C. JoyBell C.'s Blog, page 5

     To be very clear, nothing I have said or enacted upon over recent days has come from a place of resentment. Let no human being say, "She's just saying that because she's a self-loathing white person who doesn't like her whiteness", or, "Her white daddy hurt her", or, "She's not accepted by white people."

Human before race, human before religion, human before politics.

     What's happening right now is a distinctive pivotal point in the history of humankind. And why is it happening now? It is happening now because in order for it to have taken place, we, as a collective race, needed to be shaken and sat down. Shaken by death, by horror and sat down by isolation. Which is exactly what has been happening since the beginning of this year. Distractions are gone. Everyone is forced to sit down and to feel things. When George Floyd was killed we all felt that, because all the clubs are closed and we have no parties to attend. We felt it hard. And then we thought "why is this still happening?" Then we started to do something. We started to do something in a way like we haven't done it in a hundred years! We started to get loud, and then louder and then louder! Then we joined hands and we all became frontliners in a war that requires us to all become a new kind of human!     It takes white people to break away and say, "I can't breathe". And I deeply hope that this is a domino effect right now, because, it takes Chinese people to break away and say, "I don't eat cats and dogs", "Set Tibet free", "Down with communism." And it takes Christians to break away and say, "Gay people should have the same civil rights as anyone else in this country", "Trump is not right", "We are not the only ones that are going to Heaven." And it takes Muslims to break away and say, "Down with the Taliban", "Down with Abu Sayyaf", "End the ISIL." It takes a breaking away from a conformity and a sense of self identity and belonging, on behalf of what is beyond ourselves!     I hope that George Floyd becomes not only the martyr of the Black Lives Matter movement and not only the martyr for black people everywhere, but I hope George Floyd died for the entire race of humankind, because I want this to be the year when everything got different. When everything wasn't the same again. When we became The New Human.

     We live in a time when everyone must bear arms on behalf of something on the outside of them that moves on the inside of their hearts. We no longer live in an era where peace was equivalent to detachment. Peace thanks to detachment is just an unwillingness to commit to being alive. That era is over. Peace by means of invalidation is over. Peace through the validation of what is essential to others, is the only way through this now. I validate you, you validate me, we validate each other, we are attached to each other. Peace through the acknowledgement of what is human. This is the way forward.      "Invalidation" is an act of tyranny that is carried out daily at the personal level, between friends, family, lovers, co-workers, etc. It is the easiest and most prevalent form of "little tyrannies" that are enacted upon, and are carried out every day. Invalidating another's experience, feeling, thought, action, by making it seem irrelevant or small, is cowardice, and at the root of it is a fear of living life beyond your own borders.     We talk about national borders all the time, when in reality, it's the borders that we place between ourselves and the people close to us, that take profound effect in human lives, on the daily. There is even a spiritual movement in the New Age group that focuses so much on putting up borders, that these borders are simply passive aggressive behaviours designed to pamper a person in their own preconceived or misconceived bubbles.      The borders are old and that era is over. Peace in this new era is not about sitting on top of a rock in alienation to gain a selfish version of peace. Peace, in our new era now, is about the realisation that peace for all is peace for one! We now bear arms for battles happening beyond our own little worlds because this is what it means to be the new human.

     We live in a time that's too late. It's too late. It's too late to say that what doesn't involve you personally, doesn't bother you in your heart. It's too late for that. You are either bothered, or you are a waste of oxygen on this planet. Be bothered. Be bothered by lots of things. Be bothered by many things. Let your heart shake from the things of this world that are too much or that are too little. We are not here to live a life unshaken.
     Silence in the face of injustice, is injustice in action.

