This might fall on deaf ears but let’s give it a shot.
TURN OFF YOUR TELEVISION!!!!
TURN OFF YOUR NEWS FEED ON YOUR PHONE AND COMPUTER!!!
DON’T BELIEVE ANYTHING THAT YOU HEAR, AND ONLY HALF OF WHAT YOU SEE — Ben Franklin
YOU ARE ALL INDIVIDUALS (We are all individuals) — The Life of Brian
Throughout the ages there have been people in our history that have repeated these messages trying to get us to think for ourselves. They have tried, and unfortunately failed.
Why have we failed?
I believe, because the masses, generally speaking, are lazy. It’s easier to hear something and repeat it than look into it for themselves. In today’s society we don’t want to be bothered. ‘Prayers’ seems to be the new catch phrase. It allows us to be passive. Although I do believe in the power of prayer, I also believe in the power of action.
What are YOU doing as an individual to change the world?
I’m going to repeat something that one of my coaches told me while going through Summit Education in 2002…
Act on everything as if YOU were responsible for it.
What if you were responsible for poverty? Would there be poverty in the world? What if you were responsible for war? Would there be war in the world? What if you were responsible for all of the hunger in the world? Would anybody go hungry?
You see… taking on this perspective does not allow you to be passive in your life. Once you take on this role, you take on a role of leadership. You take on the role of giving a shit. You can bring this down on a micro scale if it helps you understand.
Let’s take on poverty.
The foods you eat. Where do those foods come from? Do they come from a local farmer or from a grocery store that ships that food in from a huge corporation? Are you aware that certain foods that you eat get shipped in from countries that use labor so cheap that they could be considered slaves?
The material goods that you buy. Where do those products come from? Are they made in china, so cheap that places like Walmart, Nike, Amazon corner the market on basically (again), slave labor just so you can get something cheaper?
Let’s take on war.
We send our sons and daughters off to war to fight for what we’ve been told is ‘freedom’, or ‘democracy’. But are you willing to look at where that money goes to to support these wars? Are we really fighting for democracy or are we feeding a machine that only thrives on acquisition of land to exploit the minerals?
Let’s take on hunger.
This can piggy back on poverty. So many people go hungry around this world while we throw away more than we can stuff in our faces. Did you know that the Whole Foods in LA locks its dumpsters at night so the homeless can’t get into them? Do you know how much food a DAY they throw away?
This is the tip of the iceberg. Once you start doing research you become more aware of your actions. Once you know, you can’t un-know. And maybe that is the answer right there. People don’t want to know because it will depress them? I get it. Believe me, I get it. But for whatever it is… I now know and there is no going back.
Let me get back to the television, social media, the news.
The news used to be Walter Cronkite telling you what was going on in the world. He would not voice his opinion on air, he would just tell you the facts. It would allow us to form our own opinion. In the 80’s when Ted Turner started CNN, 24hr news, they needed to pay their bills. Advertisers paid hefty amounts of money and they wanted the most bang for their buck. To keep the people watching the news 24hrs a day they realized that they were never going to capture the audiences attention with boring personalities like Cronkite’s. New needed something sexier, more exciting… something that would keep people on the edge of their seats. They needed rock stars of news! People that would inject their opinions into what people were seeing. News turned into a fucking soap opera.
They quickly realized that the more drama there was, the more viewers they would have, and therefore the more money they would make off of advertisers. Advertisers realized this as well so therefore, following suit, advertising had to become more enticing. So much so that I guarantee that you have your own favorite commercial. Basically, a paid for lie about a product that will never live up to what it really is.
The psyche of the world was changed.
We are essentially no different than an addict. We ARE addicts ourselves. Things need to become more exciting, more violent, more… more… more… We aren’t satisfied, ever. We have been left with an emptiness that we don’t know how to satiate. We doom scroll on our phones, on our social media feeds, ‘liking’ what we see. ‘Liking’ is now equivalent to your self worth. Even the person that created the ‘like’ button has apologized for creating it, never knowing that it would create such pain and sorrow.
Let’s get a little deeper now that you have a basic understanding of how these systems operate.
Politicians, Governments, Corporations which I will call the PGC know how easy it is to influence you. They understand how the news, how social media has captured us. And like puppeteers, they pull the strings and make us dance whichever way they wish us to. They follow our trends. They watch our every move as they hone in deeper and deeper into our psyche until we all come to the point of following their influence. We believe the PGC. We adore the PGC. They care about us (so we think). This is the Matrix that Morpheus was warning us about.
Wake up Neo!
Whatever you want to believe, believe. But understand that we have been hijacked and the generations that follow will ask this question, “What the hell were we thinking?”
I’ve asked a lot of questions here without offering you some solutions. If you wish know you can start with this…
Think Globally. Act Locally.
Start working within your own community. Instead of buying products that are shipped to you, start finding local farmers, local retailers, local restaurants. Start spending your money within your community and your community will grow. The ‘j.o.b.’ (Just Over Broke) that you work to pay your bills… is it fulfilling or does it just pay your bills? Maybe you’ve acquired too much. Do you really need two cars? If you start working within your community you might only need a bicycle to get to where you need to go? Killing two birds with one stone. You get transportation and exercise all in one! Win! Speaking of the job and it’s fulfillment. Is it for a big corporation that doesn’t contribute to its own community? Back in the 80’s we had a lawsuit against Walmart in the town I lived in because Walmart had a reputation for entering into a community, wiping out local businesses, and destroying the local economy. And if that isn’t enough… none of their money went back into the local community.
Maybe start your own garden? There is nothing like watching your own food grow that you can eat yourself and share with your neighbors. The food tastes better and your neighbors, well, you get to know them!
I hope that I have planted some seeds. I hope that I have made you look deeper into things because right now we live in a world of fear. The acronym for F.E.A.R. is False Evidence Appearing Real but unfortunately most of us live under a different acronym. Fuck Everything And Run.
We live on a beautiful diverse planet. She will continue with us, or without us. She is giving us this opportunity with this reset to see how beautiful this planet is when we stop, regardless if we were forced to stop or not, to smell the flowers.
Please… let’s move forward and not back to what it was before. Do you really want your old job back? Do you really want to continue this rat race or do you want to smell the flowers with me?
