Update: since I first wrote this post, some political and social issues have arisen that have put an entirely different spin on what “the red pill” means and implies. I’m not going to bother retitling this piece, just know that I don’t have any part in the various wacko theories floating around these days, that happen to be using the same metaphor as I’m referring to, here. I’m talking about the red pill in the same terms as the original movie, The Matrix. I am NOT on board with a bunch of weird conspiracy theories.
It’s amazing to me, how many people obsess over the movie The Matrix and yet, daily… they take the blue pill, instead of the red pill.
Personally, I never cared much for that movie. I really liked the concept of it but it’s mostly just another action film and I find it sort of boring.
Yet, I daily choose the red pill and I try to live in an awake state. I despise half-ass attempts to appear awake, as is the case with people saying stupid things like “woke”. Yeah, I threw up in my mouth a little, just typing it.
Buyer’s Remorse
Let’s stop buying into the mindless haze of newer things and rapidly-fading fads. What new restaurant should I go to? Which movie must I see? How should I dress, so I am popular? What’s the latest gossip? Honestly?
Fuck all that noise. It’s boring.
This is an actual excerpt from an email exchange that I had with someone recently. There are no names and nothing here would reveal this person’s identity; I value people’s privacy.
It starts with this gentleman lamenting that his astrological chart has what astrologers refer to as “afflictions”. He states that he has to work ten times harder to get the same results as others do, barely trying…
Me: I understand that, I am the same way; it’s why I learned astrology and magick, to compensate for it.
[yeah, my own chart is a dumpster fire, which is why I work so hard at becoming better at what I do]
Him: the fun thing is I can achieve the same results by doing nothing..
Me: I would disagree with that part. You just have not found what actually works for you.
[Skipping a bit of the conversation here, for his privacy]
Him: So what do you suggest and where do we need to start.
Me: Well, I always recommend that someone commits to working with me through my plan of Conjure Coaching.
But talk therapy and chiropractic fix you through intense focus, not a single, microwave session. Yet, they both work, as long as you’re committed and you as long as you see someone good. Schooling happens over years, not in a single class and yet, it gives you an edge over the competition.
My program requires that you show up regularly and you have to work. I assign homework and you have to do intense introspection, something lazy people won’t do. It takes us working together regularly and over a significant period of time.
Him: I have worked with many psychics and most of them [wasted] my time and money without any results.
Me: I’m not the least bit surprised. [Most] of the psychics and magicians out there are either two bit hacks or outright con artists. They don’t bring any actual skills to the table.
I’m not a “psychic”. I have psychic abilities but then, so do you; we all do.
My niche is that I combine the skills of NLP, hypnosis, multiple forms of divination, my training as a personal coach and my skills as a ritual magician into one pot.
I never guarantee anything, I just promise to do my best to help people and then I keep my word on that.
They almost always see improvement in their lives and if you think about anything else you ever buy, improvement is usually enough to justify the expense.
– – –
That last bit of my response helped me clarify my thoughts and got me wanting to pass this message on to you.
The Trick
I am not calling this guy lazy, not at all. He has the exact same comments that millions of people do. Nobody teaches us to be excellent… because most people are not excellent. They just exist and breed.
If you will become excellent, you will learn where excellence springs from and understand that most people won’t get you. Once you are excellent, you are outside of their paradigm. You are taking the red pill.
In our culture, we rationalize buying a $600 television, because it keeps us entertained. It won’t fix any real world problems we have and it might actually make them worse. How? Because it causes us to slip deeper and deeper into a fantasy realm which has no real bearing on the world around us.
Don’t get me wrong, I do watch movies… I adore good movies. I watch way more movies than most people do. But I watch them only when I am eating or I’m just too damned pooped to do anything else.
I figured out how to leverage my time in a way that I get more quality viewing time than most people and I usually still get more done in working toward things that actually matter.
Also, let me be clear, here. There’s NOTHING wrong with expensive things or vacations or eating out at snazzy places. Those are all lovely, as long as it’s merely icing on the cake, as long as you possess some, greater purpose, to which you’re rabidly devoted.
What I am referring to is the use of things and experiences, to fill the void of an essentially empty life. It just doesn’t work and you’re gonna have a bad time.
Soma
We spend $500-$1,500 on a vacation that lasts one week, maybe two and we hope it will take the pain away.
We spend $75 on a dinner and drinks date and drop $40 going to a crappy circus or miniature golf place. $150 gets dropped on going out for the weekend because of a friend’s bachelor or bachelorette party and $12 a month on a subscription we never use.
Hangovers and buyer’s remorse are the reward for our slovenly expectations of easy answers.
But we won’t put anything toward personal development or learning people skills.
We sit and mull over our troubles and avoid paying a skillful reader or a therapist to help us sort it out.
And we certainly don’t hire magicians, because none of these things *fix our lives completely*.
That’s right. Your outlook is all wrong. But you didn’t need me to tell you that. You already knew… and that awareness comes from a deeper, gut level.
Checketh thine perspectives, brethren, lest thou faceth a major reckoning.
