The Urban Shaman is honored to re-print this original article that first appeared on Some Total Losers, as was written by Dave Barletta.
Waddup, party people? I’m Dave the Dude, Zen Daoist Grand Shaman of the East (Official title). I’m who regular Dave turns into when he gets really baked and ponders spirituality for too long. Today, we’re gonna talk about one of my favorite things in the world:
The unexplainable mysteries of existence. (I know... not drugs for once... shits cray.)
To wrap up this little spirituality binge I’ve been on for the last three weeks, I wanna talk about some major spiritual experiences I’ve had on my journey, along with how I apply Daoism and Buddhism in my day-to-day life.
Alright so first of all, in my head there’s two different Daves. Here’s them:
“Dave the Dude, Zen Daoist Grand Shaman of the East” <--- That’s me! (I think… it gets hard to tell sometimes)
and
“Dirty Dave, the Demon King”
In my life, I’ve alternatively been one or the other. I kinda feel the need to share that up front; it’ll make more sense later, I promise.
So, let’s start at the beginning. The most logical place to start the story is where the story starts, after all. Ima do my best to keep this from being boring, muh dudes. Try to stay awake, I looked into the future and saw that the end of this essay is some hot fire. Trust me on this one, you don’t wanna miss it.
I was raised Roman Catholic, which is a fancy way of saying my family is no fun. My Mom and Dad didn’t take it all that seriously, but we still went to church on Sunday. My favorite part was sitting there in silence without understanding what was going on at all. (Very kid friendly) Even if my parents weren’t super into religion, they were spiritual. It's just that they met in AA and had a more open-minded concept of spirituality.
Now my parents were pretty cool, but my Mom’s family was extremely religious. It was impossible to see my cousins on that side of the family without hearing a ton of preaching from my aunt and/or my grandmother. My cousins were cool and all, but listening to my aunt talk about how God hated everybody who didn’t attend our church was hella lame. I developed a grudge against the self-righteous proselytizing that defines *some* Christians pretty early ‘cause of it.
The thing that ended up getting me off the Jesus bandwagon happened when I was 9. My Mom slid on some black ice into a guardrail and our minivan rolled down a hill. I just remember hitting the guardrail, then everything went black. Next thing I knew, I was lying on a strange woman’s floor holding a rag to two hemorrhaging head wounds without a clue of how I got them. According to my family, during the time between hitting the guardrail and waking up on that woman’s floor, I was conscious and calm. This sounds a little nuts, but I believe a <Spirit/God/Call It Whatever> moved me because I wasn’t able to. (I also got to ride in a helicopter and puked on a doctor like... five times. If you don't call that a win, you need to rethink your life)
After the accident, we went to church to be all, "Yo, thanks for not killing us and stuff, God. Good lookin' out homie!". After Mass, Mamadukes and I walked up to the pastor to tell him about how I thought God saved me. Dude did his best to aggressively not give a shit. He was all,“That’s nice,” and patted me on the head then moved on to the folks behind us in line. We were products on an assembly line and he had to keep the conveyor belt moving to get his check was all. After that, I was like "I believe in the stuff, homeboy up there doesn't, and somehow he's the one who gets to wear the slick-ass wizard robes? Forget this Church noise. The tunes suck anyway"
In addition to bein' white bread Bible thumpers, my Mom’s side of the family's also hella into science and higher education. I think the plan was to multiply lameness times lameness and make it cool, sorta like how multiplying two negative numbers makes a positive. (Clearly it worked, 'cause like, just look at me.)
I felt like there *had* to be some truth to the whole God thing, 'cause I saw an energy flowing through everything. The problem with that was that the nerd-blood coursing through my veins told me atheists had a point: It doesn't make much sense to believe in something with no proof based on subjective feelings and a 2000-year-old fanfic.
Somethin' I eventually realized was that when people outside the church hear the word “Christian”, they don’t picture the same thing I do. Their minds jump to the Westboro Baptist Church type that're famous for being pricks on national TV, protestin' the funerals of gay soldiers with signs that say “God Hates Fags”, and harassin' women in front of abortion clinics. I didn't wanna get lumped in with that crowd, so I turned in my magic necklace and told Jesus he owed me one eternal forgiveness.
