by Jon Rappoport
(This article is Part-2 in a series. For Part-1, click here. For Part-3, click here.)
Yes, I believe my collection, Power Outside The Matrix can help people who want to become writers or much better writers.
I want more writers in the world—journalists, poets, novelists, playwrights—because they create narratives. New ones.
And this is important, because people, faced with what’s going on around them, have an incurable habit of listening to inner brain narratives of anxiety, impending trouble, and doom. Whether they know it not.
Writers outdistance and outflank that habit. A writer un-traps himself and his readers from that habit.
During my 75 years or so of reading, I’ve jumped into all sorts of writers. For a 10-year span, it was crime and spy fiction. Ian Fleming, John D MacDonald, James M Cain, Donald Hamilton, John Buchan, and finally and great and underappreciated Philip Atlee and his series of Joe Gall secret agent novels. I read and reread Atlee’s books. I learned so much about writing it was ridiculous. He was a great teacher without ever intending to be.
These books fortified me. They built wave after wave of new stories in my mind. New possibilities. New thoughts. New thoughts that spawned other thoughts. So…why bother with automatic narratives that groveled and crawled in the direction of gloom Fate? No need for that.
Writers liberate everybody.
Writing is abundance.
Automatic narratives in the mind are appointed bureaucrats of scarcity.
Science fiction—another decade or so of reading. Ray Bradbury, Heinlein, Philip Dick, AE Van Vogt, Norman Spinrad, and a host of nameless pulp authors who took me to other galaxies in the words of their opening paragraphs. BANG. You travel to those places, and when you come back, you’re refreshed. You’re emerging from a five star spa of mind and soul. You don’t need the old stories your brain is blabbering in its nursing home address on the edge of town.
There was a period in my teens and early 20s when I read the authors I was supposed to. Herman Hesse, Poe, DH Lawrence, Yeats, Dylan Thomas, Arthur Miller, Eric Hoffer, Henry Miller, Ayn Rand, William Burroughs. But “supposed to” dissolved. I was leaping into and out of all sorts of different kinds of fire. I KNEW all bets were off. ALL narratives were up for grabs. I could go ANYWHERE.
This is a good thing to know.
This is one of the best things to know.
Believing in freedom is one thing. Feeling free is quite another. Writing (doing it or reading it) gives you the feeling.
It gives you a platform on which to stand. A stage. A new stage.
One day in the 1980s, I started reading Harlan Ellison. His stories and his essays. This was a man who had muscles and balls in his brain, along with an unending stream of original thoughts. He shot killer poisoned arrows at his enemies and never backed down. He also had the capacity to tell you something you wanted to know while promoting and advertising himself. One of his undying messages: have courage, my friends. Ellison was and is a tonic, a unique tonic. He destroys and lifts up all at once. Where else are you going to get that?
This is what I mean. Writers give us what we need.
And one more thing for now. Writers say to us, “You can sit there and pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about, you can pretend you’re dumb, but I know something is getting through. And whatever that something is, it’s ESSENTIAL. It makes all the difference. It’s a glimpse of what you really want.”
To read more, go here.
— Jon Rappoport
(To read about Jon’s collection, Power Outside The Matrix, click here.)
The author of three explosive collections, THE MATRIX REVEALED, EXIT FROM THE MATRIX, and POWER OUTSIDE THE MATRIX, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29th District of California. He maintains a consulting practice for private clients, the purpose of which is the expansion of personal creative power. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his free NoMoreFakeNews emails here or his free OutsideTheRealityMachine emails here.
The year…who gives a f@#$.
It seems, rather, it appears, that some sort of dangerous & desperately fanatical, & serious as-a-heart-attack venturers, have ventured to claim a most beautiful, luxurious planet, right from under, the all-too-quiet feet, of the high-minded-denizens.
Mind you again, certain such denizens deep, are alerted from stillness, over said breach.
But alas, they are in poor numbers. And valiantly, as they may, to alert their brethren all-too-stilled & chilled, as to the workings underground, they find themselves fraught, at times, in despair.
But, they do not care, for despair, nor favor, the venturers’ lair.
And quite frankly, they’ve had it up to their chinny chin chins.
Like myself, MOST AMERICANS are law-abiding Citizens. Both gentle & kind. These two, are just a few of their many-ed & varied qualities.
I been reading & listening much, to many of my fellow fine Citizens.
Poignantly positing & pointing to the positive position of the recent granite crash.
Solid symbols acting upon stone etchings.
Preplanned numbers fall to ground.
Thump-thump-thump.
