KEEP THE OLD WARM

Our inner fight, our inner fighter, our fire within, is juxtaposed by pleasure.

The modern world brings the peaks of pleasure, now instantly at our fingertips.

It is the the quantity, potency, and availability of pleasure that tames the fighter, eliminates the fight, and douses the fire.

When we are comfortable, tempted by immediate, diverse, novel, and powerful pleasure, why fight? Why tough the road of the fighter to build our dreams in the distant future? Why put in the work to harness our inner fire when we can enjoy everything our world has to offer, right now?

In the dystopian novel Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (as well as his follow up work Brave New World Revisited written 26 years later), the world controllers implement a world government of total, complete, and yet indirect control in every facet of society down to how people are born. The ace up their sleeve if anything goes wrong in this “perfect” world is a super drug called soma. When any person feels any inkling of anxiety, depression, worry, fear, any negative feeling whatsoever, they can take a dirt cheap drug that has all the powerful effects of the hard drugs we have today, with no side effects whatsoever. No hangover, no anxiety afterwards, just perfect and complete pleasure and wake up feeling just as perfect. Take the pill, and all our worries disappear.

This drug thus keeps all citizens of the world compliant as a last resort. If things go wrong – socially, politically, psychologically, authorities simply give those who are upset free soma. They take it, and all is forgotten. The status quo is therefore impenetrable with soma.

Today, we have initial versions of soma: phones, social media, addictive foods, drugs, media, alcohol, television, pharmaceuticals, hollywood, gossip, parties parties parties, etc.

All these things are in place and encouraged in society for one single purpose; to keep us docile. To take the fight away from our hearts, to keep our fighters from emerging, to douse our inner fire of the soul.

They are not in place to help. They are in place to distract, entertain, and delay our inner fights for our dreams.

These things are not evil in moderation, they are quite enjoyable and can be helpful. We must not do away with them. But in excess, they are poison. Not only to the mind and body, but to our purposes, our dreams, our inner resilience and desire to fight for what we hear calling from within.

With our modern day soma, our fight is over before it begins, our fighter is sedated and pleased, our fire is doused and kept from burning.

If we want the lives we dream of, if we want to achieve the impossible, if we want to live what the music of our souls inspire and see those visions brought into being, we must beware of soma; the pleasure always available, the omnipresent temptation to escape, always whispering, convincing us to give up the fight and to be pleased now. Soooomaaaa.

Do we choose the fight? Or do we choose pleasure?

Do we forsake soma, and embrace the hard road to our dreams?

Are we fighters? Or slaves?

Is there a spirit of fire burning hot? Or are we heavy with pleasure addiction?

Without a fight, there is no fighter. Without a fighter, there is no fire.

With inner fire, we are fighters. As fighters, we fight.