A warm hello to the beautiful ladies (and gentlemen) of Ladies of Hive.
I find myself writing this post, despite my best efforts to take a much needed break and my efforts to stay offline to do a hard reboot.
To fill you in on my personal journey to find a peaceful, forever home (for the next while anyway), I've arrived at an urban farm for the next couple of weeks only yesterday. I do love to be on the go and travel. Even packing is fun, to me, and it only took me around half an hour after the massive shed.
A tiny bit of stuff now put into a tiny bit of storage to make travel even lighter.
And all I can say is, although it's tiring physically (at my age but mostly with my current health status), it's been incredible to let so much go and open up to the possibilities and adventure at long last.
There are compromises, of course. To be shared later because I aim to keep this one brief and not write a gazillion words like I usually do. I'm working on editing myself. Although never censoring myself again.
Which is mostly why I'm writing for this Ladies of Hive prompt this week.
It's yet another great topic and one I feel drawn to respond to.
Again.
Do you have a personal guiding principle (or a mantra) by which you live? If you do, what is it and how is it impacting your life so far?
I have a few, but I think the one that has really impacted the world around me the most, and myself and my own life by walking it, is to "Fight the Good Fight":
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
Attributed to Edmund Burke, including by John F Kennedy in a speech in 1961. Burke didn’t say it, and its earliest form was by John Stuart Mill, who said in 1867: “Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.” Thanks to Andrew Marshall.Original Source
And my own addition: "avoidance is just perpetuation spelled with different letters".
Or something like this anyway.
I commented with this on Fakebook some years ago and most people avoided it.
Of course 😊
A few things about choosing to take relevant action against evil
1.
I don't think I'm better than anybody else.
I know I'm not, in fact, because I've made some really awful choices and ended up dong some really awful things in my time. Always because I was either not sober. Or afraid. Which are possibly the same thing.
So stepping up to take action and fight the "good" fight (as my dad used to call it when he encouraged us to do the "right" thing) has always puzzled me.
"Who gets to judge who is 'wrong' anyway?" I wondered for many years.
After talking to some deeply spiritual people, who were actively practicing for many years, I finally understood this. And only some years after repeatedly questioning them...
when a situation unfolded and I was forced to "walk" the walk.
Then I "got it" in full!
I can't tell you how it "works". You'd have to put it into action to "get it" as well.
The question I kept trying to clarify for all those years was:
When should you fight and when should you walk away to keep the peace?
You'd think this would be simpler to answer than it was.
The guidance
A "good" fight is to take action in defense.
Only in defense.
In defense of those who are being hurt. And in defense of Truth.
A person is bound spiritually to do this, if they claim to be walking any kind of spiritual path.
Or if they, contradictory though it seems, want to live a peaceful life.
There is, I've been told repeatedly, only one real law of nature. That is the law of "Truth".
And if it's broken there will be consequences, as this natural law realigns things to the correct order.
I'm not big on religion, or even what most people call "spirituality", these days. Here I speak of the "Love and Light" brigade, who use their "spirituality" to pretty much bypass any situation that's too awkward or uncomfortable for them to deal with.
Not much spiritual growth or learning there.
You may as well chug alcohol to avoid reality.
The way, of "the good fight" (from those that know these things far more deeply), is to take action to defend oneself, or those who are being harmed (the definition of "evil" being the intent to do harm, right?), but to let go (because we are only human and, as such, are deeply fallible) and not try to manipulate the outcome.
I mean... obviously Truth wouldn't be served if any outcome was manipulated anyway, right?
So no. I don't get to decide who is "right" or who is "wrong".
But I am bound to take action against intentional harm towards myself, or other people or creatures.
If I want to live a peaceful life.
2.
It's easy to do the "right" thing in some circumstances
I've leaped out of a moving car to stop some youths beating a dog. And I've ended up being targeted by another bunch of youths on a tube, getting home in London, because I chose to stand up and tell them to lay off bothering a young woman while the rest of the car sat in silence.
These were no brainers after being raised by the parents I was raised by. Both of whom did their best to help where they could.
There were many "good" fights, however, that I chose to ignore.
Even (if not especially) when they affected people close to me. I'm no hero, or any anything special and unique. I not only know this but intentionally remind myself, to keep my feet on the ground if things are going well.
I was also trained, insidiously, to allow evil to prevail...
sometimes in my own home, family and community.
