William Mangieri's Blogs: Tribal Orthodoxy, Alien Invasions, and the Truth (and coupon news)

Human beings are tribal – we gather into groups and then we war with each other – either REAL war, or some sort of less deadly competition. We group together inside religious-economic-geographic-racial-cultural-gender-philosophical borders, sometimes over something as ridiculously meaningless as the Lilliputians’ argument about which end of the egg to break. We need to identify with a group… something larger than ourselves – sort of artificially puffing ourselves up like a cat (I remember being in Carlsbad – they were having issues with mountain lions, and told us that if we ran into one, bunch together and try to make our group look like ONE BIG ANIMAL instead of a bunch of smaller ones.)

And then we look at the other group and say – “Nyah, nyaah! Our group is bigger than yours!” (will humanity EVER get out of junior high?)

Why do we continue dividing ourselves this way? That’s what we’re really doing - we aren’t really making ourselves bigger – we are dividing into smaller and smaller tribes within tribes.

And of course, there’s also an ORTHODOXY that comes from this – a litmus test of ideas that you are expected to hold in common with the tribe, and if you don’t hold to those beliefs – if you think the egg should be cracked at the other end – then you are not one of US – you are one of those OTHERS.

With this orthodoxy, we create our reality – it doesn’t matter what you really see out there – don’t mention it if it doesn’t conform to the facts as we know it or you will be thrown out as a heretic.

For each tribe to have its own set of beliefs, it would follow that no tribe has all of it right – well, maybe one tribe does, but what are the odds? And that means, the majority of us would still be wearing goggles to keep us from seeing the world as it really is, each of us in our own tribe’s ALTERNATE REALITY.

Writing fiction (or READING it) is a way to imagine yourself as a different person - even a member of a different group, living in their reality instead of your own. It can get you to thinking a whole slew of “what-ifs” and expand your possibilities. And as we understand one another, maybe we start weeding through the differences and discover which ones are based on facts and which are merely dogma. Then we could all live in THE SAME REALITY instead of a bunch of ALTERNATE ONES.

What’s wrong with just living by the truth? What tribe could be larger than all of humanity? Why don’t we expand our tribe instead of dividing it? Could it truly be that we need something massively destructive – like an ALIEN INVASION – to unite us into one tribe? I hope not – those never seem to go well for anyone (trust me – I know.)

Instead of waiting for the aliens to come in and weed us out, why don’t we each try breaking from our dogma. Be UNORTHODOX - think for yourself. The TRUTH will set you free.

Maybe we all just need to read a little more.

Just saying…

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“Gladius” was ePublished July 3^rd (alien abductions and gladiators, and the bull-headed man on the cover) – here’s the link: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/556125?ref=NoTimeToThink

Use coupon code WT63N at smashwords checkout for 50% off through July 13^th.

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William Mangieri’s writing can be found in many places, including: