Related to: Politics is the mind-killer, Entangled Truths, Contagious Lies, The Importance of Saying "Oops", Leave a Line of Retreat, You Can Face Reality

This is something I wrote, sort of in brain-dump mode, in the process of trying to organize my thoughts for a song I'm working on. I don't think it covers any new ground for this community, but I was somewhat taken with the way it turned out and figured I'd go ahead and post it for LW's enjoyment.

So you've changed your mind. Given up your sacred belief, the one that defined so much of who you are for so long.

You are probably feeling pretty scared right now.

Your life revolved around this. There is not a single aspect of your life that will not feel the effects of this momentous tumult. Right now though, you're still in shock. You know that later, little by little, as you lie awake in bed or stare at your desk at work, the idea will creep its way through the web of your mind. It will touch each and every idea, and change it, and move on. And that changed idea will change other ideas, and those ideas will change as well. Who are you as a person if not the person who holds that idea? For as this new notion gradually but violently makes its way through your skull, will it not upset everything that you know, everything that you do, everything that you are? Will you not then be another person?

The thought is terrifying. What person will you be?

Will you be like the jackasses that you argued against for so long? Yes, they were right all along, but damn they were infuriating. Is that your lot now? Another loud-mouth, uncompromising, thick-skulled, pushy, self-righteous snob who lives for the thrill of making everyone else feel ignorant? Dear God. Is that your fate? Perhaps in just a few days? You're reminded of the film character who has just been bitten by a zombie: Knowing the disgusting, horrific, inhuman beast he is now doomed to become, he says good-bye to The Girl, politely leaves the room, and wraps his mouth around both barrels of his shotgun.

Is that it then? Better dead than Red? But surely this is nonsense. For starters, you know damn well that you just don't have the, well... courage? resolve? commitment? hopelessness? inclination? lack-of-perspective? impulsiveness? Whatever it is that separates those who could actually, really and truly, do such a thing, from... you. But really now. If this isn't "g...

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