     Nick Cordero is a Canadian Broadway Theatre performer and Tony Award Nominee actor. Only 41 years old, healthy, with his own little family.     Just last month, Nick contracted Covid-19 and has since experienced two strokes, a blood clot in his leg which has led to its being amputated, he is in coma and has been in and out of intense medical intervention for his lungs, which, according to his spouse, "are now as damaged as the lungs of someone who's been smoking for fifty years." From April to May of the same year, Covid-19 has managed to inflict fifty years' worth of damage upon a healthy thespian's lungs.      I think that there is this prevailing attitude right now, one that has people feeling like, "I'm ready to die, if it's my time then it's my time!" And unfortunately this is a root cause of a current major preeminent societal problem. It is unrealistic and egotistical. The reality is that there are things that can happen to you which are far worse than death. Think about losing your leg. Think about having to be attached to a ventilator for the rest of your life. Think about becoming paralyzed due to stroke and being bound to a wheelchair. So, you think you're ready for death; but are you ready for the things this disease can cause which are worse than death?     Nick's story is so painful to hear about, it hurts to even look at his young, healthy photos. But everyone should know his story, because he was a healthy, young family man who now has lost a leg and has a set of lungs ravaged as if he's been smoking longer than his actual current lifespan. There are things worse than death. So, before you take up and wear an egotistical attitude towards this panhelldemic we are all going through, ask yourself if you're ready to stay alive but live severely impaired, crippled, or even with severe loss of cognitive function. Because if the answer is no, then you need to do a daily reality check from hereon after.  Nick with wife Amanda Kloots and son.

People are saying, "This virus is ripping us apart, it's creating gaps in our relationships, it's dividing us as families, as a people. We can't let it do that, we can't enforce quarantine, we can't stop living our lives or it wins!" But in reality, this virus is forcing us to unite, it is forcing us to help one another, forcing us to make sacrifices for the good of our neighbours. Because suddenly--suddenly our neighbours' wellbeings will directly, drastically affect ours! Suddenly, what happens to them needs to matter to us! Suddenly, I need to want the best for my neighbour, because that's the best chance I have at staying well, myself.

We are now required to undue our selfishishness if we want to see our mothers live, if we want to see our children grow, if we want our dads to not have to die in quarantine, far away from any familiar face!

Since when would we have set aside anything we wanted to do for the benefit of anyone else other than ourselves? Since when would you have cancelled an exciting dinner date, because you have your grandmother in mind? Your brother in mind? You wouldn't of. You wouldn't. It wouldn't of ever happened!

Everything you used to do, you did with your pleasure in mind. Everything you used to plan, you planned with your pleasure in mind. When would you have ever inconvenienced yourself for the benefit of someone else? You wouldn't of. Not until this virus came!

This virus arrives and now our own pleasure is dependent on the pleasure of those around us! This virus arrives, and now, for the first time, our lives are intricately woven into each other. Of course, it was always that way, it was always like that; but it took an invisible master artisan to pull upon the threads that weave us together, so we would feel the tug of those threads and realise that they're actually there! We are actually interwoven, we are actually intertwined, we are actually connected. We never noticed it before. I mean, we'd say so and we'd write poems about, but it never really meant what it does mean. Just words. Just empty words.

But now it means life or death.

I don't want anyone I love dying without being able to hold my hand.

I need to keep your mother alive if I want mine to stay alive. I need to keep your sister alive if I want my sister to see her next birthday. Suddenly, this is our reality. Thanks to this virus.

Yeah we used to go to family dinners--Christmas and whatevers. It was always for the instagram. Wasn't it? It was always for the My Story. Wasn't it? It wasn't even about mom or pop. It wasn't even about grams or grandad. It was about "the gram".

A lot changes when you think of someone you love dying without being able to see the faces of anyone they cherish. A lot changes when you think about someone you love dying without being able to hold your hand. They can't even be buried.

Now? Now, thanks to this virus, we are human once again. We feel once again, we see once again. Now we can save ourselves! Now we have to save ourselves, we have to save each other.

This virus is the spider that weaves the silken webs which hold us together as one. It will depart when we are able to weave these webs by ourselves. This is what it's here for. It is not our Demon, it is our Angel. We defeat it as we would defeat an enemy because that is exactly why it's here, that is exactly its mission.