I was still down with JC; I just couldn't stand his crew anymore.
Around 10 or 11, I realized school was for nerds and learning is lame. (slow learner) Then when I was 14, some shit went down that made me be like, "Alright, I guess we're on that fuck-the-world shit then." I started doin' any drug I could get my hands on. My goal in life became causing chaos any way I could. I took whatever I wanted and didn't give shit who needed it. I manipulated everyone I came in contact with to get the things I wanted, and if anyone told me "No" or tried to stop me, I went on the warpath as retaliation. The clinical name for it is "Conduct Disorder" at that age, when I got older they renamed it to "Antisocial Personality Disorder"(Psychopathy/Sociopathy), but I call it "Not giving a fuck". (You want some of this, bitch?)
I straight gave up on God, that was my spirituality. As far as I was concerned, the only god was Dirty Dave and his one commandment was, "Give me money and drugs." The Demon King was born.
When I was sixteen, the courts decided I was too wild for the state of Maryland, so they sent me to live with Mamadukes in Ohio. I spent the first year on the recovery grind in AA. I was hella into it too. I got a sponsor and a homegroup, did 90 meetings in 90 days, and I even started believing in one of those higher power things. Up until this point, I was still claiming to be atheist but part of me refused to accept that thinking.
Deep inside, I felt like even if I couldn’t see it to take a picture, or grab it to put it under a microscope, I still *felt* a spiritual existence in my soul. As a man of science, I can't tell you what I feel is a fact without proof so I didn't go full-on Christ brigade. Instead, I worked out the logic you see in my other essay “Atheism, Agnosticism, and Logic’s Role in Spirituality”, and started riding the fence with Agnosticism. (The shits hella dope 'cause no matter which side is right, I get to say I listened to 'em all along. Hurray for playin' both sides!)
Now from the start, even when I was on my all-out demon shit, I was always pretty sure I could sense a spiritual energy that flows through all things. I suspect that everything is One, and God is everything. The energy I feel is just how “God” is held together. Later on in life, Daoism hit home with me so cleanly ‘cause it perfectly describes how this thing behaves.
Eventually, I decided AA wasn’t my thing and went back to smokin' the doobages. Something about the sober life just wasn’t doing it for me. I didn't go back into all-out war with society though.
Between 18-21 I smoked a lot of pot and got really into like meditation and expansion of the consciousness and stuff. I vaguely remember going back to college for a couple semesters in here, but between the acid, the shrooms, the pot, and the beer it's kinda hard to say. I may have just wandered into a building where Bill Nye was on TV and gotten confused. This is when I made Dave the Dude. Going too all in on the mystical stuff *kinda* led to me having a highly delusional manic episode... or three... okay one was a full psychotic break. (Get off my case, goddamn)
It turns out when you get so manic you lose touch with reality once a year, they diagnose you with something called "Bipolar Disorder 1 w/ psychotic features". (idk... bunch of medical mumbo jumbo) I denied the diagnosis by saying the episodes were spiritual experiences, and I refused to cooperate with treatment. I saw the mental health community as an evil conspiracy to break my mind and turn me into a soulless zombie like everybody else. Oh yeah... in addition to being a nutjob who thought he talks to god, I'm also narcissistic sociopath, so I saw everyone as soulless homunculi. (Smart, spiritual AND modest! Idk how I stayed single)
Looking back, some of the things I came up with in these episodes were glimpses of the truth, but most of it was nonsense. My mind was pulling things in from a thousand different sources all at once and I couldn’t differentiate between the truth and lies, or grab the right words for the truth when I found it. This is the time period where I started to focus on open-minded acceptance, and started listening to the energy I described earlier.
