One day, amidst my travels, I came upon a land divided into two opposing camps. If anything, I’ve always been curious, so I sought to investigate further. To do this, I decided to visit one side and then the other, to interrogate their members in hopes of discovering the differences at the root of this strange division.
First, I chose the camp set on a hill in the East. Quickly, I found its leader, asked the leader’s name, and was given this curious response: “Not Him.”
“Who?” I responded.
“I am Not Him,” came the reply once again.
“Are you the leader?” I continued my inquiry.
“Yes.”
“And your title is ‘Not Him’?”
“Stranger, new friend, that is both my title and my preferred name. Welcome to our hills. Make yourself at home, and by this, I specifically mean: go introduce yourself to my followers (who themselves lead me) and learn from them who you are if you wish to remain among us.”
Realizing I would learn nothing else from this leader, I happily took his advice and went off to seek greater elucidation from his followers, hoping, for the sake of my own enlightenment, to receive more substantive responses.
Soon, I came upon a number of them in what seemed to be a main public square. Assembled together, I posed a question to the group:
“New friends, I am a foreigner in your hills. I seek to know who you are and what you believe. Would you be willing to tell me?”
“What a day to be questioned, and how unexpected is the arrival of someone who does not already know what seems so universally clear. But to answer, what we hope is a good faith question: our leader is ‘Not Him,’ and you ask who we are? We are them,” came the reply, in almost perfect unison.
“Who’s ‘them’?” I asked as a natural follow-up question. But once again, I received the same response: “We are them.”
After some little confusion, I realized that, when they said this, they were referring to themselves. The essence of their meaning was: We are we.
They explained further: “We are led by Not Him! We, the collective—that is our identity. We have a shared experience, a shared upbringing. We are a collective; we are them, and that is why we reject ‘Him.’ We cede our collective power to no single man. We are whole in unison; each of us in turn declines to face the part of ourselves that would set itself apart. We believe in a whole that is greater than any one person!”
“Yes, we are shared experience, shared victimhood, shared poverty, shared glory. We are them, together. Because of what our group has endured, it doesn’t matter if a single individual within the group hasn’t had that exact lived experience—the group is the lived experience! Once you’re in it, you necessarily live it, too. We support our leader because he says with meaning, ‘I am Not Him,’ and we will never permit a ‘Him’ to lead us. How could a single person ever speak above the group in good conscience?”
“Why not ‘Him’?” I innocently asked.
“How naive you are, stranger. Do you not see the danger entailed in even permitting one to ask that question? Understand: the moment anyone (intentionally or otherwise) makes a single motion towards the evil that makes its home to the west of us, that person is rightfully decried as part and parcel of ‘Him.’ Any fool who does such is immediately cut off from everything that gives meaning to his or her life, which is to say, a person’s identity itself! Thus we remain here because we value our own survival. And, friend, can you blame a person for wanting to survive? And more than our own survival, we value our group’s survival, and by survival, we mean complete belief in our self-image (our wisdom teaches: may self and self-image be as one). And more than belief, we value pride above all else! For us, there is no greater sin than to lack pride in the group.”
Because I was a foreigner to these parts, I was allowed to leave unharmed, which I soon did with a good bit of relief. Rarely had I taken part in conversations so lacking in intellectual satisfaction. Their answers seemed preordained, as if they were reading from a script only they could see. “People of the script,” I began to call them in my mind. Yet, despite their neurotic tendency toward catastrophizing, I couldn’t help but feel that many of them possessed an innate goodness. By and large, they were good people, but fearful too.
In any case, I began walking toward the Western hills, hoping for better results. As I approached, shouts from the hills hurried me along, urging me to quicken my pace.
“Stranger, don’t remain in that no man’s land! You will be cut down; nothing is more dangerous than this middle land you are passing through. Come quick and let us receive you!”
Upon arrival, I did as before, asking to speak to the group’s leader. I was soon led into his presence.
“Sir,” I said respectfully, “I’ve heard you are the leader of these Western hills. Tell me who you are and what you do.”
“I am Him,” he replied. “What has been done, I did. What needs to be done, I will do. What needs not be done any longer, I will stop.”
“How do you manage to do these things?” I asked.
Once again, I was met with his introduction, which for him seemed to possess the answer to all possible inquiries: “I am Him.” Particularly odd in his response was that his tone, while forceful, also gave the impression of a person who believed he was answering completely openly, perhaps even oversharing. There was no question of any attempts at obfuscation. The man was an open book, but sadly, the book seemed to contain little. It became clear to me that all his beliefs amounted to, in the end, was simple self-belief.