Thump, thump-thump.
Jon come one…that’s like wanting seven and half billion presidents of their nations of one.
“And one more thing for now. Writers say to us, “You can sit there and pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about, you can pretend you’re dumb, but I know something is getting through. And whatever that something is, it’s ESSENTIAL. It makes all the difference. It’s a glimpse of what you really want.”
Your a romantic to think that; most people Jon, couldn’t care less about you or you thoughts. In fact many want to shut you up, for good.
They are thinking none of that stuff. They are looking to steal your ideas before you fully realize them. Or brand you with some weaponized phrase of late.
Writers are making money stirring up shit and grief — professional trolls with fancy websites, all pissing against the wind and whining about their pronouns. Writing has devolved, and is like art now; spray painted propaganda and pure insult.
We are ten seconds from being nuked and you know it, its the natural order of an organism to extinct itself. We’ve gone as far as we can go on this nickel… And it pure folly to think any different.
Sit back and relax old man, finally bury that axe you have been carrying; nobody cares, its dog eat dog and there shit storm of shit storms coming. It happens every 12,000 years or so, and this is ours. We own it. There’s a comet about to hit the moon! And that’s just for starters…
Humanity will recede back to the stone age again. Stupidity won again, except it, stop fighting the inevitable…one Heinlein and nine idiots to be raised a notch out of their stupidity.
Gates it fast to a court hearing about his wanting to start buying North Dakota, 2000 acres at at time. And mister potato head will win simply by buying the government which has previously made it against the law for corporation to own farmland. And the only reason why their whining is because they want some of his money to shut up and let it happen.
Gates a “nation of one” is the largest land owner in the continental United States, actually in the world, he owns property all over the planet, as does his cronies and hedge fund managers.
Your standing on private property, its not yours, your under an illusion if you think it is, let them have!
There’s a galaxy next door where everybody’s a god, you can be what you want to be and own your own planet, and your new to this sentience thing, and you have billions of lives ahead of you son. Choose your battles buddy. Its a billion trillion years before this all winks out, or wink in, or whangs on…
More writers? We can’t handle the ones we have, good god man, all those people thinking… those little thoughts? Far too many people, smaller crowds are much better. A captive audience buddy, keep them in the dark and feed them bullshit.
This altruistic thing, this, “we’re all in this together” nonsense is for mooks.
From my understanding we only get one Phillip K. Dick per galaxy, as it should be, but oodles of other kinds of dicks. Its something to do with physics, I think.
We need less writers and higher quality writing; god knows most websites and their writers are scribbling on about their fucking cat’s pet budgie, or their collection of potted African dandelions.
“I want more writers in the world—journalists, poets, novelists, playwrights—because they create narratives. New ones… Believing in freedom is one thing. Feeling free is quite another. Writing (doing it or reading it) gives you the feeling.”
Every person alive has a simple choice to make. And this choice will determine the entire course of their lives.
Do I accept the Stories that are pushed on to me? Do I just suck up like a sponge every thought and idea and limitation and Story that someone else dreamed up or passed along and just go with that forever no matter how harmful and dead and non-fulfilling that is?
OR… do I embrace the freedom and creativity I was born with (and that is always my birthright) and create new stories? Fresh ideas? Things never seen nor read before. Ideas that were out there in the Ether which I now bring to life and share with the World?
That decision is everything. That decision determines what you believe…how you live your life… who you associate with… who you don’t associate with… who you’ll marry… if you marry… what career you will have.. what you will teach your children… how you will live… and what you will leave behind when you go… in short… Everything.
This is a form of the age-old question: Do you choose Freedom, or Slavery?
And there are many, many people who think They are free when in fact They are slaves to… everything.
Some people think that they should not write because they have nothing to say. That’s a lie. Everyone has unique story to tell.
And even if the writing product isn’t the greatest work of writing ever seen in all Eternity…
sometimes it’s not just about WHAT you write… but THAT YOU WRITE.
Sometimes the journey is in fact more important than the destination.
We are all Writers in Life… Writing our own unique words, or just copying someone else’s tired Story and handing that to someone else.
I’ve come to realize that I cannot finish my tremendous novel. “Oh why?,” you ask. Because Zach… (that’s my pen name)(just calm down Jon, don’t crush me just yet), …will start sayin’ stuff, & then those secret men, who walk between the raindrops, & who bare those scary darkened eyeglasses, blotting out all traces of the sun, will git me, & be mean to me.
Then I’ll call someone, anyone, & scream help, & I’m sure I’ll get this:
Z: Zach
A: Anyone
Z: HELP !!! The bad men have me.