C. JoyBell C., Fri, March 13, 2020

     As someone who is responsible for producing some of the most quoted aphorisms on FEAR, I also feel it is my responsibility to correct current misconceptions about it (about fear).
     I could list them all down here, but, chances are if you are reading this then you can also do a quick google search. A quick google search of "C. JoyBell C. + fear" will render you with quite the array of words!
     I believe that humankind is currently at the extreme opposite end of the pendulum, where you have turned fear into the enemy, something to be shunned at all costs. This is ignorant and unwise.
     I suffered for many years from a myriad of irrational phobias. From clowns, to trees! From wide open spaces, to the dark! I was a phobia-ridden person who overcame each and every phobia with the power of words. And those are exactly the aphorisms, the pieces, that you get to read from me today.
     However, I swing to no extremes. I am always at the middle of the pendulum. I feel it is my duty to warn you about the extreme stance you have now taken.


     Fear, when irrational, ought to be overcome, conquered. But fear in itself is not always a metaphorical, spiritual issue. It is not always a spiritual or an allegorical issue. Fear, primarily, is the chemical named GLUTAMATE which is released into your body from your brain when a threat is perceived. Without GLUTAMATE produced in our brains, human beings would of died off during prehistoric times and none of us would be here right now. Fear is what tells you that you probably shouldn't jump on the sabertooth and you probably shouldn't stand in the middle of the freeway. Fear has kept the human race on this planet since prehistoric times. It's technically called glutamate. Remember that.
     Today, we have everyone believing that glutamate is the enemy and that every sign of glutamate rising should be immediately squashed with a vengeange. My people, this is unwise. Glutamate is responsible for preparing you for events, for providing you with the capacity to gauge a situation. Without it, none of us would exist right now.
     For example, I know a lot of firsthand information from doctors and virologists regarding the COVID19 plague. Because I follow virologists and epidemiologists since this is a virus and viruses are their areas of expertise. Duh. Now, I am also a science writer so I have took it upon me to familiarize myself with science jargon, as I do work with teams of scientists and astronomers. Having information is not the same thing as being afraid. I have information, I share that information, and I am not afraid of that information. Why? Because the glutamate produced by my brain while absorbing that information is put to good use by my body into preparing for a pandemic. Glutamate MOTIVATES me. It does not paralyze me. And it should be doing the same for you too. Except you think it's a spiritual phenomenon rather than an anatomical, biological one.
     The key is to get fear to motivate you and spring you into the right directions and level headed decision making. This is where the management of the glutamate chemical comes into play. Manage it. Turn it into your tool. Not all fears are a question of irrational, spiritual origins. Many times, fears are necessary biological responses designed to keep you alive. The spiritualization of absolutely everything is always harmful.
     Now, if you see the information on COVID19 and this paralyzes you, that is not the fault of the information. That is you not knowing how to manage glutamate in your body. Big facts. Your fear of fear is paralyzing you. That is what's happening. It's not that you are not afraid, in fact, you are so afraid that you cannot even consider the possibility of negative facts being true, being something you'll have to deal with as an adult. You can't look the demon in its face for what it is. Now, you can bury your head in the sand and blame scientists and governments for having a covert agenda to frighten you (because, I don't know, the world is apparently run by a horror film cast and crew, or whatever logic you may be having), or, you can put on your big person underpants and start acting like a responsible grown up person. Prepare.


     This message is coming from someone who learned how to, over a period of many years, manage both rational and irrational fear. Please realise that we are not living in a storybook, fear is not always the unseen monster under your bed, fear is many times your guardian Angel. Your built-in, biological guardian Angel. Prepare yourselves, you have nothing to lose.

