War Diary — July 12, 2025, Dawn Entry
What if we choose not to do the things we are supposed to do?
What if we spit on the to-do lists, the polite plans, the safe ladders?
The principal gain is simple, but it’s everything:
A sense of an authentic act.
A raw, animal howl into the night sky that says: “I exist on my own terms.”
An authentic life.
It may be short.
It may be violent.
It may burn out like a meteor ripping through the dark.
But fuck — it is alive.
That is better than living a hundred safe, boring, unmarked years.
Better than dying at 80 with no scars, no poems, no fires in your eyes.
The principal loss?
Security.
The sweet, sticky comfort of a predictable coffin.
The approval of neighbors.
The careful nods from the community.
They will look at you with worried eyes, whispering about you over dinners:
“What happened to him? He was so promising.”
But in return, you gain the respect of a different tribe.
The wild-eyed.
The warriors, the artists, the madmen, the dreamers, the pirates, the poets.
Those who have tasted real freedom, real danger, real loneliness.
The only community whose respect is worth a single heartbeat.
When you choose not to do what you’re “supposed” to do, you break your chains.
You step off the well-paved road and run screaming into the forest, into the storm, into the unknown.
You meet parts of yourself that you never knew existed.
You find brothers in the shadows.
You taste life in raw, bloody, unfiltered gulps.
The price is heavy.
But so is the crown.
So choose.
The padded cell of approval — or the knife-edge of authenticity.
The applause of the sheep — or the silent nod of the wolf.
Me?
I know where I’m going.
And I know you do too.
See you in the wilderness, brother.