“Like a schizophrenic,“ he went on to say, “had the right hand of man lost touch with the left one, when the right began to pay homage to those individuals whose central focus in life revolved entirely around the self and no one else. Having created a new god on Mt. Olympus, that is, within the psyche of man, did the right proceed to amass for its self, so much of the power ’n’ wealth of the world, it left an incredibly huge vacuum or black hole from which then arose the god of the left, or worship of the collective—to the complete denigration of the individual. In the rush to serve these gods, did the hands of men fabricate two titans, one to the east, the other to the west, to rule over themselves. In place of the one Lord Who had ruled over the hearts ’n’ minds of men since time immemorial, now stood the images of an old business tycoon and his nemesis, the bear. Since the world could ill afford to support one titan, much less two, there arose such a clamor between the two of them, for the souls of men, that many lives were needlessly lost in the struggle to find a military solution to the psychological problems of mankind—this schizophrenic split in man’s collective psyche.“

“To find healing for the terrible rift that divides us,“ proclaimed Jinny, “you need only turn to me. Embrace me as of old, and I will show you the way to true happiness. Refuse me, and I will unleash upon you the madness that engulfed your fathers.“

And so did all three disappear, leaving me alone atop my perch, to drift about aimlessly in a sea of conflicting emotions.

As I turned to face the music of my own dreams, I slipped, unnoticed, through the gate she had provided at her expense. Inside, I ran smack dab into an incredibly massive and seemingly impenetrable stone wall, the likes of which I had never seen before. Standing back for a moment, to take in the full measure of the barrier I had constructed between my self and my imagination, with the help of all those who had ever passed this way, I caught sight of an invisible opening in the wall, a black hole through which only the undaunted passed. Overcoming my dismay over the shadow of a noose that hung on the wall above the opening, just beyond my reach, I stepped off into the black hole where I encountered the spirits of what had, long ago, been condemned by the Church of the Living Dead and strangled to death by the Wraiths of the State. As the spirits swarmed and slithered about me like venomous snakes, I knew the lies, which enveloped the truth of these spirits in such vile forms, could do me no harm. Allowed to pass unharmed, was I greeted by the Great Necromancer, himself, the one whom men have called the Adversary ever since he tricked them out of Paradise. While the Trickster stood there smiling at me with the conceited assurance that the likes of me would never see through the magic of an erect phallus, I watched as his form slowly gave way to the very pillar of my being, on top of which sat a pearl, the size of a softball. Immediately, I recognized it as the Pearl of Great Price, a symbol of the individual which, at birth, God had ordained me to become. And I saw it as the only way in which I could ever hope to withstand the lure of the Trickster, to act instinctively. Lacking any awareness of this individual, I lost sight of the apparition, as it slowly gave way to the illuminating light of a fire that burned brighter and brighter, the closer I got.

Besides, the lifers razzed him mercilessly. “You’ll be back,“ they said
mockingly, “to ship over.“

“F___ you!“ He barked back. “Just because you couldn’t make it on the outside doesn’t mean I can’t—ya low-life motherf___ers.“

He would never ship over, and they knew that. They were jealous of him—that he was an individual with an agenda of his own. For they would never see the likes of him again.

While I was happy for him, I felt sad at the same time, for his departure certainly left a big hole in my life. I was hurt, even more, when in his hurriedness to get off the ship, he left without saying a word to me. For I never heard from him again.

“Only then, will we realize that our future lies not out there in our own self-centered materialism, but on the other side of the iron curtain within the collective unconsciousness of our beings. Only then, will we see the iron curtain as the veil of matter, which has so blurred our vision—our materialism as the wall, which has so divided us. Only then, will we take the next great step and cross the threshold to embrace our humanity, a life given to us for the sake of each other, as exemplified in simple living and the right use of the material goods of this world.“

“I see,“ I muttered as he paused for a moment to get some assurance from me that I understood what he had just shared with me.

“What we sorely need,“ he continued to preach from his soapbox up on the bridge, “is an amalgam of communism and capitalism around the issue of materialism, a single coin that combines the best of all three. But I’m afraid that what we’ll get is the appearance of a winner and a loser. In that case, we’ll all lose. And though communism may recede into the shadows of our collective imaginations, like a tyrannosaur, the truth of its ideals will rise again as the disparity between the haves ’n’ the have-nots worsens under capitalism, that other dinosaur which may not pass on until it has devoured everything and transformed this Eden into a living hell.

“So don’t be fooled into believing the real battle’s out there between one delusion and another, for the real war wages on within your body, even now as I speak. It’s there, the final outcome will be decided. The enemy’s not out there, he’s in here, for we are our own worst enemy.“

“It appears they suffer some grand delusion that we are the good guys who’re going to save the rest of the world from bad guys, like the Communists. They misled me, for awhile, with this white lie of theirs, until I discovered they were only protecting their delusion—some fantasy called the American dream which, for many throughout the world, has become a nightmare.

“For the real fight’s not out there, over in Vietnam, it’s in here, within ourselves. It’s the struggle with our own delusions, the lies we live by, especially the one which has us so convinced that what we need is more of what’s out there in Nature.“

“I don’t understand,“ I interjected.

“Since time immemorial,“ he went on, “have we fallen for this lie, that our future lies hidden within our material progress. And yet, in our pursuit of this delusion, we’ve only succeeded in impoverishing the earth and its people. Thus have we helped to create a bipolar world, consisting of the haves ’n’ the have-nots, who have further polarized themselves over the issue of materialism by squaring off on either side of an iron curtain into two heavily armed, ideologically opposed camps or isms.