A: Who the hell is this again?
Z: It’s me, Zach.
A: Oye.
Z: Good one.
A: Let me ask you a question?
Z: Please.
A: Didn’t you watch Felix The Cat, in your youth? Well…way past your youth.
Z: Yes. And yes.
A: And didn’t Felix have a bag of tricks?
Z: Shirley.
A: SO USE IT MAN.
Z: Yeah, but when the bad men got me, they didn’t let me take anything. Would ya do me a solid & retrieve my bag, it’s in the right vegetable drawer, in the icebox.
A: Oh come on man.
Z: Look, for your efforts you can snag that half-gnawed wedge of Jarlsberg from the cheese draw. Don’t mind the tooth marks, I have buck teeth, & let’s just agree my overbite is severe.
One time, during Christmas festivities & food at a family friend’s holiday gathering, Zach spied some tremendous Brie.
And let’s just say, Zach ate way-too-much.
And Zach didn’t waste time cutting off the white rind off his rather large inhale-ment, both because he didn’t understand the finer nuances of digestion, as well as thinkin’ it was powered confectioners sugar, thinkin’ within self, “Sweet Cheese, Thank Jesus!”
Well… let’s just say Zach had to increase his fruit intake, for a few days.
So now Zach finds himself under a hard, hot, white spotlight, with three men dressed in & as hard as onyx, hitting him even harder, with questions of mind.
Well, sans magical bag, Zach digs deeper into self & muses to his trio of monsters, “Ya know fellas, I think I’d do better with a hunk or chuck of some fine Brie.”
“Studies show it increases memory.”
Well, wanting to elicit all hauntings within Zachville, the suited boys gather whole & rotund, Zach’s request. They go all out, wanting every drop of memory.
Well…Zach says, “Listen boys, I’m half-Chinese, & my culture demands that you feast first on the food you offer another.
Well… let’s just say the interrogation was put off for a few days.
So now with the soft passage of a few suns, Zach is back on the drum. And the boys are, let’s just say, carryin’ a grudge.
So the beanheads all lean in on Zach now in tandem & in some strange way, sans words, yet still say, “Tell us Human, what you know about large-scale War.”
Well… somewhat amused, no, that’s not it, bemused? No that ain’t it either. Let’s just say, with their question, Zach is scared for his life. What to do, what to do?
What the coal fired trio don’t understand is that Zach really is kinda stupid. So Zach leans on his memory of childhood, to throw the-lanky-three, off-key.
When Zach was a naive 11, he heard the term guerilla warfare.
Well…in light of his tremendous imagining skills, always technically correct, Zach saw gorillas in the misty mists of his double-digit mind, with dog chains around their necks, keeping them close to their human soldier handlers, to fight powerfully, in lieu of human fisticuffs, & because it is believed that gorillas possess the greatest wanderlust of the great apes.
Zach tosses the triangular three, this little ditty & let’s just say, they run out of the room to re-group.
Just before the last of the three misfits slams the door upon hurried exit, their eyes meet, well…he’s wearin’ dark shades, nevertheless Zach screams, “Ya might want to peruse that documentary series boys…Planet of The Apes.”
“AND BRING ME SOME POPCORN, EXTRA BUTTER !”
“And make it Tonto…I mean Pronto.”
Now, having consumed three jumbo-sized popcorn buckets, I was all-too-ready for a recommencement of their inquiry of yours truly.
So, the shortest one of the three, let’s call him Shorty for short, leans forward & says meanly, “Enough with you, tell us your war secrets.” I respond, “Hey, little bean, I’ve told you the whole shebang.”
So Shortly gets short with me and lands a terrific slap across my face, buuuttttt…because I am still somewhat lathered facially in margarine’s first cousin, his slight of hand really just slides off my face coat with nary a feel.
I say, “Thanx, since you didn’t bring me a tub of napkins.”
You see, the three entered while I was just starting my third bucket & I thought to enhance the questioning period, I would toss the corn flowers skyward & try to catch it like the neighborhood always-hungry dog. Often I missed.
So they pull out a map & sternly point to it & say, “Tell us where & who will attack first.”
Well…again, since they didn’t thoughtfully & cordially bring me napkins for my popcorn, I used the map to wipe my face clean dry.
Well… let’s just say they weren’t amused. Now, I’m pissed. Why?, I’m not sure. Now they scream in unison, while pointing at the map, saying, “Will this area be the epicenter?”
