creature can do it in their fashion, then it's a function.

Not a purpose.

Do you have a purpose?

You can add another fact that to qualify as a function, you can or could be paid for it.

Dentists, farmers, carpenters, plumbers, electricians, and politicians are all functions.

To have a purpose means, by its very nature, you won’t be paid for it.

As you can see, so far, having a purpose is not that attractive, is it?

Yet having a purpose is the reason, the goal of being alive.

Having no purpose is akin to being the walking dead.

Wandering through life feeding on the brains, the thoughts of others without regard to who will be harmed.

Never ever think that having a purpose means it has to be grand.

Important.

No.

That would be against everything that having a purpose means.

The smallest of purposes can also be the most important.

Being kind is a purpose.

Compassion is a purpose.

Empathy is a purpose.

These purposes are expressed through the language of love.

These purposes are executed through the administration of justice.

These purposes are held through the application of freedom.

It is through our purpose, our corner of life, that we have the privilege to make the world better.

Not for ourselves; that is a function.

The purpose of life is to make the world better for all.

How are you doing with your purpose?

Peace

Toby aka Daniel J. Frey

Everybody

The depth of hate has no bottom.

The truth has a limit for people to believe.

Everybody has fears.

Everybody has hopes.

Everybody has beliefs.

Our fears, hopes, and beliefs we seldom share.

We are mindful that sharing what we say to ourselves out loud is considered being soft.

Weak.

Unworthy.

Why?

Because we believe strength makes right?

Some of us do.

Some of us see the person who does what they want, when they want, how they want as being a leader.

Damn the consequences.

Damn, the lives destroyed.

Damn, what's right.

They got it done.

Everybody wants a hero.

We want to be rescued.

We need someone to come and make it better.

But no existential hero is coming to save us.

The only superhero waiting to make a difference is we, the people.

Our fears can become so great that we're willing to listen and obey any voice.

Those that profit from our fear knows this.

That's why they whisper in our ears the things we want.

Everybody has a problem with the truth.

No one likes to find out they are wrong.

Nobody.

But being wrong is just as natural as being right.

The only thing about being wrong is if and when you find out you're wrong, you do nothing to change it.

That's when you've consciously decided to turn away from life and become a servant of hate.

Everybody feels pain.

Everybody can heal.

Everybody can make their corner of the world better.

We just need to believe that only love can conquer hate.

Peace

Toby aka Daniel J Frey

What Do You See

The woman who doesn’t go when the light turns green.

The man yelling at the sun.

The boy with the angry face.

The girl standing on the corner.

Who do you see?

The woman waiting to vote.

The man with the red hat.

The boy stealing a hoody.

The girl vaping.

Who do you see?

The woman with tears at the clinic.

The man wiping his eyes in the coffee shop.

The boy pushing past you.

The girl who cut herself.

Who do you see?

The woman who is drunk.

The man passed out, his nude ass exposed.

The boy asking why everything costs so much.

The girl spitting in your face.

Who do you see?

We see what we want to see.

All of us.

What we see and how far we can see is up to us and no one else.

Do we see only ourselves?

Or do we see the countless people of humanity all with a story, all with a life, all with a purpose, a meaning.

A better world begins when we open our eyes and see.

Peace

Toby aka Daniel J. Frey

Rocks

Am I talking to a rock?

It used to be said that an individual had rocks for brains.

I propose a whole society can have rocks for brains.

Rocks are immutable.

Immutable means they don't change.

The only thing that can change a rock is time.

The rock is still a rock till the very end.

You can only wear it away, grain by grain, till you can't call it a rock anymore.

Humanity, since the beginning, has built entire societies upon a belief.

The Egyptians believed that if they hid an image of the Pharaoh buried out in the desert and it was not destroyed, they would live forever in paradise with the Gods.

The Romans believed that a wife of a citizen of Rome, a man, was his property. Upon the man's death, his wife was to be put to death if she were still alive.

The Renaissance of enlighten people still believed in witches and didn't know that a woman contributed to the formation of a child.

They believed, as so many still do today some 600 years later, that a woman is an Easy-Bake-Oven.

The man places his dough inside the woman, forming into a being that is the man's property.

It wasn't until the American Civil War that we started to wash our hands before we conducted surgery.

It was legal to kill native people of California well into the 1980s if you wanted their land.

This is all just the tip of the bullshit pile that people have invested their entire lives into.

Am I talking to a rock?

Rocks don't examine if they are wrong.

Rocks don't ask if what they are doing is right.

Rocks don't change because you ask them.

Rocks don't care about your suffering.

Rocks don't vote.

Rocks don't care.

Rocks don't listen.

