What is 3dom? Part Free

Complain, complain, complain. Good thing my mouth isn’t sewn shut to keep me from lashing out about nothing. Or else I wouldn’t get this opportunity to expose my privilege. While countless others lose safety net support, I sit here in a space enjoying every freedom afforded to me, at the cost of generations before me.

My perceived definition is vastly different as a white man. As a non-veteran. As someone not currently in Survival Mode, desperate to hold things together for my family. I can’t imagine how much these destabilizing attacks globally are obliterating any semblance of freedom from others’ minds. Meanwhile, I find myself seeking out individuals speaking up about this societal collapse across screens, falling into their perspectives and failing to do my own thinking. What is this world?

It’s not that I’m cursed (the end of Part 2 was a prank); we are ALL cursed to continue living in patterns that are completely avoidable yet we can’t help ourselves from holding humans hostage. From seducing society with promises of non-toxic situations only to find that we are faithfully following those who would prefer to destroy us than to hear what we have to say.

One such “leader” who continues to put me behind spiritual bars is Yehuda Berg. Since 2017, I’ve been trekking along his paper trail left via The 72 Names of God, reading about how the “light” must overcome the “dark” while getting no guidance through the gray area. Now, the clue I get to solve this pointless 3-parter is, “As we begin to transform our lives and experience true fulfillment, we are tested again and again. Each test of our ego injects doubt. The optimism and excitement we felt at the start of our journey vanishes, we start to complain, the ego is back!” Thanks a lot, Berg, for this reality check. You really get it. All these f*ckers in power who test the bounds of our freedom daily; it’s my ego that’s the culprit. Perhaps this is why 72.com, the website listed on every page of your book, is no longer operational. And why you are scrubbed from the kabbalah.com website. Yet here I am, still following along with the nonsense you got published.

Though there was a pause with me posting for..cough, cough…some time, I pulled this name in 2021. If you haven’t noticed, there hasn’t been a lot of consistency with freedom since then, so…With resurgence, in Part 1, I transcribed the past then in Part 2, I griped.

It doesn’t get freer than that, right? To take to the internet to spew out some nonsense and sh*t on the tools I’ve been granted even if the messenger is a mess? This Names of God random pull is a valid daily practice (I would know, it’s been my first priority to journal about the experience again for the past 2 months, but it’s these damned descriptions that Berg has attached to everything makes me second guess my perspective.

I need to separate the abusive author from the universal message (and that Madonna is such a prominent part of Kabbalah). Regardless of who is trying to make money off this practice, there is validity in connecting through my soul to these names as they manifest beyond the pages of Berg’s narrow definitions and take shape in my life. Over the past 5 years (!?!), “freedom” made itself known every. single. day. All this time, I’ve been hyperaware of the action I wasn’t taking (writing my take on Freedom) while seeing the word manifest around me. I would start a post then get derailed by a new wrinkle in our (constitutional) rights.

Is the point of this particular practice a way to proclaim my opinions or to show how these names twist me into an entirely new person? Does my ability to decide demonstrate my penultimate freedom? You see where these questions are going…an overwrought explanation of how freedom phases me. So here we go!!! (Goooooooo seemed weird…but free, so included it here).

No One Mourns the wicked

Synchronicity has such curious timing. While being manipulated by selfish leaders and conniving press people, the musical of my big gay life was made into a major motion picture: Wicked. After seeing the stage show in college, it began shifting the course of my life. Through masculinized sports and bullying, I dropped “fluid” movement during my teen years…anything that would help someone else identify me as feminine.

The musical led me to lip syncing the house down, literally, as I pranced around my parents’ place in the dark of night, bursting the songs out in silence. This is who I’ve always been: muzzled. At the same time, every time I was handed a mic, I choked. The pressure got to me, and I failed to deliver on the expressions that seemed to be the key to my freedom.

And that was the story of my 20s: taking advantage of how I could maintain the lie. Lots of alcohol. Lots of repression. And lots of taking advantage of people who I was emotionally unavailable for but demanding their attention to make me feel seen. Pretty pathetic, I know. I’m not a victim. I was punishing people for perceiving they were the cause of my arrested development.