“As I chipped away at all the hype ’n’ hysteria surrounding communism, I began to see it as a rather ambitious attempt by the have-nots to right the wrongs of capitalism, which has only succeeded in globally impoverishing the many for the benefit of a few. However, in their struggle to purge from the masses the sins of capitalism, that is, its rugged individualism, greed and failed trickle-down economics, the communists have only succeeded in creating a totalitarian nightmare instead of a utopia. As this nightmare invaded the collective consciousness of the world, it struck fear into the heart of the American dreamer and created mass hysteria. For this Red scare threatened to take everything away from the American dreamer in order to redistribute the wealth, he’d misappropriated in the first place, more equitably amongst its rightful inheritants, the have-nots of the world.

“That’s when I saw the nightmare and the dream as two sides of the same coin, for both of them have resorted, in the past, to propaganda, economic ideology and guns to force their inhumane ways of life on the rest of us, the guilty bystanders caught up in this Mexican standoff. Whether we choose heads or tails, we lose—the many are impoverished for the benefit of a few—for a single coin was given to us long ago to benefit not only the individual but also the collective.

“I know the feeling,” I interjected.

“From the first day of my enlistment,” he rejoined, “they drummed the idea into my head that I had joined this outfit for one reason only: to fight for my country. But they lied to me, for I ended up spending four long years fightin’ to save my ass from them.

“Don’t believe a word of what the lyin’ vultures say, for they prey upon human flesh with talons made of lies. Resist the temptation to become one of them. And whatever you do, don’t let ‘em rob you of the most precious gift you have, your humanity, for the wraiths’ll claw away at it until all that remains is the shadow of what was once you.”

“What d’ya mean?” I asked outta the very real fear that such a thing could happen to me.

“For four long years,” he went on to say, “they tried to convince me this way of life is a necessary evil. They almost succeeded until I went to Vietnam, supposedly to stop the spread of communism, and saw the truth for myself.

“It appears they suffer some grand delusion that we are the good guys who’re going to save the rest of the world from bad guys, like the Communists. They misled me, for awhile, with this white lie of theirs, until I discovered they were only protecting their delusion—some fantasy called the American dream which, for many throughout the world, has become a nightmare.

“For the real fight’s not out there, over in Vietnam, it’s in here, within ourselves. It’s the struggle with our own delusions, the lies we live by, especially the one which has us so convinced that what we need is more of what’s out there in Nature.”

“I don’t understand,” I interjected. “Since time immemorial,” he went on, “have we fallen for this lie, that our future lies hidden within our material progress. And yet, in our pursuit of this delusion, we’ve only succeeded in impoverishing the earth and its people. Thus have we helped to create a bipolar world, consisting of the haves ‘n’ the have-nots, who have further polarized themselves over the issue of materialism by squaring off on either side of an iron curtain into two heavily armed, ideologically opposed camps or isms.

“As I chipped away at all the hype ‘n’ hysteria surrounding communism, I began to see it as a rather ambitious attempt by the have-nots to right the wrongs of capitalism, which has only succeeded in globally impoverishing the many for the benefit of a few. However, in their struggle to purge from the masses the sins of capitalism, that is, its rugged individualism, greed and failed trickle-down economics, the communists’ve only succeeded in creating a totalitarian nightmare instead of a utopia. As this nightmare invaded the collective consciousness of the world, it struck fear into the heart of the American dreamer and created mass hysteria. For this Red scare threatened to take everything away from the American dreamer in order to redistribute the wealth, he’d misappropriated in the first place, more equitably amongst its rightful inheritants, the have-nots of the world.

“That’s when I saw the nightmare and the dream as two sides of the same coin, for both of them have resorted, in the past, to propaganda, economic ideology and guns to force their inhumane ways of life on the rest of us, the guilty bystanders caught up in this Mexican standoff. Whether we choose heads or tails, we lose—the many are impoverished for the benefit of a few—for a single coin was given to us long ago to benefit not only the individual but also the collective.

“Only when the individual and the collective realize their indebtedness to each other will we tear down the iron curtain that so divides our collective psyche. As the collective must put everything it possesses into the development of the individual, so must the individual give back to the collective all it has given him. Only then, will we truly be free.

“Only then, will we realize that our future lies not out there in our own self-centered materialism, but on the other side of the iron curtain within the collective unconsciousness of our beings. Only then, will we see the iron curtain as the veil of matter, which has so blurred our vision—our materialism as the wall, which has so divided us. Only then, will we take the next great step and cross the threshold to embrace our humanity, a life given to us for the sake of each other, as exemplified in simple living and the right use of the material goods of this world.”

“I see,” I muttered as he paused for a moment to get some assurance from me that I had understood what he had just shared with me.

“What we sorely need,” he continued to preach from his soapbox up on the bridge, “is an amalgam of communism ‘n’ capitalism around the issue of materialism, a single coin that combines the best of all three. But I’m afraid that what we’ll get is the appearance of a winner and a loser. In that case, we’ll all lose. And though communism may recede into the shadows of our collective imaginations, like a tyrannosaur, the truth of its ideals will rise again as the disparity between the haves ‘n’ the have-nots worsens under capitalism, that other dinosaur which may not pass on until it has devoured everything and transformed this Eden into a living hell.

“So don’t be fooled into believing the real battle’s out there tween one delusion and another, for the real war wages on within your body, even now as I speak. It’s there, the final outcome’ll be decided. The enemy’s not out there, he’s in here, for we’re our own worst enemy.”