Rocks aren't alive.

They are solid as a stone.

Once you understand the fundamentals of rocks, you must tell yourself to stop trying.

Stop trying to make rocks something they aren't.

You'll only crash and roar like waves upon the rocks, but the rocks will still be there.

I'm talking to my liberal brothers and sisters.

There's been only one way in this world that has been found to change a rock.

You have to live a good life.

By you living a good, happy, joyful life, you'll demonstrate to the rocks of this world that there is happiness.

There is life.

There is caring.

There is love.

One of those rocks will see and just maybe ask itself, "How come they are happy, and I'm not?"

Let the rocks be and move on.

It's time we get on getting on and move forward to that better tomorrow we who aren't rocks have been waiting for.

Peace

Toby aka Daniel J Frey

Feeling Much

The world is hard.

Soft people get smacked up hard in this world.

I know because of being an empath.

For most of my life, I thought being an empath was a thing of science fiction.

It turns out I didn't read enough.

I've had this problem with this world as far back as I can remember.

It's not as far back as most.

The first twenty years of my life are gone because I died at age seventeen.

I lost my memory.

I lost my family.

I had to relearn my past.

Most, if not all, of it I didn't like.

When you're born soft, the world will gleefully stick you hard.

Cruel father, a mother on the cross, bullies.

Every question struck down, telling you you're retarded.

Stupid.

Being cruel is not only the point but is a strategy for survival.

In a world of limited resources and an ever-changing environment being cruel, selfish, and hateful allows you to survive.

The man living alone needs nothing and nobody.

The American ideal?

I was born soft.

I feel things others don't.

Like a dog tied up in the yard, I can hear danger approaching.

I can smell fear.

I can see self-made ignorance.

I know instantly when you're lying.

Soft people are here for a reason.

We have a duty.

A duty to warn.

A duty to care.

Being hard going through life not caring labels oneself as being a child.

Being soft and going through life caring for others makes you an adult.

In many ways, both our fault and nobody's fault, we have lost those touchstones in our society that allow us to recognize when it's time to transition into adulthood.

To care.

To put the future's well-being and safety ahead of our self-interest.

Soft people are here to remind the children to put away their toys and take on the responsibility of life.

Adults care for the children.

Children care only for themselves.

This world is hard.

Some days I can't really take it.

The cruelty, the despair, the uncaring, like one stone stacked on another, crush me.

Yet I rise.

I have a duty.

A duty to warn.

A duty to care.

Join me.

Peace

DFrey

Bridges

When the road ahead meets a gap, we build a bridge to get to the other side.

That’s what we do, don’t we?

Humanity has never come up against a problem and said, nope, can’t won’t do that.

Yes, many will say let somebody else build the bridge.

That’s true enough.

But when there’s a river to cross, everyone recognizes the need to build a bridge to get to the other side.

Ain’t no mountain high enough.

Ain’t no river wide enough.

Ain’t no valley deep enough.

As the song goes to keep us from getting to where we want to go.

Racism is a gap.

It’s a mountain, a river, a valley keeping humanity from getting to where it wants to go.

Where does humanity want to go?

It wants to get to a world where peace, justice, and love are the rule, not the exception.

Not something that takes every effort we have in our minds and bodies to keep and secure.

Peace, justice, and love needn’t be fought for.

A reason why we are in this constant numbing struggle generation after generation is the gap called racism.

There have been building efforts to get to the promised land.

Generation after generation has sunk foundations, pillars of stone, and steel deep into the river bank.

All in the effort to build that bridge.

To span that expanse.

But we keep coming up short.

The world is ruled by thirds.

It’s a hard, fast rule that every problem and situation can be divided into thirds.

One-third want a solution, one-third don’t care about a solution, and one-third fight any solution.

It has long been recognized by the bridge builders that there’s only one-third of the people actively help build bridges across humanities divides.

In fact, two-thirds of the people are either actively fighting the building of bridges or are doing absolutely nothing.

The worst part is those that are doing nothing.

Letting others do what they won’t do.

If we can get enough of the people who are sitting on their hands to join us, we can finish building that bridge.

How do we do it?

Here’s an honest answer…

I don’t know.

People haven’t listened to the words that Jesus said.

They don’t listen to Dr. King or Gandhi.

They don’t respond to the voices of poverty, the tears of despair and loss.

They don’t respond to the bombs of war, the bullets in our streets, our schools, our homes.

That dark river out there called racism sure has a lot of people afraid.

I’ve been thinking, and you all can tell me I’m nuts.

I’ve been thinking that we have to get up out of our seats and take as many as we can by the hand, by the heart, and lead them step by step to that brotherhood of man.

