Page 107 of The Guru: Shadow

Is he doing the same with me? Finding out everything and then manipulating me into whatever it is he wants from me?

“In other words, you gather information, exploit others through knowledge and use it for your gain?”

“To some degree, yes,” came his brutally honest answer. “But you must see that those people gain something, too. You must have in mind that most people want to be told what to do, they want the easy way, they want to be part of a running system where they have just enough for life to be easier, but not good.”

Silence.

“Most people want to suffer and get an easy fix,” he continued. “They don’t want to do the inner work. They want to pay for someone else to solve their problems. Because it’s easy. Humans always go for easy.”

Thinking about it, most people wanted the easy way, she probably wanted to be one of them. She wanted to be told what to do, and in the meantime, she could not cope with it. Life sounded so much easier there. And yet, she lived outside of easy for so long, probably forever. Because she did not play by the rules. She did not let people tell her what to do, which is one reason why she always got herself fired. She did not say yes and amen to stupid assignments where there was no sense in them. She did not fit into the systems other people built.

And then something clicked.

“That’s why I piqued your interest because I saw right through it.”

“Partly.”

“You know, that was actually the third straight answer you gave me,” she told him with a smirk.

“Because you ask the right questions.”

She finally finished the wrapping of her leg. “As good as new,” she said as she pulled down the leg of her soft fabric pants.

A deep sigh left her mouth. “I don’t want to leave this room, Deis.” And as he cocked an eyebrow at her she added, “Right now, right here, none of my problems exist, it’s like I am hovering in a loophole of time, where the world around me stopped while I am awake. When I leave, it will all come back, it’ll all become reality again.”

“That’s just bypassing reality. Problems exist to be solved. And I am very much positive, there is not a single problem that can’t be solved.”

A barking, derogating laugh slipped from her mouth. “Like I said, easy to say if you live in billionaires’ row.”

“Your righteousness is killing you,ma belle. That’s your only problem.”

What an asshole thing to say.

“My righteousness is basic human decency.”

“No. You tell yourself as much to justify your behavior, to justify sacrificing yourself to do good by others in a morally accepted way. But behind all that is just a need to be accepted, to be acknowledged, to fit in.”

His words and the heaviness of their content almost felt as if he had stabbed her in the chest. He shattered her whole belief system into pieces with only two sentences, leaving her with nothing but raw and painful realizations, eating her from the inside.

“But where would we stand as a society if we didn’t fight for a better world? Take care of each other? Take care so people get paid and treated fairly? Fight for the poor and marginalized?”

“Most do it out of misplaced saviorism, totally about themselves, because they want to feel better. They help out for a sole reason, and that is the personal gain they get from it. And then they lie about it.”

Something in her screamed how right he was, with all of it. How many people did she know do some sort of charity, help people? Most of it was because they wanted to feel better, for the good PR, or whatever.

“Look at Delilah, her conglomerate exploits and kills people, pushes child labor, and doesn’t give a fuck about other people’s lives, and yet, there she is, doing fundraisers and charity work, positioning herself as the saint bringing food to the poor and hungry. People who are hungry and poor because she starved and exploited them beforehand. She is using morals for her own gain and then lies the shit out of it.”

“You don’t,” she whispered.

“No.”

“But if everyone would just do as they wanted, if we don’t take care of each other as a collective, where would it lead us?”

“In our Western culture, the collective is long lost. It’s survival of the fittest.”

“No, I do not accept that, Deis. It sounds like giving up, but just because you were disappointed by others or because you learned that there is no community for you, does not mean it is long lost.”

The way he looked at her was peculiar. His eyes had become slits while he tilted his head, considering her with curiosity.