     I am compelled to speak up about "the end of the world". First up: I definitely do not think that "the end is nigh" and here I will elaborate on why we should not be readying ourselves for "the end".
     When we look at all that has been going on since the beginning of this month, we could be forgiven for thinking that we ought to start wrapping ourselves up in blankets and curling up in a corner. It surely does look like "the end". Doesn't it? I don't even need to enumerate all of the reasons why. You know why.
     I'm a history buff, which means that, I am fond of looking at humanity through the lens of past events. The only way we can understand our present day, is by understanding our past. And I can tell you that, humanity has "ended" several times already! And yet, here we are, with our buildings and our wifi and our robots and our pancakes.
     Ice Age is when the end really happened. And yet, we still went from hunting mammoths for breakfast, to squirting maple syrup on our pancakes. And checking Facebook every five minutes. When the entire planet shifts all of its poles and freezes over, that is pretty much the end! And yet, here we are today! Facing another "the end"!
     Since the last World War (which wasn't that long ago at all, by the way), humanity's leaders have been in treatise in a collective noble goal to never allow another one. To never again allow the atrocities of The Holocaust on our collective human soil, to never again engage every continent on Earth in one giant killing spree of a battle. Ever since then, our collective endeavours have been towards progressively overcoming the parts of our human nature that eventually lead us to downfall. All of our collective efforts towards modern day progression, have stemmed from a pivot point at the end of WW2. And we have come so far. And I am so very proud of us!
     Alas, human nature inevitably rears its monstrous head, again, and threatens to do what it has always done: self destruct everything that it has created and built with its own hands! Still, it's not going to be "the end". Not by a long shot. We have been through Ice Age, we have been through the Black Plague, we have been through two World Wars, we have been through the medeival slaughterhouses, we have witnessed the systematic annihilation of six million human beings due to the nature of blood running through their veins, we have seen the fall of the Roman Empire, the fall of the Mayan civilisation, the fall of the legendary home of Gods and humans that once was the great and incomparable Greece, we have been to THE END many, many times before. And it has ended. And we are here today!

     THE END is never really the end. It is only a new doorway, a new beginning. There will be a new beginning and we are teeter tottering at the edge of this new door right now. Whatever it is. It could be a planetary collision, it could be Ice Age all over again, it could be another World War, another Black Plague... but we will rise again and write new holy books, as we have done many times before; we will rise again and we will find love and have children, as we have done many times before; WE WILL RISE AGAIN and we will reform and restructure the future of humankind. It will be anew. It will be like nothing we have ever seen before. We are at just another end, but, the beginnings are always new. The beginnings are always something we have never seen before.
     You may say that now it is different due to climate change, and I'll ask you, "What do you think Ice Age was? You don't think that was CLIMATE CHANGE"? You may say that now it is different due to AI robots, and I'll tell you, "If there were nothing different at all, then that would mean we have not progressed at all, since the Ice Age, so I am pretty darn happy that now we have AI robots!"
     Authors and evangelists are dangerous right now, as they will spew messages that feed into their need for attention, their need for audience. But they genuinely do believe their messages, so it's not like I am saying that they are consciously misleading people. But I am saying that those who will die are going to be those who expect to die. And those who will live, are going to be those who understand that, just like countless times in our past, we have ended and then we have stood up. We have ended and we have risen again. We have ended and we have gone on to write poetry, ballads, film. This is our legacy as a human race. And it always will be.