We all must actively engage our brothers and sisters and take as many as possible to the other side.

We also have to understand that we can’t get everybody.

Waiting on the rocks to grow wings isn’t going to happen.

We can’t wait on the perfect time is too short.

Take your brother and sister by the hand and tell them we are not afraid.

You don’t have to be afraid, either.

Love is calling your name.

Hear it?

Just have to answer and cross that bridge.

It’s for free and only costs you your fear.

Peace

DFrey

Fear

Where does it begin?

Fear of the dark.

Fear of the stranger.

Fear of the parent.

Fear of the barking dog.

Fear of the bright flashing light.

Fear of the bully.

Fear of being embarrassed.

Fear of being caught.

When does fear ripen?

Fear of peers.

Fear of sexual identity.

Fear of society.

Fear of judgment.

Fear of the future.

Fear of the unknown.

We are all at odds with fear our entire life.

We do many things to keep our attention from focusing on our fear.

Drugs, alcohol, sex, career, religion, politics, pets, eating, reading, music, walks, talking…

All human activity is a way of doing something anything that will keep us from thinking about our fear.

Ultimately, what can all these fears be boiled down to?

Death.

As far as we can understand, we are the only life form on the planet that knows it will no longer exist one day.

That’s real.

Everything we ever love will die.

That is why we run.

That is why we run from sunrise to sunrise.

We run to keep ahead of the fear.

We create a whole pantheon of stories we tell about the past, the present, and the future.

These stories we tell ourselves keep us from accepting the reality of death.

This is the evil at the heart of humanity.

This fear.

This fear of death keeps us from doing what is right.

This fear of death keeps us from doing what is just.

This fear of death keeps us from loving each other.

Understanding that death is the final act of living tells us about the importance of life.

Every life, every life is essential.

Every life, including yours and mine, has meaning.

You will not pass through this universe in its current form ever again.

Understanding how precious life is, the life of the individual, means; what it really means requires us to do more.

We can not let people die and let God sort them out.

That’s absurd logic.

This life is all we are guaranteed.

This is why we stand; we speak up, and we fight for what is right.

For justice.

For freedom.

For our human rights.

Fear is the slayer of truth.

Love gives birth to the truth.

I love you all; this is why I’m telling you the truth.

Drop hate be hope.

Peace.

DFrey

Blame

Who is to blame?

Short answer…

We all are.

The act of blame serves three purposes.

One; is to target a thing, a person, with responsibility negatively.

Two, to generate guilt in a thing, a person.

Three, to deflect responsibility.

The blame game is as old as the human race.

Why are there no crops?

Who vandalized my sundial?

Why is the person I love dead?

Somebody did something; consequently, somebody must be to blame.

Who is to blame?

I can’t be to blame, am I?

When was the last time you heard anyone say they were at fault?

On average, Occam’s Razor says no one that you can personally remember.

It’s easier to blame anything else but yourself.

Bandits, crooks, hucksters, flimflam men, liars, despots, dictators, and the sociopath in your friends and family all use blame to stay in power.

Blame is used by governments, religions, social media, and charities the world over.

Someone is to blame!

Blame them!

You’re innocent.

Give me money, give me power, give me your soul.

Trust me.

Just an aside, if anyone ever says to you, trust me, they are immediately untrustworthy.

Trust is earned, not taken.

And that’s at the core of blame.

Blame says that the other person is responsible.

You ultimately are taken off the hook; if someone else is to blame, you don’t have to do anything.

For that kind of relief, allegiances are formed between those who blame others and those who believe they are not responsible.

I’m here to say we are all responsible.

Hunger, poverty, injustice, and fear we are the weavers of darkness.

There is no outside force, no invisible mythical entity darkening the world.

Its people.

Us.

Our brothers and sisters who live in fear of the truth.

That fear we are all equal.

Everything we love will die someday.

This is why it is so important to love one another while we can the best way that we can.

That is why we must stand for justice the best way that we can.

That is why we must feed the hungry.

Help those that are sick.

Be with those that grieve.

This is why we must drop the blame and take responsibility for our life.

No one is to blame, but our failure to do what is right when it is needed.

Doing nothing is not a virtue.

Doing nothing is the tread that holds together the blindfold of fear.

I’m just one voice in a chorus.

I’m asking…

Drop hate be hope.

Peace

DFrey

Boundaries

How far does your influence extend?

What are the boundaries of your control?

Do you even think about it?

Do you think about it a lot?

Do you road rage?

Do you hit your child?

Do you knock on doors handing out political, religious, and social issue fliers?

Do you yell at your neighbor’s dog?

