Ah, the good old days — when accountability was the new black. When keeping one’s word was something people did because it was the right thing to do, not because if they didn’t — they’d be sued. When, if caught with one’s hand in the cookie jar, one would fess up to it. Not claim that it was a walk-in from Niburu that took over their body and made all their karmic choices.

Owning it. Even reading the words gives me a warm, toasty feeling.

Though I’m a big fan of virtual communication — heck, come find me at @DanielleEgnew on Twitter (shameless social plug) — I’m also an enormous fan of talking on the phone. And in person. I’m a big fan of the written word, and I’m a big fan of taking the time to understand where people are coming from. For a time, I thought this was due to the fact that I’m the cross fade generation, Gen X, the last generation to bridge the sensibilities of the brick-and-mortar world onto the endless possibility of the virtual digital era. We Gen Xers are all about building community, social messages, and breaking down barriers. So I figured it must be my 40-something sensibility having cut my communication teeth on a rotary phone that must be driving my person-to-person, cause-and-effect sensibility.

Actually, I’ve come to find out that I just have a conscience. My generation has nothing to do with it.

I’m not certain whether it’s the ease with which we can send a snarky text then turn off our phone, or whether we’ve just allowed our sociopath gene to take a walk around in the park for awhile because we’re bored with playing Angry Birds. But people genuinely seem to be lacking an extremely major component that links their actions with how they would be perceived by — well — anyone outside of their Holodeck. And yes, I just deliberately used a Star Trek reference.

I’m talking about an epidemic. I’m going to name it “Precious Syndrome” and I’ll explain why in just a second, here. This epidemic is sweeping the globe, but since I’m living here in the USA, I’ll stick to the shores with which I’m more familiar. Precious Syndrome is a very serious condition where people’s world become very, very, very, very small, and the individual becomes “too precious” to exist without a case manager, without a fan club posting their photo on FaceTwiterest, or without Tom Cruise’s handler to re-write their every move to create them the hero in the public’s eye. Symptoms include but are not limited to extreme self-absorption, us-against-them mentality, being convinced all things are directed at them, crumbling the moment anyone disagrees with them, and the most serious tell of the disorder: Complete inability to own one’s end of any tangled situation due to the Victim Virus (a little-known substrain of Oppression Infection.)

Precious Syndrome can be contracted by anyone at any time, and is not specific to any one area of the country, nor any specific demographic, though I have noticed disproportionate outbursts of the disorder here in Los Angeles. Don’t get me wrong. I love my City of Angels. She is built on the swirling geomagnetic ley lines of fault activity and high-expulsion electromagnetic fields, a large part of the LA basin plunked on top of an old Volcano caldera whose geological remnant, or “toilet-paper-stuck-on-the-heel”, is called The LaBrea Tarpits.  Though LA is an energetically complicated environment as sticky as a spider’s web, Precious Syndrome is alive and well in every nook and cranny of our great nation. And unlike an illness that can be cured with medical treatment — Precious Syndrome is an affliction of the Spirit. More specifically — it’s an affliction of the Conscience.  

Well gang, Doctor Danielle is in — because I’ve about had it with this particular epidemic. So as to save countless millions (who I am sure are all reading this blog at the same time, crashing WordPress servers clear to Indonesia), I’m going to discuss how to avoid contracting this illness, whose most destructive attribute is making a giant ass out of anyone infected.

As a race whose design depends on our ability to connect with one another in order to reflect back our own lessons from which to learn, we suck at isolation. No, we do. Yes, yes, I know — we all love our alone time. But that’s different than isolation, which, due to its mentally-eroding capabilities, is the modality on the top of the military’s list for breaking down prisoners. We are not designed to create a universe in which we are the god, we are the judge, and we are the jury, re-writing the rules as we go along and erasing our history to re-create us as the “hero” in today’s headlines. Sure, we are allowed to create this reality if we feel like it — welcome to Free Choice Central, or Earth — but it’s gonna be a tough row to hoe once we introduce anyone else into our insulated Sims Universe who is part of the general human population.

I can cite three things, primarily, that have reflected humanity’s recent addiction to Illusion: The App Mentality, “Reality” TV, and Social Media.

I’ve blogged about what I call the “App Mentality” before, which to recap is the half-invested attitude by most folks who won’t really put a lot of work into anything because there’s “Gotta be an app for that.” Reality TV is soft-scripted content (that means producers feed opening lines and actions to the cast so they don’t have to pay screenwriters) that people at home buy as actually happening, thus believing that unless you’re missing a chromosome, you’re not really living life to the Jerry Springer Boo Boo Fullest. Social Media is terrific, until people forget it’s SOCIAL media and start substituting interactions with virtual friends for life-and-death shoot outs where Mary gets unfriended by Jill because Mary “liked” everybody’s comment but hers. Because YES, people, we’ve become THAT easy to butt-hurt these days.

