On Ripping and Tearing

The only thing they fear is you.

Isaiah Evanson

, the Nonprophet, once quoted this to me. It’s from the film Act of Valor.

Remember, you have warrior's blood in your veins. The code that made your father who he was is the same code that'll make you a man he would admire, respect. Put your pain in a box. Lock it down. Like those people in the paintings your father liked, we are men made up of boxes, chambers of loss and triumph. Of hurt and hope and love. No one is stronger or more dangerous than a man who can harness his emotions. His past. Use it as fuel, as ammunition. As ink to write the most important letter of your life.

This was the line that stuck with me:

No one is stronger or more dangerous than a man who can harness his emotions.

We were discussing if it was better to be elite, or dangerous. We decided on the latter.

I’m glad the internet never forgets because I could make like a historian and find the exact conversation we had, nearly seven years ago. I’d never forgotten it, and have thought much on the matter since. For whatever reason, the time has come to share those ideas more widely. I’m sure they are not new, but they are mine.

Anger, rage, and hate are terribly underrated and undervalued these days. The reason is because the elites, and those that serve them, cannot suffer the truly dangerous. They can’t handle them, can’t contain them, and spend their lives looking over their shoulders for them. All the money, all the stuff, all the power they accumulate can buy enough time for the elites to die quietly in their beds.

But at the end of the day, they die a coward’s death all the same.

Our culture shames such emotions as anger, rage, and hate as negative, hurtful, or problematic. Their power can certainly be used for evil, as any cursory review of the human story shows, but what is lost today is their truer, holier potential. What I’m ultimately talking about is the fuel that powers one of the most powerful words in the English language:

No.

Let me be very specific here. The world is the world and will continue in its tragically glorious way until the end of time. All of us, to the letter, are caught in the churn of time. There is little we can do for the world, but there is a great deal we can do for our own selves and if we’re lucky, rub some of it off on others in our life. Now, some of you may object. “But Phisto, we have to act! Time is short! How is saying “No” dangerous at all? The revolution is past due!”

You underestimate the power of negation, friend. Read on.

Anyone with a mild sense of self-awareness will intimately know there is something wrong, especially since the turn of the millennium. Why, just thinking the other day I came up with an impressive list, just off the top of my head. Since graduating high school in 2000 I’ve been witness to:

9/11, the Afghanistan War, the Iraq War, the 2008 financial crisis, the Bush, Obama, Trump, and Biden administrations, Edward Snowden’s revelations, Julian Assange’s nigh martyrdom, the COVID “pandemic,” the growth of staggering wealth inequality, the rise of the multipolar world, the Woke, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and so on.

What is it all moving to? Where will it all go? I have no idea. Folks like you and me, we live or we die. Doesn’t really matter to the greater perspective. But what I do know is I can control my own reaction to these things, my own place in the churn of time, and that the power of negation is one of my greatest tools. This is what anger, rage, and hate fuels.

Over the years I have focused deeply on the worst, most unpleasant parts of my personality. Why? To harness and control them. In order to tell others no, I must tell myself first. You see, uncontrolled hate, rage, and anger fuel much of what’s wrong with our reality. Folks lash out at the whims of their emotions, manipulated and controlled by the elites through propaganda. We all know the most basic version of this: late night TV commercials.

Call now to buy this must have product you didn’t know you’d die without until you saw this ad! For six easy payments of $66, fix everything that’s ever been wrong with your soul until we come up with the next must-have solution to problems you didn’t know were there. Aren’t you glad we’re looking out for you, poor helpless sheeple?

I mean, c’mon. That’s basically every ad ever, isn’t it? Every call to war? Every call to support proxy war? Whatever other bullshit the elites decide to throw in your face? If you don’t feel anger, rage, and hate at this stuff are you even alive? Are you even awake? Are you paying attention at all?

Your soul is in the balance. Want a way out? Learn to harness your negativity, because it’s the best warning you can possibly have against every threat that dare scratches your essence.

How is this done? By pausing and looking inward when the alarm goes off. Why am I angry? Why do I hate this? Why is rage clouding the edge of my vision? What is it warning me against, and what should I do instead? Answer these questions, learn to answer them quickly in the real time of life, and you will do an amazing thing. You will respond instead of react.

Remember what I said at the start? No one is stronger or more dangerous than a man who can harness his emotions. Ladies, let’s be real, this goes for you too. This is a universal of the human condition. Harness your power, and see your strength manifest.

How should it manifest? By saying no.

The elites want your compliance. Refuse to give it to them. Make it expensive as hell to get it from you. Encourage others to do the same. Resist. When the whole world tells you to move, plant yourself like a tree and say the words:

No, you move.

How this looks will be as unique as every person on this planet. For me, it is a quiet life in a rural town teaching kids how to think better. I have the simplest, most austere life I can physically and spiritually manage. I have no social media. I engage in national politics and culture war like one watches the weather: looking for storms. I write, I create, I spend time with my loved ones. I don’t use my smart phone for anything more than reading and communicating with people I actually know in real life or via Substack (and even the latter is a very small group).

Would more of us do this. Imagine the trouble it would cause for the elites who parasitically sustain on our efforts. Pull back. Say no. Retreat to a simpler, more ancient-like life. Erase yourself from their narrative.

Make them work for it. Make them work for it so hard it breaks them, like waves against a cliff.

In other words?

Fuck ‘em.

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Thanks for reading!

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