I remember at one point, I’d accidentally stumbled into a sort of Buddhist acceptance when I realized I could choose to shift perspectives to be happy in any situation. I tried to communicate this perspective shift by saying, “I’ll be happy when I’m homeless.” My parents were understandably worried by that statement. This failure to communicate properly was on me. The doctors treated it wrong, but they were right when they said I had a problem that needed fixing
One time, Dad talked me down from being psychotic by saying this, “You can’t just believe every little thing that pops into your head, ‘cause there’s a lot of ideas floating around in there and not all of ‘em are good.” I dunno why it worked so well, but I’ve spent a lot of time learning to separate truth from bullshit using that philosophy. Dad just always knew exactly what to say like that.
When I was 21, I ended up living in my car, drifting from place to place and was basically forced to survive off a combination of people’s charity, what I earned from odd jobs, and a fuckton of shoplifting. Like all hard-working professional boosters, I became fanatical about my belief in God. I decided that the universe was ruled by an all-powerful spirit of Love and Peace, and I thought I was its prophet. (Spoiler alert: I'm not a prophet)
At the time, I thought people were pissed 'cause of what I said about people doin' their best to not hurt each other, and everybody workin' together to build a better world. Really, that didn't matter, cause I was also talking a bunch of shit to intentionally set people off so I could act high and mighty about not swingin' back when they got violent. The story I told in “The Beatdown” was a part of this psychotic break. (That was actually one of the few times I wasn't bein' an insufferable, completely self-serving douche)
So, I'm not lyin' when I say I'm a narcissistic sociopath. That's like, somethin' I didn't realize 'til a psychologist diagnosed me with it around early 2016. That means my mind lies to me and shit. I saw all this as people rejecting my message of Love, Peace, and Compassion. Really, they were rejecting me actin' like a complete douchecanoe. Pride blinded me to the truth. I was literally incapable of seein' myself ever doin' anything wrong.
I used this experience to rationalize my contempt for mankind. I let my heart turn black, and I told myself, “I've got no choice. They made me do it.” The disorder is defined by that self-fueling cycle where perceptual distortions create consequences that reinforce the perceptual distortions.
Alright, so that's a decent rundown of the formative years... Ima fast forward a bit. I moved down to Florida to be my dad's in-home caretaker
Those first two years were the best days of my life. Pops and I used to have so many deep philosophical conversations about science, music, God, and life in general. His biggest passion in life was guitar, and he taught me to play. Watching me get genuinely fired up about the six-strings and learning my own style lit up his life. We both smoked a lot of pot. Papadukes loved to trip so we ate a bunch of mushrooms, too. He actually grew a mushroom patch in our backyard at one point. What I'm tryin' to say is, "I lived the dream."
That got ruined when I started drinkin' heavy, partying nonstop, and I ended up shootin' up opiate painkillers all day, every day. Just a constant stream of morphine, dilaudid and oxycodone straight intravenously injected multiple times daily. (Smart, spiritual, modest, AND a risk taker! Go me!)
In the end, I drove Pops to suicide with my constant emotional abuse.
(I know your initial reaction is to say I didn't. Just trust me on this one, I did. The full story is on the website in “The Life and Times of a Total Loser” if you want details. You can click that line for a direct link)
For five years, I walked around in a daze, drinkin' more and more liquor as time went on. There were two trips to rehab forced on me by probation followed by short periods of sobriety but I just couldn't make it work. I came across Daoism during the first one, and it helped with the self-loathing some. That was summer 2014. I did my best to stay positive and practice acceptance, but deep down, the guilt ate at me constantly.
My whole life, all the times I thought I was God’s prophet spreading a message of Love and Peace to a corrupt and hateful world, I’d been lying to myself. I saw people as soulless monsters who were bent on evil. Really, I was the biggest monster of all. I couldn’t forgive myself for what I’d done.
(Alright... we're hittin' fast forward again. Imagine the squiggly lines goin' across your mental image while you read this next paragraph)
I got addicted to synthetic cannabinoids, aka Spice. The shit was bad but all the shops that sold it got shut down so I went back to drinking. I spent three years binge drinking, had a heart attack from alcohol withdrawal, kept drinking, and ended up livin' in my car. My mom refused to talk to me, so did my younger brother. My best friend was furious that I wouldn’t put down the bottle and get my life on track. Nobody would talk to me, and I was completely alone in the world.