Wow.

But I digress.

Humanity’s addiction to Illusion, though endearing if you’re selling year-long passes to the new Harry Potter Theme Park, is destructive when it comes to personal development. I’m a big supporter of a strong self-image. However, creating a “world” where one does no wrong and one continually makes themselves out to be the victim at the expense of other people’s reputation, work ethic, and livelihood — is a sickness. And since Like Attracts Like, people who suffer from Precious Syndrome either surround themselves with other infectees or people who they’ve kept in the dark, who don’t really know what’s going on in their life and buy their latest press release. Precious Syndrome is a progressive condition, a sickness of the spirit, where the infected person’s conscience is slowly eaten away by Darkness, one selfish and justified act at a time. And, our current social structure supports the spread of the illness within the spiritual infrastructure of the soul, because like most bacteria, it thrives best in the dark and in undisturbed locations.

Again — human beings were not meant to be isolated. Like that one banana left on the counter that gets lost behind the toaster — we get really rotty, really fast.

People who suffer from Precious Syndrome can’t help but throw everyone in their life under the bus. A major symptom of the syndrome is a lack of conscience as an infectee compromises someone else’s entire life just to cover their keester. Because afterall, it’s not real — right? They can simply erase the text, or drop an entire group of friends on Facebook and move on. According to them, it’s never their fault. Just check under that bus, especially in the wheel wells. You’ll find remnants of co-workers, employers, family members, spouses, brothers, sisters, friends, the dog, the cat, the gerbil, a packet of Ovaltine — whatever they can get their hands on to lay the blame, you’ll find it in the tire treads.

Or, when all else fails, it’s always the fault of Life, taking a colossal poo on their heads, day in and day out. Good thing the bus has mud flaps.

Those who suffer from Precious Syndrome will often cry “victim” when there is no one else to blame, concocting insane “tell-all” stories that dig up supposed hidden facts from the past they’ve kept “secret” until “just now” — usually, because some terrible situation or individual was holding them hostage at the bottom of a missile silo or something — really, someone would have to be missing serious chunks of grey matter to actually buy into the stories that these folks make up at this juncture of the game. But, since these folks are too far down their own rabbit holes to realize how Crazy Pants Jones they look to a non-infected individual, they’ll keep pushing the victim card until someone believes it. Even if it means Boldly Lying where No One Has Lied Before. ( I know, I really need to see “Star Trek: Into Darkness”, and just get it out of my system.)

This addiction to Illusion is par for the course in our polarizing energies of 2013. As I’ve discussed a great deal in print, on the radio, and on lecture tours, this is the year that separates the men from the boys, the posers from the doers, the talkers from the walkers. People can’t sit on the fence anymore. Whoever we are, we are going to be OUT LOUD within this energy — good or bad. Our skeletons will be ejected out of our closets, and the Universe will watch to see how we handle the unveiling of illusion. We will be known for exactly who we are — good or bad. Even if we have absolutely no idea at the time that we’ve been outed as either. Those who have a chosen a life-long lesson of illusion will do anything — anything at all, at any desperate expense right now — to continue to foster that illusion because it’s the side of the fence they’ve committed to, usually out of the fear of dealing with the pain that drove them to create the illusion in the first place. This fear of  facing their own pain is what fuels a seething desperation that is capable of great atrocities including destroying the lives of others, if it comes to that. And the closer we get to the end of this year, the more desperate people will become. Why? Because though 2013 is the Year of Polarization, 2014 will be the Year of Illumination.

You heard it here first.

However, in order to illuminate, or shine, we have to polish a surface. In order to polish, we must rub the surface down with sandpaper, then finer grit, then wax and sheer elbow grease, before the impurities and inclusions are scrubbed away. 2013 is all about elbow grease. This is a bum-hole-ripping Year of Karma for many people, where we are working out the last of our big lessons within to prepare to fly, or flop.   

Perhaps it’s the advent of social media where we can all see exactly what everybody else is doing with the flick of the “refresh” button, or perhaps it’s this energy signature of polarization. But whatever it is, the amount of people who have taken to tossing others under the bus has advanced from a flock to a herd to a whole continent in less than six months. Once a cowardly exit, the new “under the bus” maneuver is a highly-skilled Olympic sport, available in either teams or solo events. One out of every three people I have encountered over this past year have either had an unbelievable drama erupt that was life changing, or were asked to participate in cleaning up an unbelievable explosion in someone’s life. How we handle great transition appears to be the flavor of the day at the Life Lesson Café and it’s very important that we keep our souls covered as not to contract Precious Syndrome while the dust is settling amongst the rubble.

