On some level we are all tribal. Your tribe may be more elite or exclusive, but no person is a product of wolves or whatever. We all carry that imprint on those who raised us, sculpted our characters. I know alcoholics are their own tribe. You feel lonely? Now be lonely in a group.

Side note, I remember one of those nights at the bar when Def Leopard "Pour Some Sugar on Me" came on and the whole room broke from whatever little diversions they were involved and started singing the refrain. It just felt right, like everybody instinctively knew this was the moment. Like an unrehearsed flash mob, just a random break from the routine. 

Those moments are unique, like a power bigger than a person takes over the many. As a person who oft follows her own path and gives zero shits what others think, i am often feeling like the outsider. Historically, I would date men who plot to overthrow the government. I love the radical on the outside fringe. I love the lone wolf who eschews the pack.

That philosophy doesn't land so well in your 40s. It might be sexy on Juliette Lewis, but beer gutted moms who are still advocating to take down the man lose credibility in their community. My aunt doesn't want to hear about it. Will you ever be productive at building it up rather than theoretically taking down? Boring.

When i think about why my brain wants to seek out like minds to validate bad behavior, i feel like I'm wired for cult flirtation. Really that's how cults spring forth. There's a basic tenant of what the core dark aim is, and collectively people decide if enough of us validate it, it will be real.

As humans, our existence here has really been a blip against history. Thing is, history isn't always truth. Dinosaurs may have had feathers. Columbus had a dark side. Our heroes are not always heroes from the other perspective. 

I feel like America loves the narrative of the hero. This country is a nubile sapling. The American dream, the Disney-fying of reality, charges our vision of truth. The Hollywood machine has spun fantasy for the entire world about what it is to be a part of the illusion. What's behind the curtain? Who is the wizard creating the myth? What about those crushed by the myth? Where do we put our anger that it may not be real at all? 

What's real?

Legit. I sometimes don't know. 

I know that pain is very real. Pain has a way of subverting to rage. Pain transmutes to anger. Anger becomes that cancer that consumes your identity. Everything you touch becomes part of that black hole, the never-ending mouth of emptiness. You can't feed it forever. It is never enough. It will rise up and eat you too.

To break the cycle you have to center yourself. No one is centered riding the waves of a thrill ride that doesn't stop. Up/down..spinning and spinning. At some point you just want to go home. To get centered we all need to slow it down, take a sober breath and leave the cult to implode at the mercy of their own delusions.