They Not Like Us: The Hidden Trapdoor to Awakening
“One became two, and then everyone was out for themselves. Everyone was pitted against each other, conflict ruled the realm. All our devotions and temperaments are pulled from different wells. We seem to easily forget we are made of the same cells.” — Alanis Morissette, “Ablaze”
As a Chiefs fan watching our third straight Super Bowl appearance, by halftime I was desperately seeking meaning elsewhere — down 24–0 to the Eagles, the game itself wasn’t exactly feeding my soul. Maybe that’s why I found myself drawn to the human stories unfolding on its stage. Last night, the moment crystallized in a single image: tennis champion Serena Williams, daughter of Compton, crip walking across the Super Bowl stage while Kendrick Lamar spat the most controversial bars of 2024.
The crowd’s roar mixed with collective gasps as “Not Like Us” — the track that earned Lamar both Grammy glory and legal threats — echoed through the Superdome. Uncle Sam himself, embodied by Samuel L. Jackson, could only watch as his warnings about being “too loud, too reckless, too ghetto” dissolved into the night’s most electric moment of defiance.
But beneath this scene of apparent rebellion lies a deeper paradox — one that speaks to the very heart of spiritual awakening and the traps that await us on that path.
The Truth-Teller’s Paradox
“The Truth Will Set You Free, But First It Will Piss You Off!” This Gloria Steinem quote hits different when you’re watching truth-tellers rise. Awareness expands like a balloon in a clogged pipe — either it clears the blockage or it bursts. We’re driven by questions that gnaw at us, refusing to let us settle for comfortable answers. And nothing’s quite so enjoyable to an American audience as seeing watching something (or someone) explode.
2024 saw such truth-tellers take center stage. Katt Williams and Kendrick Lamar, already masters of their crafts, stepped into new roles by naming what others wouldn’t. “Not Like Us” transcended being just another diss track — it became a mirror, forcing the entertainment industry to face its own reflection.
The buildup to last night’s performance was electric. Would Kendrick, face-to-face with corporate America’s biggest stage, speak his truth? Would he risk further legal action, or bow to “the man”? The answer came in layers of theatrical genius: Samuel L. Jackson’s satirical Uncle Sam serving as both oppressor and foil, the American flag formation split by Lamar’s presence, and finally, the uncut performance of “Not Like Us” itself.
The Spiritual Trapdoor
But here’s the trapdoor: the moment we expose darkness, we instinctively cast ourselves as its opposite — “us” against “them.” I encountered this trap viscerally on my own journey out of Evangelical Fundamentalism. Like Lamar, many of us curious types are drawn to the inherent contradictions — both in scriptures and in the religious leaders and politicians who espouse them. As you gather more knowledge, it’s easy to think of yourself as more educated or “aware,” while remaining blind to other aspects of your life where you continue to live in ignorance of your own contradictions, whether in your health or relationships with family.
In “Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism,” Tibetan Buddhist teacher Chögyam Trungpa offered insights that feel especially relevant here. Trungpa himself was a study in contradictions — a respected meditation master who helped bring Buddhism to the West in the 1970s, while simultaneously becoming notorious for his alcohol use and sexual relationships with students. His teachings ask a question that cuts to the heart of our moment: “Are the great spiritual teachings really advocating that we fight evil because we are on the side of light, the side of peace? Are they telling us to fight against that other ‘undesirable’ side, the bad and the black?” His answer is unequivocal: “As long as a person is involved with warfare, trying to defend or attack, then his action is not sacred; it is mundane, dualistic, a battlefield situation.”
In the world I came from, spirituality was rigid — good and bad, right and wrong, no contradictions allowed. Encountering teachers like Trungpa, Osho, and Alan Watts shattered that framework. Their lives revealed that the reason many spiritual teachers were fraught with contradictions was exactly because they were trying to climb their way out of darkness. It wasn’t instantaneous, like enlightenment or salvation; it was a process. More profoundly, there was a deeper reality: light cannot exist without darkness. Light needs matter to understand its properties. Jung embraced such ideas, providing a model for working with the darkness to understand the light.
Consider how this plays out in our daily lives. Someone learns about the environmental impact of fast fashion and starts calling out “unconscious consumers,” ignoring their own blind spots in other areas of consumption. An employee uncovers corporate malpractice and positions themselves as a pure whistleblower, forgetting the times they stayed silent about smaller infractions for personal benefit. The trap isn’t in recognizing wrong — it’s in believing we stand completely apart from it.
The Mirror of Rivalry
This is where Jung’s shadow work enters the chat. Those rivals who trigger us most? They’re often reflecting back parts of ourselves we’re not ready to face. It’s no accident that the Drake-Kendrick conflict cuts so deep.
The Kendrick-Drake conflict exemplifies this perfectly: two artists wrestling with authenticity versus commercial success, each accusing the other of what they fear in themselves. Drake’s evolution from earnest outsider to industry powerhouse mirrors the very transformation he’s critiqued in others. Meanwhile, Kendrick’s increasing isolation in pursuit of “purity” reflects the same kind of exceptionalism he often challenges.
Beyond the Trapdoor
The true test of awakening lies in dancing past this illusion of separateness. But this isn’t a call for spiritual bypassing or toxic positivity. I try to navigate this tension with humility — not as someone who has risen above it, but as a fellow journeyer in the throes of it. I’ve learned that the boomerang of truth we throw out might likely come back and hit us in the back of the head, exposing something we’re still clinging to.
I’ve come to believe that the larger consciousness system has a way of using people who play the game of expanding awareness for purposes beyond what can be seen in the moment. This leads to challenging crossroads that force new growth. For someone like Lamar, it means leaning in and digging deep to answer the question: when the moment is as big as it gets, will you still speak truth to drive away darkness and relieve suffering, for that purpose itself, and not for your own egoic means?
Last night’s performance embodied this paradox perfectly. Even as Kendrick performed “Not Like Us” in its full, accusatory power, he did so while surrounded by dancers forming the American flag — suggesting that our divisions and our unity are two sides of the same coin. The real revolution isn’t in choosing sides but in developing the spiritual maturity to hold both critique and compassion, both righteous anger and recognition of our shared humanity.
The real question isn’t whether Kendrick was right to perform that song — it’s whether we can hold both its demand for accountability and its invitation to rise above division. Awakening isn’t about choosing a side — it’s about standing in that tension and letting it transform you.
I can’t help but wonder what Socrates would make of all this. The original gadfly, forced to drink hemlock for speaking uncomfortable truths, had his own strict standards for when to speak: Is it true? Is it beneficial? Is it useful? How might he judge a diss track on hip-hop’s biggest stage? Then again, maybe he’d just be crip walking with Serena…