It wasn’t until I came out and took to the western skies (via roadtrip…) in my 30s that I reclaimed what I knew to be true: the flow of music makes me feel the freedom of being alive. (Groundbreaking…) I get it’s not a major reveal, but it took me by surprise as I explored the great outdoors across the country; music was my life force and best friend, allowing me to trust my authentic voice and honest hips again. After returning home, whenever I’d reach an impasse, I reclaimed the power I found in the wilderness and belted out my favorite lyrics or danced along to the beat.

Now as I reach 40, the barriers that I could push through before have never been more extreme. Thank goodness Wicked the movie(s) premiered at the height of political turmoil. Sure, it’s a fictional story that gets a little messy in the second act, but the songs are serving as my anthem to work against the defeat I face on a daily basis. But something else is going on…it feels like the story of Wicked is becoming our reality: overreaching leaders, vicious press secretaries, and a general public caught up in the glitz and green glam till it’s too late.

Angel of music

What am I even getting at? How is this relating to the discussion of freedom and the spiritual chase Berg has sent me on. My relation to Wicked helped me understand how I’ve framed the concept over time and how it’s been my saving grace when overwhelmed by abusive leaders. This leads to the next show I saw—Phantom of the Opera—but this story had less effect on my trajectory.

So, let’s look at the music and themes…lots of discussion of “light,” “dark,” and ultimately, what’s right. It brings together a controlling monster with an ingénue and follows them through their “relationship” as on former overtakes the latter to the point she has lost her sense of agency. “Free” and “freedom” pop up in some key places, but mostly in duets between Christine and Raoul as they lament around the idea that, with him, she will achieve what she seeks, even going so far as to flat out say “All I want is freedom, a world with no more night.”

The premise of this, to me (it’s my post after-all), gets a bit problematic if we go back to the earlier discussion. Which characters end up “free” by any definition? In Wicked, Elphaba is exiled with a Scarecrow Fiyero (and the mechanics of that are arresting), Glinda is forever sealed in a role she dreamed for but has lost all her loved ones and forced to carry on a lie. Christine has a “choice”: the light and dark in the forms of men who she depends on to feel free.

You and Me (But Mostly Me)

Ok, well that approach didn’t work either; in nearly every chapter I write, my questions remain that make me crazy. F*CKING BERG!!! One more try here or else that’s it; I’m calling it a day. I’ve reworked this over and over trying to make the pieces fit, so I can arrive at a conclusion and move onto the next thing. I’ve seen a lot of shows since these first two, but the most interesting to dissect is The Book of Mormon.

I was originally gifted tickets that did not materialize until several years later. Privilege exposed again. But the timing worked out. I had already been questioning the religion I was raised in and how it made me feel wicked, like a monster, all because I felt wrong for how I expressed myself. Not about sex itself, but about how I experienced freedom through my body, even when it isolated me from the “men” who would never.

The Book of Mormon also questioned the tenets of a powerful religion known for suppressing voices within the church that spoke out against wrongdoing. To sustain the ideals based mostly on how white dudes enforce them in the modern day.

To that point, freedom becomes the capacity to use critical thinking and creativity to bring the full picture to the surface. Abusive power structures depend on silence and obedience. On us looking away and not asking questions.

I’m not suggesting any of this rambling is more powerful than a “F*ck Trump” sign at a protest, but I also have to applaud Trey Parker and Matt Stone for using satire, especially through their long-running work on South Park, to create a new kind of accountability and comfort for people who were afraid to express what they were seeing. Will they be punished somehow for exposing the president’s micropenis? Maybe? But it’s getting more obvious how little control he also has as the rails fall off.

Make your voices heard. Be loud and proud. And take to heart whatever makes you feel strong within your soul right now, even if you might feel depleted by these dipsh*ts. Happy birthday to me to finally get the clarity I need to be my most authentic self.