The troubles and struggles along the pathway to any victory ought be expected. Unfortunately many of the world’s mentors skip this lesson with their pupils. Athletic coaches talk about it, but institutional establishments paint a very different and false picture—that diligent homework makes friends and a shoe-in financial statement. But, that’s just propagandist brainwashing for institutions to make obedient minions, rewarding them with frictionless perks.
Real victory is bloody, sweaty, and teary. Consider the trailblazers and pioneers of the Wild West. Anything new, fresh, and growing will cut into the wild and untame. Anyone who does new, fresh, and growing work will adapt one’s tastes to find comfort and familiarity in the fray.
Institutions and establishments, by contrast, sterilize their environments before entering. If the masses allow—and sometimes they do—institutions will raze the jungle, mill the logs into poles, and plunge them back into the ground like a field of giant toothpicks where trees once stood, labeling it a “better” forest to explore. But, nature is organic and spontaneous.
Each tree, each grass and moss and bird and critter thrive uniquely—differently yet in kind. Life sprawls with ordered chaos having a purpose necessary to biological progress. That life is strong and powerful, able to overcome… whatever—even a forest fire, even nuclear fallout. Consider the environment around Chernobyl.
The bumpy, irregular path of real life makes us tired. Enemies return flack when the good guys make progress. Wisdom tells us this is normal. But, institutions see the unique irregularities of life as a nuisance and it makes them depressed. Thus, institutions and their teachers pass on their depression to their pupils—to their minions. To hear any institutional culture speak of life is disheartening. It has neither spunk nor spark, completely deflated and complacent.
“It’s so hard,” they say. “I don’t know how I’ll make it, but I’ll keep going a little longer. This life isn’t easy, full of trouble.” For the so-called “godly” institutions, they inject “institutional hope”—”God will come help me some day and rescue me from this depressing existence.” Such is lifeless Institutionalism.
Know this truth and thrive: Winners are not weary as victims, but as victors.