Peace Amongst The Trees
In a previous life, I lived 5000 human years atop Wudan mountain.
I remember every lived second.
Life is competition.
Competition is violence.
In many modern forms of competition, we have attempted to water down the violent aspects, to replicate violence in the most sanitized way.
We have full-grown men, growing as large and strong as possible - to put a ball in a net, as opposed to hurting each other.
But the sentiment is the same.
It’s a group of men at war with another - with one team being victors.
And the other being losers.
The largest, strongest, most beautiful tree. Violently crushed the surrounding saplings, in the quest for resources.
Every time I see beauty, I see the struggle required to create it.
When I see myself, I know the struggle lived to become who I am.
To live as I do.
The more sophisticated my understanding of the universe’s state of constant war - the happier, more content, and peaceful I feel.
You are MEANT to struggle.
You are here to SUFFER.
If you do neither of these things, you are either dead or invisible.
If you want people to care who you are - become familiar with pain.
If you do not struggle to become an exceptional man.
You are a nobody.
And every female will prove to you - you may as well not exist.
Evolution requires PAIN.
While others complain they do not feel happy enough, I’m happy I’m struggling.
I don’t want to be happy.
I want to be great.
This is the beauty of life as a MAN.
We are born valueless.
And you either build yourself into a King - or you fail.
Atop Wudan, I told priest master Yan Hui, how at peace I felt amongst the trees.
I could feel life all around me.
Sitting at the foot of the largest tree, I asked him.
“When life is so beautiful, why do we fight?”
His reply was simple.
“Do you think the largest tree you sit beneath, grew so tall amongst many if it didn’t fight?”
Such is The Way Of Wudan
- Tateshinkai
You call yourself Master,
you crown yourself king,
but he is not yours
and he never will sing
the hymn of surrender,
the prayer of the chained
you may conquer his body,
but his soul stays unnamed.
So lock him in darkness,
let iron kiss skin,
let blood mark the arena
you drag him within.
Let the walls learn his sorrow,
let the stone learn his cry,
but there are some parts of him
even you cannot buy.
You can bruise him to purple,
you can break him to bone,
you can strip him of everything
he once called his own.
You can drag him through shame
until shame has no name,
you can cover his body
in ruin and blame.
But hear me, false Master,
and hear me well..
there are kingdoms in him
that outlive hell.
There are altars inside him
no hand can profane,
there are names written deeper
than terror or pain.
There is something God buried
too far in his chest
for your fists to discover,
your chains to possess.
And when you have emptied him,
bloodied the floor,
when you think there is nothing
inside him anymore,
when you stand there believing
you finally have won...
that is when you will learn
what you have never undone.
His soul will rise quietly,
black winged and bright,
like something once buried
returning at night.
It will stand in the ashes
of all you destroyed,
and look at your kingdom
and call it a void.
So force him to kneel.
Make a throne of his pain.
Call yourself holy.
Call yourself sane.
Tell heaven you broke him.
Tell hell he obeyed.
But God knows the difference
between bowed and afraid.
And I swear by the blood
you believed made him weak,
by the prayers he swallowed
when he could not speak,
by every dark hour
you thought made him yours
he will outlive your cruelty.
He will outlast your wars.
You may bury his body
beneath lock, stone, and scar,
but his soul is a country
you cannot conquer from afar.
So call yourself Master.
Wear whatever crown.
You can force him to his knees.
You will never
make him
bow down.