Nothing can be more taxing than engaging such a person in conversation for too long, so, as before, I went to speak to his followers instead in the hope of learning more.
Soon I found them spread out amidst gardens and farmlands. I called them together and asked, “Who are you, people of the Western hills, and who is your leader?”
They answered, while pointing eastward: “We are not them.” Redirecting their arms toward the abode I had just left, they continued, “And we are led by Him.”
“We are spare parts; that is our origin story, how we’ve come together in these hills. And, for now, only one person connects us: it is him! Yes, we are spare parts assembled by a protector. What he assembles is the device that ‘protects us.’ His speaking is ancillary. We hardly listen to what he says; this permits even greater support of Him. Words are secondary, maybe even tertiary… we are protected, and from this (and only from this!) springs our support.
“Yes, let us be most clear. We are certainly ‘not them.’ We are a singular grouping, not a group. If we are led, we will not be led by a process or a system. We allow ourselves only to be led by a person, a singular person. And for now (but, pray, not always!) that person is ‘Him.’ One may not agree with everything this man says, but we find it hard to disagree with survival. What a strange time, where many are called evil for simply wanting to survive. For you see, we lead ourselves. Survivors are not led. That a man may protect you doesn’t mean he speaks for you. He is our leader; we speak for ourselves. As you can probably tell from all these words we spill out onto you!”
They spoke much, but there was even more they left unanswered. How could these (from all appearances) intelligent and well-spoken people follow such a nonentity as their leader? I continued my questioning: “Why are you with ‘Him’? Is it true you possess no great love for him?”
“Friend, it would be a lie to say the man, our leader, is unliked by all here. But it is an even greater truth that few truly love him. Still, even less do we hate him. You see, he wasn’t always known as ‘Him.’ It was more that those of us who were lost, pushed out, exiled from previous identities and homelands, were forced to ask ourselves and others, Who still permits us in his camp? Where can we survive after we strayed from our narratives' lands? The same answer arrived with a pointed finger—‘with Him.’ And so we went. With always the intention of someday returning home, as soon as permitted. That day, though, has not arrived. We take one step away from the camp, we are fired upon, and the fearful of the Eastern hills decry us in all manner while doing so. For we are not them.”
They continued: “The brave among us have often dreamed of heading East to share what we believe is the most important information: that there is good and bad in the man they fear above all others (Him), but more than anything, there is mediocrity—human mediocrity. And if there’s anything in this life not worth losing sleep over, it’s human mediocrity!”
“Interesting,” I chimed in, “but why have none of your people ever made this journey?”
“Naive stranger, how little you understand the ways of our world and the dangers lurking therein! As mentioned previously, anyone who begins such a journey with good intentions is almost immediately fired upon! In the meantime, with such examples, our fear of the middle ground has only grown and grown. Few even speak of such possible crossings any longer. Yes, sadly, we’ve learned that an emotional response, born of fear, is not worth risking our lives over. Believe us when we say, most of us here see our leader for what he is, which is very little. Maybe it’s our cowardice speaking, but his quirks, his self-conceit—we’ve grown more accustomed to them by the day. We don’t revere him, as our enemies over yonder say, but even less do we fear him. When you believe your house is in danger, you pick a dog on the basis of its ability to guard and little else. Someday, though, we still hope to return home (for almost none who reside here are actually native to these lands!), but for now, we consider these Western hills to be our home.”
The conversation came to a natural stop, and the people gradually retreated to their own quarters in the hills. I was left with silence and a moment to reflect on all I had heard.
Absurd as each group was in its own way, the rationale behind the divide had become clearer to me. Neither side could take a single step toward the "no man's land" of middle ground without losing all hope of a base. No one left the Eastern hills any longer, and the Western hills, as far as I could discern, had yet to produce a single homecoming. What misfortune, I thought, to be stuck on either side. Both seemed enveloped by a fear that had swelled to absurd proportions. For one side, this fear took the form of a singular man; for the other, it took the form of a collective entity. The two sides’ only middle ground, it seemed, was fear itself.
Having grown tired of these fruitless conversations, I set out at once to leave this country and these people. Upon arriving home, I felt grateful to be gone from that strange land, with no intention of ever returning!