The Cost of Acceptance
A historical and philosophical note on the dangers of accepting what we know is wrong
Stuck in a Illusion
The world seemed so small when I was a kid. I would sneak out of lunch to go to the library and check out book after book to find something bigger. Words would jump and grow towards me and I would imagine the grandest of things. When I first began to write I would sit at a small wooden table and open my classic black and white camouflage journal and write fantasy stories trying to get away from the world I was in. I would write of Kings and Queens, explorers, and space-bound characters. I would leave Earth to create a world that I could control and change, unlike the world I saw as a child.
But what I never told anyone during that time I was seeing something else, I had a neuropsychological condition called Alice in Wonderland Syndrome. It granted me the disturbing gift to see objects, people, things in a distorted perspective. Things would grow and shift, time would slow and speed up, people would talk fast and very slow. I was a quiet kid who observed everything around me. I could feel the rush and knew when it came and went. It felt surreal and sometimes it still happens. At the time I didn't know what it was. For many years there was scant information on it online and by the time I looked into it as an adult, there were only a few stories online from those that had it.
Research now tells us there are many ways the condition can come about, but one that stood out to me was described as: "abnormal amounts of electrical activity resulting in abnormal blood flow in the parts of the brain that process visual perception and texture". I always had a deep visual memory bank and would daydream so much in class teachers would call on me just to bring me back to reality. But even when I would be in class seeing strange things like my pencil growing in size at every bubble I filled indiscriminately in on a chemistry test that I knew I was going to fail (when in doubt, circle B kids!). I never spoke of it. I already felt isolated, like an outsider in my own skin. In those moments I would had rather have been accepted by my peers for who I looked like on the outside, then try to get them to accept me for what I was on the inside.
We Seek Peace through Concessions
We all crave acceptance. It is a neurobiological safety trigger. It calms our minds in a warm fuzzy sense of security about the world around us. But (In America especially) we take great pride in being independent. We have free will. We have choices. We accept only what we want to take and tend to discard what is dangerous to our sense of self.
Throughout history, many have bargained with the devil in an attempt to accept painful truths that have been too hard to bear. In the darkness, truth is hidden and obfuscated. The dangerous ideas we fear hold a momentum of spectacle over our collective heads. Schools never teach us the rough edges of human nature and the slippery path towards accepting the unacceptable.
During the slave trade, there were many evil actions taken, and a lot of hand waving and acceptance happening to keep the evil practice afloat. One of those is the Merchant Princes the European Colonial powers crowned across the Gold Coast with the raping and spilling of seed. In an afterthought, the rapist, pillaging, slave-trading merchants on European boats would work with corrupt local leaders to control the influx of slaves. But as time passed and Africans were being stolen from their homes or the spoils of tribal warfare many European men raped and developed relations with the local women. A new wave of mixed race—commonly referred to as Mulatto's (mixed)—children were emerging.
Some Europeans pretended the children didn't exist and kept them as slaves sent to the hot antebellum sun in the Southern American colonies to pick cotton, and more frequently to the Brazilian hellscape to enrich the Spanish / Portuguese Empires. But others, in some twisted and sadistic way, believed there was another route for the new and growing population. Some European men took the children from their African mothers and boarded them on ships to Europe and taught them Latin and Roman history. Gave them maps of the world and a belly full of the finest European food. They gave the Mulatto a false sense of superiority. So much so, that when they were of age they did what all European Kings would do when they passed the torch on, gave their sons the keys to the empire.
Many of those boys turned men would return to the Gold Coast of Africa. Not as intelligent men with the word of Martin Luther and the works of Socrates to lead their people to freedom (That happened too, but maybe 1 out of 1,000) but to be intermediaries between their African family and their European family to profit exclusively from the sale of their own flesh and blood. And as time passed the social capital of European high society was used by mulattos to continue on to hurt those African societies. Whiteness was for sale in the Mulatto mind and they were willing to pay the highest bid.
"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference." - Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five
Wisdom isn't knowledge, but to know the thin line between right and wrong under the most difficult and seductive scenarios. What profits a man who gains the world but loses his soul?
The spectacle of moral superiority that has gripped the internet is a great example of knowledge substituting sustainable ideas that being the bigger man is the weaker path. Acceptance comes in many forms, and to be defiant in the face of seductive lies is the foundation of the discipline.
When I was 18 working for minimum wage at a movie theatre one day while I was sweeping the floors I saw a few older men with suits walk with my manager to the manager's office. After a few minutes, the door swung open and the suits walked out, leaving my manager in the office alone. The next day I heard the news he was being fired, and a new manager was coming in. This new guy was rough, drank on the job, belittled employees, slept with the staff, and was generally a dick to anyone that dared question his knowledge of the movie industry. I dared to question his knowledge of the movie industry. I also dared to question his morality for making someone on staff cry in the middle of work.
Sometimes things are easy to ignore as they don't happen to you because you know no one would dare come at you like that. Until they do. I walked out on that job and never looked back. I took it as a lesson for what I would never do as a boss and employer. I was young, unafraid, had no responsibilities or worry of consequences for my actions. Most people do not have those luxuries. The comfort of acceptance will keep you struggling because of the intractable fear of the unknown weights heavy on the hearts of men.
To win is to be conscious and active in work to live leading with love and not driving down others with the pain of the past.
Thanks for reading, see you next week ✌🏽
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Interesting read this! “Schools never teach us the rough edges of human nature and the slippery path towards accepting the unacceptable.” Preach brother! This point is spot on but also, we live in a society where morals and standards are in deficit. It’s getting increasingly harder to find pillars of morality. It’s about parents instilling spiritual and moral principles from the word go otherwise as the old adage goes, if you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything, including accepting the unacceptable.