Rev Roger, Sermon #9: There Are No Bars or Cages.

"It is a great shock to discover that, in a world of Gary Coopers, you are the Indian."
--James Baldwin

"I have the horror of death with the still greater horror of living."
--Oscar Wilde (In reading gaol (prison), March 10, 1896)

"Monkey wants the food pellet, monkey pushes the button."
--The Good Reverend Roger, during a vicious drunk, 2003

Brothers and Sisters, sinners and mutants, freaks and walking glitches, I bid you a good evening. This evening, we are gonna talk about prisons.

Now, there are a few different kinds of prisons...there is The Big House, The Prison of Toil, and the Prison of Your Frickin' Head.

The Big House, as we all know, is the prison they send you to when you get caught breaking one of their rules (Which, as Kafka noted, you can't help doing. The rules are so complex, you WILL break them, every day). We aren't gonna talk too much about this type of prison, because you can see that on any network, though not so much now as the last couple of years...save for this: All of those prison TV shows, "Inside reports", "OZ", "The Big House", ad infinitum, ad nauseum, are there for a reason. The lesson they impart, my friends, is this: If you get out of line, we'll put you in a cell with people like THESE!

The Prison of Toil, however, is a prison they put you into starting at age 5. You are placed in an unnatural state for a juvenile primate; you are forced to wear clothes, sit in an uncomfortable position, and stay still for HOURS while they teach ya the proper art of the Fnord. You are told that you must excel, so you can go to college, where presumably, the Fnords can't get you. Once you get to college, however, you are told that you must continue to toil, so that you can get a good job...you STILL aren't safe from the Fnords. Then, one day, you graduate to the supposed "real world", where you are told that you must now work hard for your parole at 65...becaus if you don't the Fnords will make you eat dog-food in your retirement...WHAT A SUPRISE! The Fnords don't eat children, they eat senior citizens. They lied AGAIN! The problem is, even if you DO follow their advice, you are still screwed. By the time you are paroled, you are too old to enjoy it, and just like real prison, most inmates don't LIVE long enough to GET parole. What can you do about this? How can you escape THIS prison, which has no bars (though many inmates DO have cells, or cubes as we call them)? Well first, you have to escape the REAL prison, The Prison of Your Frickin' Head.

The Prison of Your Frickin' Head is the worst jail of all...As G.G. Gordon once said, "Where can you run, where can you hide, when the man in blue is on the INSIDE?" This is the prison from which very few people get out alive. There is NO parole, and you will spend all the days of your life inside it, should you not escape. This is the prison built for you by those around you, wih your willing help. It is done in the following fashion:

1. You are convinced by society that you are not good enough, and that all of your accomplishments so far have been GOOD LUCK. You will be found out for (as RAW said) the "no good #" you are. The only escape from this is ego-training, or stupidity. Most talented people think, deep down inside, that they are frauds. Most utter fools consider themselves gawd-like. Go figure.

2. You are told by society that they are watching. Just who they are is never made clear; but it IS made clear that they had better not catch you in any funny-business, or you are screwed. (Of course, they are the Fnords)

3. You are taught to "fit in", one way or the other. Either you fit in to the mold the establishment sets up for you, or you rebel...and most rebels tend to fit into one group or another (Goth, Punker, New-age bliss zombie, Discordian, Subgenius,

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etc)...and if you aren't careful you fall into the conformity of non-conformists. If you don't dress a certain way, or mouth the correct ritual sayings, you are obviously a "normal" or a "grayface"...Despite the fact that the weirdest freaks, the truest Yeti, usually BLEND RIGHT IN!

So what do we do about it? How do we escape? We escape SYSTEMATICALLY. You don't saw each bar a little at a time, you whack each bar out, methodically...thus:

1. For the ingrained failure complex, use ego-training. Not that "I'm good enough, I'm smart enough" affirmation shyt, either. No, you are superior. This is proven by the fact that you even noticed the cage in your head at all! When you look in the mirror, don't THINK there are no flaws, KNOW there are no flaws. When you screw up, screw up catastophically! ROLL IN YOUR MISTAKES! WALLOW IN THEM, AND LEARN FROM THEM. Most "normals" will start wars to avoid admitting they made a mistake. Don't fall into that trap. When you are no longer afraid of mistakes, you will make less of them, and you WON'T CARE about the ones you still DO make.

2. There is no they. You've been lied to, all these years. THERE ARE NO FNORDS! There never have been. The cage is only in your head, there is no warden, and we are all free, should we realize it. It's all a collosal LIE. Now, most people are afraid of freedom. They might make a mistake...for that, see #1. As far as getting caught and going to The Big House, well, if you can't outwit the morons who run the system, then you aren't much of a Yeti after all, are you? LIE to them, SMILE in their face, and KEEP YOUR BOBDAMNED MOUTH SHUT AFTER PRANKS! He who kicks society in the crotch and shuts his mouth, usually lives to kick it again tomorrow.

3. DOn't worry about fitting in. Just because you LIKE to dress like a Goth, for example, doesn't make you a conformist...provided that's REALLY why you do it (as opposed to seeking acceptance from Goths). If you say to yourself, "Is my image perfect today", you are probably screwing up. If you say, "Cool" when you look in the mirror, you're probably ok...the best rule is, if you are BEING YOURSELF, don't sweat it.

Or kill me.