Listen up, tadpole: Follow the Golden Rule — treat others as you’d like to be treated. Listen carefully, watch and learn, speak little. Do good immediately; save the bad for as long as possible. Be kind, be fair, leave the judgement for judges. Make friends with the friendly; follow those who show you genuine enthusiasm for love and affection. You’ll do well to avoid/ignore the rest; there’s no need to think of them, correct them, or worse yet, hate them. Fear begets a stunted, rotten tree. Treat animals like the people they are. Don’t eat people. Don’t kill your friend. This will only cause anguish and heartbreak for those you love.
Dear ignorant coward: Read often, question more. Teachers will teach you Lincoln abolished slavery. Read the 13th Amendment; spoiler alert: “Slavery shall not exist, except as punishment for a crime.” abolish v. officially put an end to a system, law, or custom – ORIGIN Latin abolere ‘destroy.’ Destruction, “put an end to,” has no exceptions. This won’t be the first time teachers mislead you when teaching. Careful using the word “lie” around liars; might achieve more diplomatic dialogue using words like “mislead, misspoke, mistake,” so many misses.
Authority gets touchy when you denigrate authority. denigrate v. criticize someone or something unfairly (key word — unfairly). ORIGIN Latin denigrare ‘make dark.’ If a thing is already dark when you find it, are you then unfair, or making dark, by shining a light? No; criticize darkness to your heart’s content, especially in a “free” society which considers you chattel. slave n. 1. a person who is the legal property of another and forced to obey them. Not all low blows are unfair, especially during combat with bullies and sadists. Stand up to them at all cost; like cockroaches, they scatter when the light shines. This little light of mine … Once again, don’t kill your friend; he is not that bad.
To the venerable chrysalis finally finding his voice: Be precise and intentional with your words. Learn their meanings and think deeply on them; they have more power than you now know. Read Thoreau, his night in a cell, and “On Civil Disobedience.” Spoiler alert: he’s a boss. When speaking truth, with good intentions, have no fear. Tyranny can be dominate temporarily, but eventually love wins out, every time. Get to the point. Bullies get tough around passive-aggressive; better to be aggressive-aggressive. Don’t kill your friend; someday you’re going to need a kind ear to talk to.
Hello Darkness, my old friend: Use caution when self-medicating; it’s better than masochism, but it’s only a band-aid fix; figure out how to stay sane without a crutch. Slavers only want their money. Don’t get in the way of that, or embarrass them, and they should leave you alone (key word — should). Don’t work for them; they’re your captor, not your boss. If you work under duress, that’s extortion. Don’t believe their lies about you; they’re not your betters. Don’t get naked for them; they’re not your tormentor — without due process, that’s borderline rape. These tactics aren’t new. Read Gandhi, Solzhenitsyn, Mandela. Extortion, lies, torment, are only tools to demean, humiliate, subjugate, utilized for one goal — avoiding organized revolt. Don’t organize revolt; they’ll squash you like a cockroach. You came in alone and will walk out alone. Last time: don’t kill your friend. If your only two options are to kill yourself, or him, better choose door #1. Spoiler alert: You’ll have more than two options. | SKD
P.S. Oregon truly abolishes slavery in 2022, on paper anyway. In practice? It might take a decade or two — old dogs, new tricks and all that …
Wow. There's a lot to think about here. Good thoughts, things to spend time considering.