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

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

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

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