I just had a flash of visceral clarity today while I was out jogging in the woods. You know, no phone, no Internet, no other voices, no distractions. I just thought to share this moment of clairvoyance with all of you who read my blog.
We live in a day and age of distraction and haze, unlike any other prior in human history. Our brains and minds are overloaded with completely useless information and clutter, with propaganda and worthless entertainment. Much of this, dare I say perhaps nearly all of it, is directly due to our enslavement to technology. In particular, this has to do with the Internet, with smartphones, tablets, PC’s, pads and what have you. Basically anything that keeps a person disconnected with the here and now, live and in living color, in real life. Just think of a group of friends going out on a Saturday night and everyone sitting there, playing with their smartphones.
The sad truth is, that we – and by and in large by this I mean the western, ”free” world – have sold ourselves to the slavery of virtual existence and viral life. We live vicariously through our computers, deceptively imagining that we are somehow part of a huge, global, online community and that our voice counts for something amongst the masses. How foolish we are.
The truth of the matter is, that our brains are overloaded. Our minds are full of fog. We are kept intentionally distracted from what is really going on behind this all in the world. Like iconic comedian George Carlin (RIP) so prolifically once stated, ”Forget the politicians. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice . . . you don’t. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything….It’s a big club and you ain’t in it. You and I are not in The big club. By the way, it’s the same big club they use to beat you over the head with all day long when they tell you what to believe. All day long beating you over the head with their media telling you what to believe, what to think and what to buy. The table has tilted folks. The game is rigged and nobody seems to notice. Nobody seems to care.”
Fear is the single greatest motivator in the history of mankind. Moreso than love, fear makes people act. Organized religion knows this, the governments know this, global corporations know this. Like acclaimed lifecoach Anthony Robbins so aptly stated, ”We all make decisions based on two forces, and that is to avoid pain and to gain pleasure.”
People are more hedonistic now that at perhaps any time before in world history. Perhaps an argument can be made for Ancient Rome before its fall, but I dare say nowadays we are even more self-indulgent, based on the fact that we are more effectively sold the illusion of luxury and status through the virtual and advertising world and media at large. We are made to want and aspire after things that we don’t even really want in and of ourselves, nor do we need them. Useless clutter. Stuff. Shit to fill up the empty spaces in our lives.
We have come to a day and age of learned helplessness, a chosen self-defeat. We fall back on the excuse that nothing is our fault directly, we can always pass the blame on to someone else, and something or someone doesn’t please us – BANG! Out they go, right out the window. We are a society sick on our own self-indulgence. It’s the grand day of ”me, me me.” Trust me when I tell you, there ain’t no room for ”you” when it’s all about ”me.” No wonder relationships never last nowadays.
This society so desperately needs a strong, swift kick in the proverbial ass that would snap everyone out of their secular haze. Nothing around us is as it seems. Everything is doctored to suit someone else’s bigger purpose at large. Everyone knows that they can’t do much about it, so we just fall back into accepting our fate. How the civilzations of old would mock and scorn us! Speaking only of the vikings, I believe they would have no mercy on our pathetic state of affairs.
The bottom line is: YOU are 100% responsible for your life. At the end of it all, you cannot shift the blame to anyone else for what you have done or left undone. You cannot play the victim and expect anything to change for the better. You will answer and pay the price, or conversely reap the rewards, of your own choices and actions. The bitch of a fact in this whole deal is that you can’t even remain neutral or ride the fence, without taking a side or moving forward, because time keeps ticking away, and stagnancy only results in death. Just think of a cancer cell, if left untreated or unremoved. At the end of the day, no one else is responsible for your life: you alone make it or break it. As the old saying in Finland goes, you are ”the blacksmith of your own destiny.”
It takes personal responsibility to activate empowerment in one’s life. It takes you and I saying, ”I am responsible at least in part for what has happened to me, and I will make the effort to change things.” I am not speaking on high from a soapbox here. I can only call it for what it is, recognizing our collective predicament. I just have clarity. And along with the knowledge that comes with clarity comes the responsibility and obligation to do something with that insight. Having the cure for cancer and keeping it all to yourself will not help anybody in the end.
It’s time to snap out of it. Time to realize that we have been fed a big, long line of bullshit. We have become willfully ignorant, believing that our chosen ignorance will become bliss. Forget viral culture and virtual lives, it’s time to go out there and become active.