(Okay, press "Play")
On June 3, 2017, just over a year ago, I ate a month’s supply of seroquel in an attempt kill myself. Just to be sure it did the trick, I chased it with two pints of Black Velvet. I’m not exactly sure what happened to be honest. Last I remember, I was in the parking lot where I usually slept at night. Somehow, I got from there to Mom’s apartment complex, which was about 10 minutes down the road. Not too sure how I drove in that state, but someone found me hangin' outta my car door totally unresponsive. I woke up in the hospital three days later. I didn’t wanna give the doctors time to figure out what happened, ‘cause I knew that woulda meant a trip to the psych ward, so I signed out against doctor’s advice first chance I got.
I had nobody I could call for a ride. At first, I hung around the front of the hospital messaging every acquaintance I had on Facebook asking for help, but nobody responded. Eventually, hospital security told me to leave or they were callin' the cops. I didn’t have shoes... or my glasses.... or any money… or any idea where I was… and then my phone died. I just made a guess and walked.
This was by far hardest day of my life. I didn’t have my glasses/contacts, and I’m so nearsighted I can’t see past an inch in front of my face. Everything was one giant indecipherable blur. I wandered with no real idea where I was and no clue how to get home. The seroquel was making me hallucinate people who weren’t there. I kept walking up to people to ask for directions, only to have them vanish into thin air once I got close.
With the help of some good samaritans, some friendly police officers, and a lot of dazed wandering, I eventually made it back to my car. I’d been walking blind and barefoot for 7 hours. The seroquel still had my mind halfway in the clouds, and I could barely think. My feet were covered in massive blisters and scratched raw from the asphalt. Absolutely nothing about my overall situation had changed, and I wasn’t sure how I was gonna get out of the spot I was in.
(Click on that line for free drugs. If you aren't into drugs it's porn. If you aren't into either you're not wanted here move along.)
I collapsed in the back seat of my car and went to sleep
The next day, my little brother gave me two joints to smoke. We smoked half of one and talked for a bit. I ended up staying up all night meditating on how my life ended up where it did. I was flipping through the radio when I came across some AM talk show where the guests were these two Wiccan chicks. They talked about witchcraft, magic, and the divine but I forget exactly what was said.
All I remember is that AM radio at 3 in the morning has the wildest callers who say the craziest shit, and the dude working the switchboard ran out of fucks to give years ago. I guess hearing other people venting their “crazy” thoughts out onto the radio without the host judging them or cutting them off made me feel less alone. It got me to think about the mystical aspects of life, then instantly something in me awoke. Life just stopped feeling completely hopeless once I let myself believe again.
For some reason, everything just seemed to keep clicking after that night with the weed and the witches on the radio. There were some speed bumps and I made a lot of mistakes, but I kept working to get a little better every day. I figured as long as I stayed positive and focused on the spiritual awareness I’d reconnected with, everything would be okay.
I do my best to improve as much as I can in any way I can find, and I’m happy with baby steps these days. I used to think my life would turn around in one grand upheaval. I thought I’d wake up one day, have the epiphany I’ve been waiting for that would flip the switch that made life good, and then magically the next day life would be good. Life doesn’t work that way, I’ve realized.
One thing led to another and here I sit, happier than I’ve ever been in my life, telling you the story of how I got my soul back. I’m not sure when it happened, I just looked back one day and thought, “Holy shit… my life has completely turned around, and I’ve never felt this genuinely fulfilled.”
Basically, the whole time I’ve been listening to the “Universal Energy” I keep mentioning as best I can. Daoism seems to describe how it behaves pretty well, and so I stick pretty closely to Laozi and Zhuangzi. The thing is, if I let the spiritual fire burn too freely, it turns into a wildfire that torches my entire life. In order to keep the flames under control, I use a lot of the structure provided by The Noble Eightfold Path Buddha spoke of. (Oh hey more links to other essays... I wonder what they're about...)
