Prologue: In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida

"While our behavior is still significantly controlled by our genetic inheritance, we have, through our brains, a much richer opportunity to blaze new behavioral and cultural pathways on short timescales."

-Carl Sagan, The Dragons of Eden

Nothing's always as it seems.

More often than not, it's for the best to be prepared for what you don't expect. The common cliché would compare this phenomenon with the metaphoric connection between life and a roller-coaster, considering all those twists and turns, all the ups and downs...the only real difference is that on the coaster, much like in history, you become subject to the machine's limited and predictable track. You know what to expect, and you know how it will end, but you still ride it passively all the same. Real life, on the other hand, is nowhere near as convenient. It can and often will drop you like a ton of bricks without so much as a warning, leaving you to flounder in the chaotic stresses and uncertainties to follow. All the while, everyone and everything else passes by without so much as a first glance, much less a second; they have lives of their own, after all. And yet, for the more optimistic of the race, the alternative road to life can take the occasional rise above the heavens; that is, if one were determined enough to accept the challenges, to make the efforts, and to endure the perilous climb. The entities of the realms forever out of reach by mankind shall be witness to their thoughts and deeds...

There has been far too many who have taken this gift of living for granted, having grown intent on following the insane pathways constructed from the traditional illusions and oppression of our increasingly-artificial society. Millions, if not billions, are taught to believe that they must serve this fabricated system in order to reach their full potential within the herd of mindlessly-obedient sheep. These "citizens" are continuously taught to relinquish their natural rights and to consume the world with suicidal obsession. They allow their federalist shepherds to carry on with their demented games, allowing their masters to use fear and greed to direct the planet's future while in reality the overlords sit back and accumulate their own personal gains, convincing the masses that without the chosen few, society as we know it would be a barbaric horror reminiscent to the dystopian worlds of Ann Rayn or Pierre Boulle.

To escape from the crooked reality of this modern-day zeitgeist is only a temporary bandage at best to the damaged psyche; after all, Einstein himself once stated that to repeat the same actions and to expect different consequences is a sign of insanity. Everyone has their chronic problems with life, but it is how we deal with our demons that ultimately defines who we are and where our place resides in this ever-flowing cycle. It is, in a sense, ultimately defined how one reacts in the face of these countless trials when one's true character shall be tested for it's worth, revealing what moralities and beliefs reside from deep within the subconscious, whether or not they're related to that ageless D&D-style alignment between good, evil, or just somewhere in between. Will we rise up against the They Live injustices of the modern world, or shall we continue to obey indifferently to their crooked ways and go back to our induced sleep.

There was a Blackfoot proverb that always came to mind whenever these thoughts crossed the mind, as if the ratification of these words were becoming truer with each passing day: When asking the Great Spirit for life, he sends us challenges.

Make what you will of it...