Listen to a reading of this article: ❖ There's a quote from an ancient Buddhist text called the Dhammapada that's often translated as, “We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts we make the world.” In other words our mental habits shape our personality and determine how that personality will behave, and that behavior contributes to the shaping of the world.
There's never been a better moment to switch off the TV and leave that newspaper gathering dust on the stand. These two actions, carried out by every one of us, kill this insipid industry stone dead. I did it ten years ago.
For most people most of the time, the fastest and surest way to wind up dead or seriously disadvantaged has been at the hands of our fellow humans. At the same time, "our group", whether by faith, family, tribe, regiment, whatever, are the people we can trust to have our back.
Therefore, whatever else happens, whatever we have to do, believe absurdities, blindly follow barking insane leaders, parrot obvious lies to our detriment, do or suffer terrible things, but please whatever you do, please don't kick us out of the group!
Those who have lived in the Third World and in developed countries should have a light come on about now.
What this also means is that when we are presented with incontrovertible proof that the group narrative is wrong or that the group leaders are mad or charlatans or worse, rather than change leaders or change beliefs or change groups, most people, most of the time will instead double down. Witness the behavior of cultists.
The process is called "cognitive dissonance" and it is abundantly documented. As alluded to earlier, there are entire religions organized around the principle.
Cognitive dissonance is not limited to stupid people. In fact, the intelligent are at least as prone, perhaps because they are better at rationalizing. In fact, much so-called "knowledge work" is basically learning symbol manipulation in order to rationalize something.
If the numbers are to be believed, viewers are turning off cable news in huge numbers now that Trump is gone. Likewise, newspapers struggle to find paying subscribers. The old information models are crumbling, fueling the current liberal establishment push to censor the Internet and its dissemination of contrary narratives.
This is good news, although more uncomfortable Thanksgiving dinner conversations may be necessary for the foreseeable future.
Yes yes... it’s all wonderfully hopeless...so we give up resisting... even when we take a stand and protect this or that... we surrender in order to settle into the here-now with our attention ... we allow the shift in consciousness to take place.
The only hope for humanity is to feel the hopelessness, the futility of the mental “ me” trying stay in control of our species.
Indeed. Free your mind and your ass will follow... an old line from Funkadelic. The best way to free your mind is to quiet it through meditation and a focus on breathing and the body. Allows us to sense the presence of Life Itself. Words just get in the way...
After Plato had written his elitism - based Republic he observed that it couldn't work without state religion, a partnership which was always a feature of ancient civilizations, and continues to this day. Religious, or more exactly, transcendent ideas can work on a personal level, but when incorporated in the state have always given legitimacy to injustice, even irrational, counterintuitive falsehoods. The egregious abortion laws in Texas is a timely, practical example. Quietism, passivity, mysticism in Eastern religions have kept the masses in Asian countries in line, they have even been sold the idea, not very successfully, that all is just illusion anyway, their suffering, and Christianity in the West has been to some degree successful in doing the same. To be free means to reject negative, ugly ideas and the myths on which they are based. Believe in the universe, creation and beauty, and the ability of human beings guided by reason and empathy to do the right thing. And there are no rites, doctrines, diktats associated, or can possibly be in harmony with that idea. True democracy-derived laws, though, are necessary and fine, so long as they meet the qualifications, and don't preclude the inevitability and necessity of change.
To free one's mind first figure out what the shackles are that bind you to whatever ideology that grips you and pulls you along in the streaming narratives of control. Easier said than done. Our inherent tribalism, our group pull as it is, will tighten its grip when wanting to break free. Fight it, break out, and free your mind from the decay of the toxic narratives pulling us all into oblivion. It may not save the world but it will save your sanity. Peace
A personal theory of mine is that the videos and posts shared by the people who question covid and the vaccines are actually created by the system. It lowers the bar the system has to maintain when their opposition is sharing rubbish they hand delivered to them. It is almost too easy to get a gist of what the deniers would want to hear, twist it in a way that makes it appealing to them but comes off as totally wack to someone who doesn't share that mindset, and create a toxic environment that feeds dysfunction.
