Dear Readers:VIRAL INFILTRATION.
The expression is generally regarded as quite perjorative. Viruses are not adored by the public for their gentle ways and good habits. In fact, the virus (with the possible exception of certain civil service employees) is one of the most brilliantly adapted predators in the realm of nature. The virus is seen by most as the incarnation of remoreseless evil.
The virus has, however, an enviable ability to penetrate its host, set up housekeeping, and begin cannibalizing and converting the host's cellular material into its own. This process requires energy, and sadly, many of the host's cells are not transformed via DNA re-configuration...they become food, and are sacrificed. The flaw in this otherwise ingenious hostile takeover by stealth is that the virus will ultimately destroy its host, and will then have to find another one if it is to continue to propage itself.
Think about a virus that could not only penetrate and reproduce itself, but one that could actually enslave its host to continue to thrive, even if only for the purpose of sustaining the virus. Quite an extroardinary trick.
The preceding premise is a powerful metaphor for the travails of any activist or revolutionary wishing to battle the "establishment". When you have a new and different perspective, you cannot expect to be received warmly by a power-entrenched, self-serving bureacracy and its flock of frightened, defensive pre-programmed followers. A face-to-face battle all but ensures your loss.
It is wiser, by far, to learn the ways of the established group in power, and to ingratiate yourself with them by seeming to embrace their ideals. This appearance of agreement and friendship can get you through the gates and eventually into the halls of power. Once you have become an accepted and trusted member of the establishment and a part of its inner power structure, you can start initiating subtle changes, and implementing your ideas. If you are truly artful at this, the persons around you will view these changes as a product of their own thinking, and work to help propagate them.
Command Central is actually right inside your adversary's brain. And you don't even have to fight. All you need to do is some subtle re-wiring from within. This brings to mind some of the basic tenets of espionage, in its most classical sense.
By the way...how many enemy operatives do you think are embedded in powerful positions within the FBI, RCMP, British Intelligence, the CIA, and other similarly-tasked organizations designed to protect its respective country's sovereignty and secrets?
You would have no way of knowing. These professionals are hiding in plain sight...many are considered beyond reproach. Many appear unquestionably patriotic. Many are the trusted advisors and aides of national leaders.
The virus has a brilliant survival and self-perpetuation strategy; especially considering that the "lowly" virus is scarcely even considered a living creature except by some scientists.
We can learn much from the virus. While we may spend years in school studying math, the virus is born with the ability the multiply exponentially.
Faithfully,
Douglas Castle
