Riva Tez: Every Angel is Terrifying. Prelude for building a new city.
Do you know what it means to bend the arch of eternity toward you
Synopsis of a video written and voiced by Riva Tez, posted on Praxis YouTube channel.
Alas, there cometh the time…
I tell you, one must still have chaos in one, to give birth to a dancing star. I tell you: ye still have chaos in you.
You are entertained and satiated. You are seemingly productive. But you are not great.
You dreamed of new worlds… of being a hero and a pioneer… as you matured… you grew content with smaller dreams.
It’s said that you live in the most prosperous era of human history.
How many times have you been fed the script you are living in the best time the world has ever seen. A supposed golden age.
What if this is the dark age?
Why have we shaped a world where so many need to be numb.
Almost a quarter of Americans are on psychiatric medication.
Much of mental illness is a grouping together of characteristics that don’t comply with social norms.
If this is our golden era… then what exactly are we running from… [numbing from]
Millions of children are diagnosed with Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity DISORDER
Children as young as 8 are being diagnosed with Oppositional and Defiant DISORDER
Their wildness… the purest form of human spirit
We stick them in windowless schools… their minds encaged…
The rejuvenating force of children and the wisdom of elders… increasingly extricated from society.
Multi generational homes a relic of the past,
We cast off blood relatives at the thought of inconvenience.
We are so over-indexed on productivity that we have forgotten what it means to share blood, to build community. What it means to experience the full range of human emotion.
Socially, we descend into numbness. Into the unimportant. Into the average. Our machines thrive while we whither.
If you don’t conform, if you rebel, if you make any attempt to fight, even to care for your freedom, then you are oppositional and you are defiant. Let the state medicate you.
How long before a mandatory regiment of pills and injections?
It almost already happened.
We are educated into blind obedience. This social conditioning is right in front of you. If the news is fake, imagine history.
Today, we live in the world of reason, how has it deceived us?
Where faith in God may have diminished, it has been replaced by faith in experts, by faith in government, by faith in democracy. The Enlightenment took our battles of faith and made them about industry, democracy, and later, contemporary psychiatry.
God is dead, but don’t worry, we all have improved living conditions.
The Pre-Enlightenment era was one of mental and spiritual abundance, one of beauty and meaning and virtue.
Faith, post-Enlightenment, is defined as blind trust in something else. But faith means something richer. Faith means having conviction in your own moral ideals. Faith is strength. It allows for an identity. We have lost the ideal of conviction. It once led men to settle new worlds. Now it is viewed as irrational. Enlightenment thinkers said the only thing they know is that they don’t know.
What good can come from a world that holds no beliefs? You are living in the wake up. Amid a culture of moral relativism, society has become squishy, pale and devoid of vitality.
But belief should be held, and here is one:
There is more opportunity out there than anyone wants you to believe.
You must hold convictions and steady values despite society hating you for it. You must have faith.
CONVICTION IS STILL WHAT BIRTHS HEROES
What does it mean to be noble? Nobility means having high personal qualities and ideals. The noble person strives to be virtuous.
Virtues are diminishing from society. Yet when present and cultivated, they lead to human flourishing. All religions center around virtues. Great Epochs aspire to them, from the chivalric code of the Medieval knights to the Roman Virtues. Having ideals and virtuous standards are important for human florishing.
Yet contemporary media claims having any ideals is is fascist.
Everything of conviction is fascist. It wouldn’t be the first word to be twisted into meaninglessness.
For those who have conviction, who have principles, who strive to be noble, who strive to build new worlds, society may never accept you.
Don’t seek their approval.
There is a sad paradox that despite all of technological progress and improved living conditions, we suffer such dissatisfaction.
A billion people willingly bear the algo-assault of the biggest psy-ops in the world. Humans are handing over their most valuable possession, their time and attention, to government [corporations] that think of them as expendable.
If you are contributing to these platforms: quit your job.
World war 3 is in the algorithms making you hate yourself and your own civilization. If you do anything to take a stance against this degredation, from this blood bath of morality, then you, are a fascist.
Our media states “some even believe they are fighting a primordial battle between good and evil”
They are. You are.
The world still fights Holy wars.
In order to have a vital world, you must love beauty, you must protect it. A large part of cynicism is a rejection of beauty. Today we’re seeking beauty in endless shallow selfies. A parade of insecure normality.
Go home, lie in a dark room, listen Handel, and cry.
Beauty is vanishing from our world as if it does not matter.
Let us not strive for a world where we are all equally mundane.
There are values. There is order and a noble hierarchy. And we are capable of discerning.
The state raises you to be good citizens, but you should first be great men.
The great cut a path through the cobwebs of mediocrity. Those are the men and women who build new worlds.
Do you know what it means to bend the arch of eternity toward you
Have you felt the burn of conviction
The statues point to it
Art points to it
Every noble story since the beginning of time points to it
You can’t know these things without passion
And you can’t feel passion if you’re numb
I want a lot
Perhaps, I want everything
The darkness that comes with every infinite fall
And the shivering blaze of every step up
So many live on and want nothing
What you love to see are faces that do work and feel thirst
You love, most of all, those who need you
You have not grown old
And it is not too late
To dive into your increasing depths
Where life, calmly gives out
its own secret
Riva Melissa Tez and Praxis