Do you not leave a penny?

Do you march?

Do you write your congressman?

Do you stay in your own backyard and ignore what’s going on over the fence?

Boundaries.

We all have a potential sphere of influence.

Those people whom we know and don’t know are in their own bubbles also.

Some of us are ballsy enough to romp over to our neighbor's yard and burst their bubble.

However, most of us are complacent and allow our neighbors to drown.

We assume their decline; their failure is all there’s.

We had nothing to do with it.

Boundaries.

You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.

There are groups of us who believe we can lead other people to the well of our belief and make them drink the water we’re pouring out of our mouths into there’s.

This is and has been a false narrative given to us by those individuals and societies that have subjugated us, the people.

In other words, you can’t force people to believe like you no matter your moral high or low ground now which you stand.

If you do, you are a little dictator.

A nationalist.

A fascist.

A supremacist.

Believing that everyone is within your boundaries of control.

Your subjects to do with as you please because you are the king of the world.

Boundaries.

There are boundaries we break, but there are also boundaries we don’t break.

We allow poverty to murder our neighbor and their spirit.

We allow injustice to steal truth.

We allow racism to beat us down.

We allow those people who do not have boundaries to make us cowards.

It is difficult to have boundaries when passions are inflamed.

However, there is a difference between seeing a person drowning and either ignoring them or throwing them a book on how to swim.

There is a boundary in between.

It’s called love.

Love understands; Iove attempts to tell us that you can’t always get what you want.

Do no harm, love asks of all of us.

Your boundary ends inside of your head; your influence ends there, also.

We come together as a community, share ideas and plot a course together that best fits all of us.

Taking all reasonable ideas and beliefs into account.

In the history of the world, there has never been a single belief, a single person that has had all the correct answers to life’s problems.

History, in fact, is littered with people and beliefs with poor boundary control.

Truth, justice, freedom, and love have always defeated them.

Always.

Peace

DFrey

Heavy Lift

Some of our brothers and sisters believe that the law is up for debate if it is not explicitly written in the U.S. Constitution.

It's even up to debate whether it applies to you and will you obey it.

This is why there is a job ahead of us all.

There is a heavy lift.

The Constitution has to be amended.

What does amended mean?

It means that our society had grown more complex than when the Constitution was originally written.

In 1787 the Constitution was written by and for white Protestant male land owners.

Period.

However, in their wisdom, the founders put in a contractual clause.

This clause said that as the American Society grows, it will be recognized that this document will be inadequate for the needs of future citizens.

The Constitution can have its prose re-written, added to, and struck if a majority of States see the need.

Many of our conservative citizens believe that the Constitution is the same as their Christian Bible.

It is not.

Understand it is a civil document stating the rights and protections of its citizens and how they are to be governed by their elected officials.

It is not a religion.

It is not.

Consequently, the irony is that too many of our conservative brothers and sisters believe that if it ain't written in the Constitution, that right doesn't exist.

They are like the character George Costanza on Seinfeld.

When his boss fires him for having sex with his secretary, George laments, "If I had known, if it had been written down, I would never have done it."

This is the Conservative mindset; you have to have the law explicitly written down in one place and in one place only the Constitution.

Laws created by local governments, States, and at the Federal level are all up for debate.

Again the debate being will I obey that law.

Suppose there is no sentence in the Constitution saying there is a right to privacy between a woman and her doctor. 

In that case, that right doesn't exist in their belief.

No amount of legislation will convince them.

No amount of protest.

It must be explicitly written in the sacred document ordained by Jesus Christ.

Yes, Conservatives believe that the Constitution was dictated by Jesus Christ to Thomas Jefferson, who wrote the Constitution…

Yes...

Jefferson "did not write" the Constitution; he wrote the Declaration of Independence.

People with a belief have no room for facts.

Also, Jefferson was not a Christian; he was a Diest.

A Diest is a person who believes in logic over mythology.

Our heavy lift, if we can get the resolve together to do so, is to convince a people who believe in a mythology over reason.

It is not going to be easy.

Nothing good ever is.

Some people have to be dragged into the light for their own good.

I can tell you from personal experience that this is true.

Just like a Lifeguard… 

We who understand and believe in the greater good, for justice for all, are being called to come to the rescue of our brothers and sisters.

Our brothers and sisters are drowning under the weight of myth.

A myth that keeps them spiritually oppressed.

A myth that doesn't recognize their economic and social sacrifice.

A myth that forces them into servitude that cares nothing for their welfare.

A myth that keeps the power in the hands of the few, not the many.

This is the good fight.

This is the good work.

This is why you and I are here and now in this place.

Peace.

DFrey aka Toby