My buddy who helped with the Buddhism article told me Zen Buddhism came about by working Daoism into the Buddhist framework,. Since I really still lean more on Daoism than Buddhism, I think it’s more accurate to refer to myself as a Zen Daoist. Does that actually exist? Well, I mean, not officially, but would a true Daoist care about that sorta distinction? (Bam. Get fuggin’ rekt, kiddo. Zen Daoism - 1, Imaginary Critics - 0)
I also came to the conclusion during all this that I’m a shaman. I actually started calling myself “Grand Shaman of the East” down in FL when me and Pops were trippin’ out all the time, but when I started this essay, I intended to try and distance myself from the title out of respect for Shamanic wisdom.
When I went back and looked at it, I realized the psychedelics actually had a small part in how my overall spirituality was formed. Ultimately, I don’t think the drugs are required for spiritual growth at all. For me though, they’ve definitely had an overall beneficial effect if used properly. “If used properly” is really important there, so lemme clarify a bit:
When I wake and bake the moment I open my eyes in the morning and work to keep myself completely baked every second of every day, my mind gets too clouded to see anything worthwhile. When I become dependent on opiates and alcohol, I’m trying to close my eyes because I don’t like what I see. However, when I take reasonable doses of the right medicine in a setting conducive to meditation or with someone who can help me learn, the drugs can be a tool.
So anyway, I went to Facebook to try and get a clear definition of the word “Shaman” in order to differentiate between my beliefs and shamanism. I made a post in two different groups asking for their collective understanding of shamanism, and from that I learned two things:
1. The word “Shaman” is essentially meaningless.
And
2. People on the Facepage are a bunch of self-important, condescending pricks.
The ones that weren’t complete dicks about it landed me with two definitions:
Tribal spiritual leaders who used a lot of different methods to enter a trance state in order to commune with the spirit realm to get hidden knowledge and help them solve certain problems. They acted as both healers and guides to their tribe. Originally, the word referred specifically to tribal people in Central/Northern Asia, and the primary method to induce the trance is rhythmically drumming.
The second definition was essentially the same thing, but applied to modern people who use similar practices without being associated with tribal living. The main requirement here that sets a normal person who has shamanistic experience apart from a true shaman is that a shaman is someone who does it in service to others.
Now, I’ve definitely always used music, meditation, things like hot baths, and yes, psychedelic drugs to achieve the “trance state”. Whether or not I do it in service to other people is subject to interpretation. I'm taking what I’ve learned, writing it all down, and then putting it on the internet to try and help society. Was that the intention from the start? Nah, and that’s where the grey area comes from.
I’ll let you make your own call here. I’m still a completely self-absorbed narcissist, so I’m gonna say I’m a shaman ‘cause “Dave the Dude, Zen Daoist Grand Shaman of the East” is a dope-ass name for the imaginary character in my head. (rekt.)
Generally, people say, “A true shaman would never say they’re a shaman”, but really, there are no rules. Once you try to put it in a box with limitations like that, you leave a checklist that phonies can use to craft imitations and draw lines that keep parts of the truth out. “It” (The Dao, The Universal Soul, God, Whatever) transcends words. Whatever someone says it is, that’s what it isn’t. Whatever someone says it isn’t, that’s exactly what it is. If you come to know it, you just recognize it when you hear it. (Thanks, Master Lao!)
So that’s how I landed on Dave the Dude, Zen Daoist Grand Shaman of the East.
Really, the only difference between the two versions of myself, “Dave the Dude, Grand Shaman of the East” and “Dirty Dave, the Demon King” is how I choose to see the world. In my heart I never stopped believing in whatever you call that energy I refer to. When I choose to have hope for the world, I do good for the world. When I choose to see the dark side of people, I turn into my dark side.
Everyone sees what they choose to see, and they act accordingly. You can’t let what other people think of you get you down, because what they think of you is mostly based on how they choose to see things.
Looking back, even if I see them as two people and one appears superficially evil, neither is fully right or wrong. Dave the Dude only sees things as he wants them to be and gets blind to reality. Dirty Dave only sees the worst in things and looks down on the world from an ivory tower. The real truth is somewhere in the middle. The way I find peace is picking out the pieces of both “Daves” that are toxic, and merging what’s left of the two dudes into one. In reality, both have toxic elements, and both have healthy elements.
