DEALING WITH WALLS

The primary goal of a wall is to avoid moving. Most walls are designed and built with this goal in mind. So, if your goal is to make a wall move, you have to understand that you’re attacking its strength.

Attacking a strength is a good way to lose.

Walls come in many forms: a closed mind. Delusion. Thoughtlessness. Intolerance. On…and on…and on.

You can’t change someone’s mind when it is closed. Honest conversation is impossible when you’re talking to a person who believes their own lies. And logic is useless when you’re dealing with someone who refuses to think for himself.

When you personally try to sway someone who falls into one--or all--of these categories, it’s a losing cause. Every time. It doesn’t matter how close the family member, how wayward the friend, or how motivated you are in your efforts. Intellectually, spiritually, emotionally--you’re going to lose when you go straight at someone whose only goal is to avoid moving.

Hard work truly is a talent, but you can’t out-work someone when they believe they have a consequence-free, regardless-of-wrong option to disagree with you. This is the nature of a wall. They may lash out or shut down; they may be vulgar or silent. In the end, it doesn’t matter: if they don’t move from their position, they win.

So, to reiterate: run into wall. Lose.

Solution time!

The first step to dealing with walls is to recognize them for what they are. The second step is to expose them as walls to anyone who will listen. This is not to say that you should run around saying “so-and-so is a jerk who doesn’t listen.” That will not suffice, as you’ll eventually lose credibility and--therefore--any leverage you may have had in making your case in the first place. You can’t simply proclaim: you have to expose. You can’t merely repeat what a wall tells you--you have to make the wall say it often, loudly, and to as many people as possible. You have to make the wall expose himself as the closed-minded, delusional, unthinking, intolerant person he is.

At this point, your motives will be questioned, and rightly so. If you are trying to save the wall, then--on the surface--it doesn’t make sense to have the wall publicly torch itself. Or so it seems! Nature is change. And this wall--or walls, when dealing with multiple individuals--is not static. Walls are dynamic, ever-changing beings. They may not respond positively to your vast, enthusiastic logic, as many walls would rather stop talking to you when they are wrong. But very, very few walls are willing to go silent and alienate everyone they know, regardless of how small their circle of friends may be. Absolute loneliness is, for many, a motivational bitch.

Or perhaps your efforts are not focused on the salvation of the wall, as the wall has shown himself to be unmoving regardless of consequence. Cancer comes to mind here. Sometimes you must red-pill everyone in the vicinity of the wall, as cancer will spread whenever it is allowed to do so. Whether passive or aggressive, cancer spreads. In which case, the effort to expose a wall as a wall is in an effort to prevent the wall from spreading its wrongs.

Walls can spread their cancer from one generation to another, or in any direction in which they are left unchecked. Those who would seem immune to the effects of a wall due to childhood experience often exhibit symptoms at some point in their life. Whether the matter is political, educational, and spiritual views or verbal, physical, or substance abuse, walls must be exposed as walls.

Sometimes the wall can be saved, but--in the end--the wall has to choose salvation. But if the wall refuses to yield, then may the wall’s exposure save as many as possible. Be bold; be strong. Your walls are your own, but you are not alone as long as you can focus all attention on the wall and avoid making it about yourself.