Laying blame on others at their expense is a spiritual dice game for a high roller personality type. We may roll a seven and get away with it. Or we may roll snake eyes, and go bust. It takes an adrenaline junkie, a thrill rider, a gambler who is willing to wing an all-or-nothing Hail Mary in the moment of truth to be able to take off the coat of accountability, smack it on another, zip it up, and shove that person to the front of the firing squad. Though fear is a factor, fear is not what actually motivates people to toss others under the bus, because a fearful person would fear the repercussions of the individual eventually pulling themselves off the pavement, and coming after them. No, indeed, throwing someone under the bus is a passive-aggressive action taken by a very calculated, very angry person who is on the attack. Throwing someone under the bus isn’t a REACTION, as some think. It’s an OFFENSIVE action fueled by entitlement when someone has felt they “haven’t gotten theirs”, or they haven’t been “seen”. It’s a controlled means of punishing another person whom they wished they had the courage to be, usually. But people who suffer from Precious Syndrome lack the courage of character. That’s why they design a world to their liking — where they are always the star, surrounded by flocks of either admirers or caretakers. One who lacks character must write one as they go along. 

If you find yourself in the crosshairs of someone suffering from Precious Syndrome, just relax. Like drowning in quicksand, the worst thing a person can do against the energy of illusion — is struggle. Illusion gains strength and energy from any energy anyone else puts into it — including struggling against it. If Chuck is passing along rumors that Joe is a no-good bully who butts in on everyone’s Facebook pages and blurts obscenities, then Joe find out and bursts onto Chuck’s Facebook page blurting obscenities at him for spreading the rumor — Joe just became the fictitious version of himself that Chuck was peddling to everybody…in front of everybody. Instead, don’t buy into the crazy. If something isn’t true, it doesn’t deserve the energy of a comment.

We decide what we respond to, and how. No one makes us do anything. Obviously, we need to stand up for ourselves. But there is a far cry from setting the record straight and diving headfirst into a whirlpool of chaos at its highest rotation point.

The act of owning one’s actions, or accountability, is one of the most pride-building, spirit-enhancing, character sculpting things that a human being can do. Which is precisely why Darkness hopes it can knock accountability out of fashion in lieu of Illusion. Accountability not only calls our spirit to task, but levels the playing field by removing any “leverage” someone wishing to emotionally control another may seek. When we are accountable for our end of a mishap, we not only honor the situation and the other person, but we honor ourselves, acknowledging to ourselves that we are capable of accepting a lesson learned.

Adults develop an ego surrounding “lessons” that we don’t possess as children. In fourth grade, if we mastered a lesson, we were proud of ourselves. If we were scolded by a parent and asked later, “Have you learned your lesson?” we would nod in earnest, and feel accomplishment as our parent smiled and said, “Good for you. Now go play.” And we’d be off playing, letting the emotionality of the event go, proud deep down that we made it through the lesson. In contrast, as adults, we become offended by the thought of learning a lesson, because how dare we be treated as the child by the Universe! But, um… gang? We are spiritual children. I mean, we are a really young race. Super young. Our idea of an “old soul” is barely out of seventh grade by most spiritual and Galactic standards. So perhaps we would be best served getting off of our high horses as “seventh grade adults” — and perceive mastering our lessons as we would have, in fourth grade? With excitement? With accomplishment? With pride? Rather than the resentful, why-does-god-hate-me approach that most adult humans take.

Accountability is about NOT owning what is not ours, as well. If we own everything, that’s codependence. However, the slippery slope is approached when, if we are being accountable, we then ruin the moment with: “BUT, you did this and this and this, too…” That’s not being accountable. That’s tattling. And it bugs. So just let that behavior rest in peace with your Farrah Fawcett Poster from 1975. If you can’t be accountable without pointing out everything everyone else did, that’s called JUSTIFICATION, not accountability. And that’s two clicks off of tossing someone right under the bus.

As a summary, here is a last minute safety checklist for riding with other passengers, or — 

How to NOT lob someone under the bus:

1) Own your stuff.
2) Listen while others air grievances.
3) Acknowledge your part in the grievance without justifying your part.
4) Say you’re sorry. Sorry is not about who is right or wrong.
5) Mean it.
6) Learn.
7) Carry on without “carrying on”.

We, as a species, are so capable. We are capable of great bridge building with healing through accountability, and we are capable of great destruction through illusion. Our design as Beings of Light supports learning lessons in order to excel. We are meant to excel when we grow. We are meant to grow when we change. We are meant to change, period. We must choose whether or not we have the courage to change through accountability, or whether we wish to learn our lessons while fighting through the rabbit warren of complications created by our own illusions. Either way, we learn.

I, however, prefer the learning process without the road rash.