     It is remarkably easy to feel confused about your enthnoreligious area of belonging in this current era that we partake in. Borders no longer exist and ethnicity is no longer nationality. Religion is no longer ethnic. Spirituality is no longer religion. We currently are partaking in an era wherein the nuts and bolts of a thing are cracked down on and we get to examine the gist of a person and his/her wires, at a level previously unheard of. Some individuals even need therapy to address ethnoreligious identity crises, and that does not even surprise me in the least. Today, one may have blonde hair, blue eyes, and be a Muslim. One may be Pacific Islander and be a British national. One may be Nordic through and through but be Jewish. A person can be African and Protestant.
     Catholicism is a renegade form of Judaism that was created by the Romans, from which Protentantism was formed; the English Bible is a direct translation of the Hebrew Torah; but you surely do not need to be Italian to be Catholic and you surely do not need to know what Hebrew is, to pick up a Bible. In fact, lots of Catholics and Protestants don't even know that Jesus was born in Bethlehem and spoke and wrote Hebrew because he was a Jew.
     In 1980, one could expect to show up in Norway or in London and see white people. When I was in Norway and in London not so long ago, every third person I saw was Middle Eastern. Some people in London didn't even speak English!
     The world we live in is different now and it will never go back to being what it once was, it just will not. This is the new paradigm that we now live in.

     Even I have struggled with a small crisis with regards to my ethnoreligious identity. Religion has played an immensely profound role in my life. Immensely profound. It has impacted me deeply. My parents were both Theologians when they met, specializing in the Torah and in the Jewish roots of Christianity. They fell in love while they were both in Israel. My paternal grandmother converted to become a Jew later in her life and she encouraged me to do the same before she passed. I loved her dearly and deeply and immoveably. My mother is currently Jewish-Protestant and I was raised Jewish-Protestant. That means that I was raised in a Protestant church but with a keen awareness of the history and life of Israel and the Israelis, I sang Hebrew songs, I celebrated some of the Jewish holidays.
     My mother's grandfather was a Taoist High Priest in China. The Administrator and Keeper of the Yin and Yang. He was a big deal! The rest of my family does not care for him at all, or care for Taoism at all, as they believe it to be insignificant and inferior to their Protestantism. I, on the other hand, believe this root in my ancestry to be of outstanding worth!
     I am a "roots person". I truly value and truly respect any and all roots that I may have! There is so much magic to be found in the places where my pieces have come from and I appreciate and respect each one of them to the highest possible degree. This is why I gave my son a Hebrew name (his name is entirely Hebrew); because I deeply appreciate the fact that my parents fell in love while they were in Israel. This is why, today, I practice the Jewish holidays, I follow non- orthodox Judaism, because I grew up with a heart close to the songs and the holidays. This is also why, today, I believe in the principles of the Yin and Yang, I believe and respect the many Taoist principles (which are echoed in Judaism very much, by the way).
     I was given a very English name by my parents. And I have probably the most English surname on the planet: "Childs". Literally, this surname was developed in English courts to be given to the young Knights at their knighthood. It doesn't get any more English than that! Since they were Theologians, they initially wanted to name me "Agape" (Greek for "Charity") but then last minute they decided to go with the traditionally very English "Charity", out of respect of my father's Welsh heritage. But then I was born in the USA, so I share the same citizenship with many an immigrant over the hundreds of years.
     I have every right to struggle with ethnoreligious identity. But I honestly know a number of people who have so much more right to battle with this than I do. I know a Malay-Polynesian who is a British National but who is also Muslim by virtue of his grandfather's Nigerian-Muslim heritage. Now that's not easy to wrap your head around. At least with my case, I can easily be categorised as a typical WASP with some religious and ethnic twerks (and that would just sound cute and interesting).
     We have entered into a paradigm wherein our inward struggles have to do with the pieces of us that make us who we are. But then who are we, really? Are we all of these pieces? All of these roots? Or are we just the parts that we pick out and highlight? Or are we responsible for writing our own stories? Are we responsible for refusing to rely on the stories written before us to define us?
     In this new paradigm we are entering into, I hope that we all come to terms with how we want to see and to understand who we really are. I hope this for you and I hope this for me. May self-discovery and self-actualisation take centerstage now. I wish you a Happy New Year and Prosperous New Decade beginning in a few days and with my wishes I send you my warm embrace! Thank you, wonderfuls, for loving me, staying with me, supporting me, and really just never leaving my side! It has been a decade of C. JoyBell C. And look at where we are now! ILY! IRRLY (I Really Really Love You).