In closing, to paraphrase something from acclaimed author Anthony De Mello, ”If you have ears to hear what I just said, then great. If not, woe is you.”
starbuck.fi
The Inconvenient Truth
Posted: July 12, 2014 in Life, Life coaching, Social commentaryTags: Anthony De Mello, Anthony Robbins, awareness, clairvoyance, clarity, freedom, George Carlin, insight, truth
I just had a flash of visceral clarity today while I was out jogging in the woods. You know, no phone, no Internet, no other voices, no distractions. I just thought to share this moment of clairvoyance with all of you who read my blog.
We live in a day and age of distraction and haze, unlike any other prior in human history. Our brains and minds are overloaded with completely useless information and clutter, with propaganda and worthless entertainment. Much of this, dare I say perhaps nearly all of it, is directly due to our enslavement to technology. In particular, this has to do with the Internet, with smartphones, tablets, PC’s, pads and what have you. Basically anything that keeps a person disconnected with the here and now, live and in living color, in real life. Just think of a group of friends going out on a Saturday night and everyone sitting there, playing with their smartphones.
The sad truth is, that we – and by and in large by this I mean the western, ”free” world – have sold ourselves to the slavery of virtual existence and viral life. We live vicariously through our computers, deceptively imagining that we are somehow part of a huge, global, online community and that our voice counts for something amongst the masses. How foolish we are.
The truth of the matter is, that our brains are overloaded. Our minds are full of fog. We are kept intentionally distracted from what is really going on behind this all in the world. Like iconic comedian George Carlin (RIP) so prolifically once stated, ”Forget the politicians. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice . . . you don’t. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything….It’s a big club and you ain’t in it. You and I are not in The big club. By the way, it’s the same big club they use to beat you over the head with all day long when they tell you what to believe. All day long beating you over the head with their media telling you what to believe, what to think and what to buy. The table has tilted folks. The game is rigged and nobody seems to notice. Nobody seems to care.”
Fear is the single greatest motivator in the history of mankind. Moreso than love, fear makes people act. Organized religion knows this, the governments know this, global corporations know this. Like acclaimed lifecoach Anthony Robbins so aptly stated, ”We all make decisions based on two forces, and that is to avoid pain and to gain pleasure.”
People are more hedonistic now that at perhaps any time before in world history. Perhaps an argument can be made for Ancient Rome before its fall, but I dare say nowadays we are even more self-indulgent, based on the fact that we are more effectively sold the illusion of luxury and status through the virtual and advertising world and media at large. We are made to want and aspire after things that we don’t even really want in and of ourselves, nor do we need them. Useless clutter. Stuff. Shit to fill up the empty spaces in our lives.
We have come to a day and age of learned helplessness, a chosen self-defeat. We fall back on the excuse that nothing is our fault directly, we can always pass the blame on to someone else, and something or someone doesn’t please us – BANG! Out they go, right out the window. We are a society sick on our own self-indulgence. It’s the grand day of ”me, me me.” Trust me when I tell you, there ain’t no room for ”you” when it’s all about ”me.” No wonder relationships never last nowadays.
This society so desperately needs a strong, swift kick in the proverbial ass that would snap everyone out of their secular haze. Nothing around us is as it seems. Everything is doctored to suit someone else’s bigger purpose at large. Everyone knows that they can’t do much about it, so we just fall back into accepting our fate. How the civilzations of old would mock and scorn us! Speaking only of the vikings, I believe they would have no mercy on our pathetic state of affairs.
The bottom line is: YOU are 100% responsible for your life. At the end of it all, you cannot shift the blame to anyone else for what you have done or left undone. You cannot play the victim and expect anything to change for the better. You will answer and pay the price, or conversely reap the rewards, of your own choices and actions. The bitch of a fact in this whole deal is that you can’t even remain neutral or ride the fence, without taking a side or moving forward, because time keeps ticking away, and stagnancy only results in death. Just think of a cancer cell, if left untreated or unremoved. At the end of the day, no one else is responsible for your life: you alone make it or break it. As the old saying in Finland goes, you are ”the blacksmith of your own destiny.”
It takes personal responsibility to activate empowerment in one’s life. It takes you and I saying, ”I am responsible at least in part for what has happened to me, and I will make the effort to change things.” I am not speaking on high from a soapbox here. I can only call it for what it is, recognizing our collective predicament. I just have clarity. And along with the knowledge that comes with clarity comes the responsibility and obligation to do something with that insight. Having the cure for cancer and keeping it all to yourself will not help anybody in the end.
It’s time to snap out of it. Time to realize that we have been fed a big, long line of bullshit. We have become willfully ignorant, believing that our chosen ignorance will become bliss. Forget viral culture and virtual lives, it’s time to go out there and become active.
In closing, to paraphrase something from acclaimed author Anthony De Mello, ”If you have ears to hear what I just said, then great. If not, woe is you.”