Resistance.
The machine.
What we see being built feels inevitable. What was promised to connect us and make our lives easier was used to destroy the very thing that makes us human. We’re being homogenized: our thoughts, our bodies, our cultures. Smashed and rolled up into one, because one is easier to control than one billion. Control over the individual to the point where he becomes nothing at all, just a supporter of the new cause or an enemy, a comrade or a defector, someone with a good social credit score or someone who is alarmingly separated from the metaverse. We are being categorized. Placed into buckets to be dealt with later. Fealty to the state or fealty to the spark of God that still lives in each of our hearts.
There it is, we all see it. It’s a vaccine. It’s a curriculum. It’s a war. It’s a crisis. It’s a riot. It’s justice. It’s fairness. It’s a vote. It’s a headline. It’s a whistleblower. It’s an agenda. It’s a coalition. It’s a slithering man who takes the stand and lies to other liars who all know each other are lying, because they aren’t the ones who need to believe any of it.
I have been thinking about resistance. To resist the world, just as Christ resisted the world when he stood on the high mountain and looked down, and Satan offered him the kingdoms of the world and all their splendor. One world, homogenized under the values he could impose upon them. But Christ resisted. I, too, want to resist. I don’t want what the world wants for me. I don’t want what the world wants of me.
I don’t want to be absorbed into the world that is being built around me. Maybe you don’t either. I want a different kind of kingdom, but what I’m realizing is that resistance can only be done out of deep, ancient love for the individual.
To rise against the powerful swells of the collective we must love one another so much that it becomes a blaze of light in the darkness. Radical love. Christ once said,
“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor[a] and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46 If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? 47 And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? 48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
This is how to resist the machine. There is no other way.