There's never been a better moment to switch off the TV and leave that newspaper gathering dust on the stand. These two actions, carried out by every one of us, kill this insipid industry stone dead. I did it ten years ago.
For most people most of the time, the fastest and surest way to wind up dead or seriously disadvantaged has been at the hands of our fellow humans. At the same time, "our group", whether by faith, family, tribe, regiment, whatever, are the people we can trust to have our back.
Therefore, whatever else happens, whatever we have to do, believe absurdities, blindly follow barking insane leaders, parrot obvious lies to our detriment, do or suffer terrible things, but please whatever you do, please don't kick us out of the group!
Those who have lived in the Third World and in developed countries should have a light come on about now.
What this also means is that when we are presented with incontrovertible proof that the group narrative is wrong or that the group leaders are mad or charlatans or worse, rather than change leaders or change beliefs or change groups, most people, most of the time will instead double down. Witness the behavior of cultists.
The process is called "cognitive dissonance" and it is abundantly documented. As alluded to earlier, there are entire religions organized around the principle.
Cognitive dissonance is not limited to stupid people. In fact, the intelligent are at least as prone, perhaps because they are better at rationalizing. In fact, much so-called "knowledge work" is basically learning symbol manipulation in order to rationalize something.
If the numbers are to be believed, viewers are turning off cable news in huge numbers now that Trump is gone. Likewise, newspapers struggle to find paying subscribers. The old information models are crumbling, fueling the current liberal establishment push to censor the Internet and its dissemination of contrary narratives.
This is good news, although more uncomfortable Thanksgiving dinner conversations may be necessary for the foreseeable future.
Yes yes... it’s all wonderfully hopeless...so we give up resisting... even when we take a stand and protect this or that... we surrender in order to settle into the here-now with our attention ... we allow the shift in consciousness to take place.
The only hope for humanity is to feel the hopelessness, the futility of the mental “ me” trying stay in control of our species.
Indeed. Free your mind and your ass will follow... an old line from Funkadelic. The best way to free your mind is to quiet it through meditation and a focus on breathing and the body. Allows us to sense the presence of Life Itself. Words just get in the way...
After Plato had written his elitism - based Republic he observed that it couldn't work without state religion, a partnership which was always a feature of ancient civilizations, and continues to this day. Religious, or more exactly, transcendent ideas can work on a personal level, but when incorporated in the state have always given legitimacy to injustice, even irrational, counterintuitive falsehoods. The egregious abortion laws in Texas is a timely, practical example. Quietism, passivity, mysticism in Eastern religions have kept the masses in Asian countries in line, they have even been sold the idea, not very successfully, that all is just illusion anyway, their suffering, and Christianity in the West has been to some degree successful in doing the same. To be free means to reject negative, ugly ideas and the myths on which they are based. Believe in the universe, creation and beauty, and the ability of human beings guided by reason and empathy to do the right thing. And there are no rites, doctrines, diktats associated, or can possibly be in harmony with that idea. True democracy-derived laws, though, are necessary and fine, so long as they meet the qualifications, and don't preclude the inevitability and necessity of change.
To free one's mind first figure out what the shackles are that bind you to whatever ideology that grips you and pulls you along in the streaming narratives of control. Easier said than done. Our inherent tribalism, our group pull as it is, will tighten its grip when wanting to break free. Fight it, break out, and free your mind from the decay of the toxic narratives pulling us all into oblivion. It may not save the world but it will save your sanity. Peace
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ3RzGoQC4s
A personal theory of mine is that the videos and posts shared by the people who question covid and the vaccines are actually created by the system. It lowers the bar the system has to maintain when their opposition is sharing rubbish they hand delivered to them. It is almost too easy to get a gist of what the deniers would want to hear, twist it in a way that makes it appealing to them but comes off as totally wack to someone who doesn't share that mindset, and create a toxic environment that feeds dysfunction.
They'll be rounding up "unvaxxed" Americans for the quarantine camps soon. We're running out of time. Please wake up everyone :( please