Fighting against myself and suppressing one side or the other is what created my problems.
Something else I see going around a lot, which I definitely experienced personally, is people holding a huge grudge against the mental health community. Yeah, the services are inadequate and much of the treatment falls short of what it needs to be, but often times people use those facts as excuses to not work on themselves. My life didn’t improve until I accepted my diagnoses and started working to manage them. My refusal to cooperate with mental health kept me from understanding the spiritual aspects of my condition, and my refusal to accept the spiritual aspects of my condition stopped me from achieving mental health. It wasn’t until I accepted both equally then found a way to sync them up with each other that I made any progress.
In that same vein, I’ve had to find a way to blend rational thought and spirituality. This is why I say I have suspicions, not beliefs. Beliefs are concrete and solid which makes them hard to change. I view my “beliefs” with some healthy skepticism, which turns them into suspicions I can change easily as new information arises.
This healthy skepticism keeps me from making poorly-informed decisions based on incorrect beliefs, and stops me from becoming psychotic. My meds are useful, but the real reason I haven’t become psychotic in a decade is intense dedication to *strictly disciplined* critical thinking.
(See "Sane Conspiracies" for rules clarifying what *strictly disciplined* means)
At the end of the day, there’s a “Shaman” inside of everybody, people just need to work to pull it out. You gotta use your intuition to listen to Universe in all the ways it speaks, and learn to tell the truth from the lie. There’s a Buddha inside all of us. We’ve all got the sage buried somewhere deep down. I used to look down on the world from an ivory tower and tell myself I was surrounded by idiots.
I’ve learned is everybody has a lesson to teach me and it’s my duty listen for it.
I know a decent amount, but nobody knows everything and everybody gets something wrong somewhere along the line. This is an inevitable fact of life.
The only thing I’m really sure of after all this is that you can’t cast judgement. You gotta keep yourself from getting on a pedestal. I’m horrible about this, which is why it’s the lesson that life saw fit to teach me. You most likely understand this point much better than I do already. Still, I walked you through my story, I owe it to you to tell you what I’ve learned
Humility is the core of my message, because seeing myself as a higher life form sitting on a pedestal looking down on the world is what made my abusive, destructive behavior acceptable in my mind.
You may think you’re slick shit, but we’re all headed for the same compost heap. No matter what you do to build an ivory tower so you can look down on us peasants below, you’re still gonna end up six feet under with the rest of us. Never let yourself forget we’re all the same. There’s no good reasons to deny a person your compassion, respect, or understanding.
(I said as I condescendingly preached into the void)
Well muh dudes, here we are. Looks like we made it. Our long road to victory is over. I told you I wanted to crank out more on the topic of spirituality, and then goddamn, I went hard. We got spiritual AF up in dis' bitch. We reached the mountaintop; that means we woke now and our quest for knowledge is over forever. Ezpz.
We get to go around FB shitting on everything we see, putting ourselves above anyone who says anything with condescending “advice”. Passive-aggressive hyper-positivity is the invincible suit of armor that’ll shield us from all things we dislike. Our unending false kindness will be a sword through the heart of all who oppo...
Oh wait… hold up… I think… I think the spirits are tellin' me somethin'… they say, “That’s a bunch of Fauxwoke garbage that unenlightened, self-absorbed, two-face snakes spit for attention and in no way represents anything spiritual.”
Hmm… Could it be true???
Is it possible that all these people running around Facebook claiming they're "woke" could be possessed by the Creature Called Fauxwoke?
But the Ignorant One doesn’t know how to use that kind of technology… at least I don’t think it does….
I certainly hope it doesn’t…
Oh god... please no...
MUH DUDES!!! There’s something else I’ve learned of on my travels that you need to hear about:
A vile scourge made of pure hatred for knowledge and wisdom, “The Creature Called Fauxwoke”, has begun an assault on the internet!