—Ice Cube, Check Yo Self
OK, that wasn’t Ice Cube but whatever.
Realize that the game is tilted in favor of advertising from major corporations that want to own you, like you were cattle.
You don’t have to say “moo” and you don’t have to eat grass. You only need to prioritize your money and your time the way that they want you to, rather than what is actually going to benefit you. Opting for a life of I don’t want to think, I just want to feel good.
Me, I would rather spend my time, hashing out skills that make me better at the things I love doing.
Go the Opposite Way of the Herd
I do things that most people these days find terribly boring, because they don’t provide quick dopamine fixes. I write poetry and I play guitar and I read a lot… not fiction but rather, self-improvement, history, how-to type stuff and lots of magickal manuals. People don’t exercise the patience to read poetry or play music anymore.
I practice magick. There’s ZERO quick fix in that and if you do get a quick fix, then rest assured, that’s the Spirits’ method of blowing you off. They don’t want to be pestered by you for something that would be truly worthwhile. “Sure, I will give $10, so I don’t have to give you ten thousand”.
Unlike most people, I rarely drink. I had two glasses of wine yesterday, only because I was celebrating a major milestone that I had been working on for many years. Drugs, I avoid, because they kill my ambition, I left that alone, many years ago.
In fact, I don’t do very much at all in the way of instant gratification. What bad habits are there, I’m in the process of rooting out.
Mostly, I work on my business, my music, my magick, my writing or I’m reading about something that requires me to think, some sort of skill that will actually improve my life, once I get better at it and I implement it into my day to day existence.
Formula for Success
And that’s the thing… I assume that if it’s something really good, then it’s not going to be easy. I am going to have to:
- Learn it. This may take weeks, months or even years. Everything I have learned that was actually worth knowing… it took at least a few months of daily practice. Anything else proved to be nothing more than flash and glitz, sold to the herd, to distract them from their miserable lives.
- Practice it. This might also take weeks, months or years and not the same as the previous ones! But again, anything legit is going to take real, concerted effort on your part and you have to be HUNGRY for it. Otherwise, that blue pill starts looking pretty damn good, right about lunch time.
- Implement it. That’s just what it sounds like. Learn it, then practice it… then you must USE it. Many people quit at the finish line. Why? Because they are afraid that they put in all that time and money and effort and then they will still fail. But rest assured… the only real failure is being too cowardly to roll the dice.
Don’t Believe the Hype
Get in the game. Stop assuming that personal coaching is some sort of rip off just because there are hacks with no training who call themselves “life coaches”.
There are slack ass doctors, athletes, police, bakers and grocery clerks, too. To declare the entire profession as a sham just because some people suck at it, is shoddy logic of the worst kind.
Stop assuming that magick is the same as someone bagging your groceries. It ain’t. It’s an art and NO, not every single spell works. That’s because there are multiple factors in play.
But you don’t expect every new restaurant to be your favorite new place and you don’t expect your home team to score every point, do you?
Kill Zone
A boxer doesn’t land every punch. A good boxer knows when to rest, when to duck, when to lean in and let his or her opponent carry their weight and above all, they keep swinging.
So why is that we expect every single tarot reading to be some life-altering, paradigm-shifting event that changes your game? Why do we expect that a simple spell will put us on easy street, for the rest of our lives?
Because you have been trained to accept the advertising that companies do inside your brain.
Accept that the kill zone of your target is a narrow area. Closing your eyes, pointing and hoping for the best is a terrible strategy and it’s hardly going to hit the mark. You need careful zoning in on your target and lots of good old fashion practice.
Wake up!
Take the red pill, already! Realize once and for all that it is NOT the mystical experiences that you build a life on. It’s how you USE those mystical experiences to cultivate a quiet peace in your day to day world.
Successfully utilizing magick isn’t casting a spell (or having one cast for you) and your whole life suddenly changes for the better.
Successfully utilizing magick is taking the minor improvement from that successful spell and BUILDING on it.
Simply closing your blinds and curtains in the summer saves you (I’m guessing) maybe $10 per month. I don’t know about you but I’ll take it.
That’s an improvement. I don’t scoff at the idea, merely because it didn’t make my electric bill completely disappear.
A Penny Saved Is… a Penny!
Yet people expect magick to do just that. It should make your problems disappear. That’s naive. Sorry, it just is.
But rather than accept the minor improvements as being worth the expense and the effort, they swallow the blue pill, throw the baby out with the bath water and go back to sleep, binge watching the latest fad show.
Wake up and realize that small improvement is the KEY to a successful life. Lose two pounds per month, on the regular, and and you will hit your weight goal.
Kill the Snooze Button
Shave $100 off your debt each month and you’ll get there. Get 3% better at your job each month and you’ll either get that raise or you will get inspired to find a better job.
Little things add up and it’s only the corporate conditioning that keeps you thinking you should have some life-altering experience… or else you completely wasted your time.
Life isn’t about life-altering. Life is about life-bettering. Tortoise beats hare and pipe dreams are bad for your health. Studies show that the blue pill causes cancer and the red pill causes awareness.