You Cannot Stomp the Light into Anyone

You’ll never bully anyone into changing. You cannot stomp The Light into anyone. They have to want it. You know the phrase, “be the change you want to see in the world”? That one’s not just another sanctimonious hit of holier than thou slactivist armchair do goodery. That one’s actual guidance and I picked up on it in the ’70s.

You just want people to agree with you? That’s easy. You want that to mean anything more than lip service? Ain’t gonna happen if they can’t find anything in you that they want to be.

You set a lead worth following, and people will follow it. Some won’t, and you’re just gonna have to find a way to be okay with that because there is nothing you can do about it.

You can burn your own values and see all white people, all cops, all Christians, all whatever, as a single-minded monolith, and an evil one at that, and you’ll attract people too. But I sure wouldn’t turn my back to any of ’em.

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This first appeared in The Havok Journal on June 18, 2020.

Bama has been a rodeo cowboy, a professional stuntman, and, for 38 years and counting, a bouncer at various biker bars and redneck rat cage juke joints through the Deep South. He makes cool stuff as Crimson Tied Paragear, using knots his Army Ranger Scoutmaster taught him at Boy Scout summer camp deep in the Okinawan boonies back in 1972.