The Dumbass Devil takes many forms, he can hide behind a mask of pseudointellectualism to superficially appear intelligent without saying anything of substance, or the beast can wear a cloak of new-agey pseudo-spirituality to convince people it's “woke” when really it's just spewing nonsense based on circular logic!
Fauxwoke has taken many forms and has been given many names throughout the ages, but its names are unimportant. The Moronic Miscreant is thousands of demons who’ve merged into the embodiment of pure, sheer, ignorance. Whenever you’ve met someone who took pride in belittling the pursuit of knowledge, that person was possessed by the Creature Called Fauxwoke.
I’ve encountered Fauxwoke during my travels all over the Facepage, I’m sure of it now! The vile abomination came in the form of “enlightened” travelers who insulted me for asking questions to improve my understanding, and I can see now that the Small Minded Spectre has taken many souls all over the intertubez!
Some things to remember about the the Fool Who Spews Falsehoods:
The villain relies on a system of buzzwords and cliches in order to destroy details. The ghoul HATES nuance. It reduces all things to petty stereotypes to avoid thinking, and paints life in simple black and white terms. Whenever you see someone speaking in absolutes in order to make themselves seem superior, that’s the Creature Called Fauxwoke. Whenever someone uses partisan reasons to invalidate different perspectives, whenever someone uses religion to ridicule another's beliefs, whenever a stereotype is used in anyway, you can be sure Fauxwoke is nearby!
Smug condescension in any context is one of Fauxwoke’s signature moves. Always be on guard for pretentious preachers.
The Shitwit Without Shame LOVES twisting words to make people’s statements seem ridiculous, insensitive, or uninformed. The vile scum thinks this behavior appears “woke”.
The Ridiculous Rogue relies on an appearance of kindness and benevolence to maintain it’s facade of “wokeness". Passive-aggressive, sideways insults disguised as advice and encouragement are one of it’s favorite methods of attack. Always be on guard against it’s favorite form, "Fakenice."
However, Fakenice is just one its many disguises. Expect the pestilence to take many forms. The true sign of the the Dastardly Dimwit is when it says something incredibly ignorant while making the foolishness seem superficially superior.
If someone insults someone for their personal preferences based on matters of taste, that person is surely one who’s devoted their life completely to the Primitive Paintchugger. Music, TV, or any other pop culture are totally irrelevant. In any fanbase some people have relevant and intelligent things to say, and others are complete mongoloids. This is exactly the sort of superficial bullshit Fauxwoke uses to propagate itself.
Whenever someone acts as if spirituality negates science or vice versa, then prepare to battle the Pseudointellectual Phantom! The two concepts are meant to work in harmony, they’re not in conflict.
Whenever someone claims their subjective experience counts as irrefutable evidence for a dubious claim, you know you’ve seen the Spirit of All That's Stupid.
Whenever someone says that two paragraphs is too much to read, whenever someone uses a superficial detail to invalidate someone’s opinion, whenever somebody responds to a comment they’ve only skimmed without knowing exactly what was said, the culprit is the Creature Called Fauxwoke.
Even I’ve been taken by the Mindless Hivemind before, as ashamed as I am to admit it. When I mentioned lies being mixed with the truth during my psychoses, those deceptions came from the Usurper of Understanding.
Nobody’s safe from the Deceitful Dumbass. Always remain humble and consider that you may be wrong. If you consider yourself immune to its possession, that means the beast surely has you.
There’s no such thing as “Woke”.
Nobody will ever reach the mountaintop. True enlightenment is knowing you’ll never fully understand. Fauxwoke works by making you believe your search has come to an end, and deceiving you to make you stop asking questions.
Your search for answers will continue until your very last breath, and only then will you be “Woke”. Always look within yourself to root out the Animus of Asininity's corruption, for the vile creature will never stop trying to use you for it’s obnoxiously shallow amusement!
The fighting is ruthless, the fiend is tireless, and the war is endless but we must never stop fighting! If we lay down our arms and relent, even for a second, we can be sure all hope is lost.
Good luck comrades! May the spirits of Knowledge, Wisdom and Love guide you in your never ending battle against the the Insolent Imbecile!