I scream back, “I CAN’T TELL, IT’S ALL SHINY.”
Shorty sternly asserts, “Don’t trouble us with the luminal reflection, Human.”
I say, “What the hell are you talking about!?!”
Stinky, he’s the middle-sized goon, says, while tapping on the map’s surface, reminiscent of Sir Lawrence’s line in Marathon Man, “Is it Greece?”
I say, “You are correct sir.” In a McMahonian to Carnacian vibe.
The three put their bulbous heads together & I hear them say, “Alert ALL OURS in Athens.” They quickly leave the room.
~~~
The thing of it is, a butter stain is technically a grease stain, laundry-ly speaking.
Great article, now buy my book 😉
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B096WGXZ27
Years ago, I had a horrible dream/nightmare. I was being pursued by a very ugly and hateful witch that was determined to murder me. It had sharp pointed fingernails, at least four inches long and it kept slashing the air trying to take my life.
I woke up from this nightmare, frightened, sweaty, and shaken. I determined that I would go back into that ‘dream’ and destroy that witch that was determined to kill me, and I did just that. Only thing is, I do not remember how I managed it, but the witch was minus its head. I slept well after that encounter with hatred. No more fear.
I am amazed at the two previous comments…what more needs to be said ? How about: disappointed!!!
Hopefully, someone else will enjoy this writing:
“Reading from a script, he suddenly stopped after about twenty minutes and apologized to the audience, who had, of course, not understood a word of it so far. It turned out that he had read the pages in the wrong order, and he spent a moment putting them back into the right order, which until then neither he nor the audience had noticed since he was speaking the purest kind of gobbledygook. My wife and I were the only ones to laugh at the almost surreal absurdity of it. But I was surprised later to discover when talking to him that he was an agreeable man of good sense who treated his patients in a conventional way. It was as if he were actually two persons: the doctor on the one hand, and the performer on the other, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the latter seeking intellectual kudos by means of incomprehensibility of utterance.”
READ REST:
https://www.takimag.com/article/about-face/
People’s stories are written in their faces.
Talking Heads, “Seen and Not Seen”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIMrhANwRy0
He would see faces in movies, on TV
In magazines and in books
He thought that some of these faces might be right for him
And that through the years
By keeping an ideal facial structure fixed in his mind
Or somewhere in the back of his mind
That he might, by force of will
Cause his face to approach those of his ideal
The change would be very subtle
It may take ten years or so
Gradually his face would change it’s shape
A more hooked nose
Wider, thinner lips
Beady eyes
A larger forehead
He imagined that this was an ability he shared with most other people
That they had also molded their faces according to some ideal
Maybe they imagined they imagined their new face
Would better suit their personality
Or maybe they imagined that their personality
Would be forced to change, to fit the new appearance
This is why first impressions are often correct
Although some people might have made mistakes
They might have arrived to an appearance that bears no relationship to them
They might have picked an ideal appearance based on some childish whim
Or a momentary impulse
Some may have gotten half way there
And then changed their minds
He wonders if he too might have made a similar mistake
Thank you. You have been an inspiration for me.
Noting the only female writer mentioned is Ayn Rand. Her fearless manly perspective on the external world stands pretty unique among xx writers… as opposed to Laura Ingalls Wilder who wrote her stories with shreds of truth imbedded into more palatable offerings for the softer generation of perpetual children. Let’s face it- she needed the money, but she couldn’t believe anyone would want to read such a story. The whole Truth or even most of it would be unbearable to reluve let alone tell us “strangers.” Women need to keep their secrets for everyone’s protection. Well, not so for the angry ones who have no problem wanting women believing they are no different from men in any important way. These lies leave you feeling empty reading their tall tales. Laura romping thru the prairie grass and sleeping under a pile of snow in her bed after an all-night blizzard into her little house made me feel exhilarated and that we can handle whatever comes our way. Protected and Loved.
I went to Harlan Ellison’s website and downloaded the short story it offered. I read 5 segments and they concluded in a really good point about responsibility. Amazing writing!
http://harlanellison.com/iwrite/paladin.htm
Thank you Jon!!
Riveting Writing.
Fine SunDay Reading.
For All Concerned.
https://clifhigh.substack.com/p/the-other-option
Writers liberate the self and create new worlds.
“Believing in freedom is one thing. Feeling free is quite another. Writing (doing it or reading it) gives you the feeling.
It gives you a platform on which to stand. A stage. A new stage.”
Beautifully put. One can become free through one’s writing and hopefully inspire others as well creating that new stage that they can stand on and inspire themselves and others.