"It's none of my business"
You know this one well, I suspect.
We all do it. We've all been led to believe it's the "right" and "polite" way to walk in the world. Probably mostly by a traumatized generation that didn't know how to address things themselves after wars.
"Willful ignorance is perpetuation in another form".
I think that was it.
Or something like that.
My own journey took me to study why we do this.
How a community or society can know that something is happening, that people are being hurt or crimes are being committed, and do nothing.
I went on to research the psychology of this in my attempts to understand how good people, who I knew were caring, could choose to not step up and stop someone being hurt.
My research took me back to the Holocaust and how it was allowed to happen globally, under the world's nose, despite ongoing reports of thousands of people being murdered. And, it seems, the crime was so heinous that humanity was unable to believe it was real.
I come from an Apartheid South Africa and I know it took years for the world to say "stop!", here in my own country as well.
Probably for the same reason.
But when they did, by instituting sanctions and making the horrors of Apartheid public... things finally changed.
If they had chosen not to?
Well. We all know full well that things don't change unless people are motivated to change them.
So yes, this was me as well.
Being "polite". It was "none of my business". The fear of "what if I'm wrong?"
All of these things.
This is what allows the voices of victims to go entirely unheard. This is what allows predators to, pretty much, get away with their behaviour for years. Or permanently. This is what destroys lives. And ends lives.
I also tried to "not rock the boat" for most of my life. It's heavy programming and I have no judgement for anyone who is still in this awfully fearful place. I didn't rock the boat so much, that I allowed people I cared about deeply to get hurt at times.
One of them my own child.
And always myself, by the way.
Always myself.
I was this scared person, until life drove me to speak up. Until life drove me to reconsider most of what I had been taught by my family and community. And to decide what my own principles were and how I wanted to walk in the world personally.
It was when I took the time to do this, that I realised avoiding conflict and ignoring things wasn't respect or etiquette. It was fear. It's always fear that stops us from being the people we truly are and from living the lives we truly desire.
And here's what happened when I spoke up and took action to stop people hurting other people intentionally.
Although it was a rough journey and I did lose a great deal to fight that "good" fight...
over time, the world adjusted. Circumstances changed. People changed.
And I changed.
Yes, I was penalized for breaking polite society's "rules".
I was penalized socially, safety wise and financially.
But I can share this...
when you're finally in a place where you are honestly not bothered by being ostracized, threatened or "poor"...
you become unf*ckable with.
And... you are "liberated" in full.
I have less than $80 dollars (now because I bought my son a new video game today) in my bank account at the moment. Some days I've had zero, until the next bit came in, and I was still happy and at peace.
I have nowhere to live after these two weeks. Yet!
I have lost, literally, hundreds of very good contacts in a massive variety of professional arenas. (I was once a very social and busy bee)
I have no private medical care in a country with a medical system that is so overwhelmed you will die waiting your turn.
With a chronic lung condition during some weird virus outbreak that directly attacks the lungs.
Traveling without a car and with no business coming in due to a sterling smear campaign in an attempt to discredit me. (Slowly changing because I've ignored it and continued to walk my truth)
But still with almost nobody to reach out to, if the sh!t hits the fan.
Yet I've never felt more "free", at peace and joyful in all my life.
How is this possible?
I lost my fear by walking this one principle in full. Instead of only when it wasn't too frightening to fight the "good" fight.
This is the gift I received by doing this. It may not be in the form I was hoping for. Or even what I thought I was fighting for. But now, looking back at all my endless "seeking", I realise it was always freedom I was searching for.
I think I may have gotten my wish. And I'm starting to finally believe that I've gained far, far more than I lost. Perhaps this is the nature of things when you walk in Love instead of in fear.
For Truth.
But I'm not an expert.
It seems, however, the real experts were right.
You can't change anything by avoiding it.
I think I'll just change it to this. 👆
Because what I wanted to share has already been said far better.
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
I think know we want change.
I share this with you not because I think I'm better than anybody else.
I share this with you because this is, most definitely, a part of "The Good Fight".
In Love ❤️
Hardened Dreamer
Mother
Warrior
Determined Dancer
and Stargazer
still...
Beyond fear is freedom
And there is nothing to be afraid of.
To Life, with Love... and always for Truth!
Nicky Dee
and Photo by Thomas Stephan on Unsplash