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Question Everything, Believe Nothing - Chapter One - Suspending Disbelief
Question Everything, Believe Nothing
Chapter One
Suspending Disbelief
By
Cognitive Dissonance
Introducing a new portal into the mind of Cognitive Dissonance
Chapter Two may be found here.
Where are the outer boundaries of our mental box, that comforting space where we ‘believe’ the uniquely individual ‘me’ can be found? What is the limit of our ability to think and perceive beyond our current ‘belief’ system, to think outside the lines of our own perceptional box? Can we ever locate a clearly defined line of demarcation where we cross over from all that ‘we’ believe is ‘me’ and where the herding ‘we’ bulls ‘us’ over?
Is ‘our’ belief system entirely ‘yours’ or is it for the most part indoctrinated into you by ‘our’ culture and those who directly or indirectly influence our culture, thus by extension ‘you’? Who, or more accurately, what are ‘you’ if very little of substance differentiates ‘you’ from ‘us’? In many ways this is a chicken or egg question and it appears that a decent method by which we may answer it is to work backwards and examine what is ‘belief’ and what it means for us to ‘believe’.
One of the ways we have been mentally, emotionally and spiritually hijacked is through our language, a concept brilliantly described in Orwell’s classic work ‘1984’. For many, the words ‘believe’ or ‘belief’ are seen as strictly religious or fantastical thinking, and certainly not for the logical or scientific mind. In the worldview of most, which neatly encompasses their ‘belief’ system, there are ‘facts, science and math’, and then there is ‘belief’ and ‘faith’.
Sadly this is the Achilles heel of the average person (we are all more or less average when it comes to self awareness, though we love to ‘believe’ we are well above that mark) because by thinking this way, by believing in this manner, we create our own blind spots and exclude ourselves from what in many aspects we actually practice, essentially complete and total blind faith and belief in nearly all facets of daily thought and living.
How much of our thought, of our daily thinking, is original or organic and how much is slightly modified, then enthusiastically regurgitated, cultural beliefs indoctrinated into us from an early age. Reinforced by the echo chamber of news, advertising and TV programming as well as movies, books, social media, science, economics and politics, can any of us ever really tell which thoughts are ‘ours’ and which were created to be ours via cultural conditioning. Unless we force ourselves to first obtain, and then maintain perspective, it all becomes a blur of flashing lights and background noise to be willingly, even eagerly, accepted as just the way things are.
Our society is obsessed with the holy grail of facts, absolutes, and conclusive answers. We are taught as soon as we can comprehend that this is the way things are and we know these things to be true. We view our recent ancestors as backwards and uninformed, cavemen for all practical purposes, yet we never seriously consider that we are just as uninformed and will be considered so by the future ‘us’ in twenty, fifty, a hundred years from now.
There is no respect given (because none is seriously offered by ‘us’) to the inquiring mind willing to step outside the boundaries of conventional thinking, only empty vessels that wish to be fully indoctrinated into the present day belief system. The herd demands we believe what the herd believes and increasingly that belief is divorced from reality.
I suspect there are several reasons for this phenomenon. As I discussed in “The Science Delusion” the spectacular success of materials science (the mass production of ten million things) has contributed to the delusion that we know it all, that we have arrived, that there is certainty in many if not all things, and that we ‘know’ this ‘certainty’ with near absolute precision. All it needs is a few small tweaks here and there.
But I suspect something else is going on here and I don’t recall it being discussed much in the virtual circles I frequent. Until the advent of mass media, ‘modern’ man lived an existence surrounded almost entirely by physical reality, up close and very personal. In fact, until sometime after World War Two most homes did not even have central heat, indoor plumbing or a house wired for electricity. Life, to put it simply, was very raw.
There was once a mostly solitary and desperate immediacy to daily living (the present day homeless are quite familiar with this condition) and a mind that dwelled in fantasy and not focused on the needs of the here and now was often severely punished by Mother Nature. Dawdle too long in the petunias and you might die of exposure later because you did not put up enough firewood and salt away enough food.
Presently we trade our regimented labor for easily convertible script, also known as currency, which in turn we redeem for fundamental basics, creature comforts and desirable wants (as opposed to ‘needs’) that until 100 years ago were almost exclusively the realm of the very wealthy. This in turn has greatly diminished the immediacy of the here and now, and thus its apparent relevance and importance. While there is great debate over whether idle or free time has increased or decreased over the last hundred years, what we ‘do’ with our free time has dramatically changed, and in my opinion not for the better.
While man has always devoted some of his play time to alternative reality fantasy thinking, whether it was simply daydreaming on a warm spring day or reading a classic work of fiction, never in the history of ‘modern’ man has such a huge percentage of the population devoted hours upon hours every day exclusively to ‘suspending disbelief’. Nor have we done so in such a mentally and emotionally intrusive manner. I am, of course, speaking about television, movies and other forms of immersive mass media mind warping.
If you were to ask the average person if they understood the difference between ‘real world’ reality and TV or movie reality, you would be hard pressed to find someone who wasn’t absolutely certain they could tell the difference. And yet so much of the mass media we consume is integrated into our daily living so seamlessly that no longer can we clearly see the fine line of demarcation between reality and fantasy.
Just talk to an attorney, public defender or police officer about the public’s perception of justice and police processes after the public has drunk deeply from the CSI media cup for well over a decade and you will get an earful. We aren’t talking about ignorance here, as in a lack of knowledge, but rather deliberately distorted perceptions and programmed ignorance, a far more dangerous and easily controlled state of mind.
The only thing worse than someone who doesn’t know what they are talking about is someone who believes they do because they have been conditioned to think so, but still does not. The serially convinced are so much more dangerous to themselves and to others than the merely deluded delusional.
I don’t necessarily object to fantasy or fantastical thinking, of suspending disbelief in order to enjoy a depiction of alternative reality, which is essentially the altered mental and emotional state we enter into when consuming ‘pulp fiction’ mass media. In fact I was (and still am) a rabid fan of science fiction when I was a younger man. My problem is in the method of media immersion, completely passive rather than interactive and creative.
While reading (science) fiction, daydreaming or engaging in truly creative thought or artistic expression, the activity itself requires that we co-create the reality, to engage our creative energy and thinking process and actively interact. On the other hand mass media consumption requires of us, demands of us, very little (if any) real intellectual or creative effort on our part, only a willing suspension of disbelief and the near total surrender of our mind. Just turn on, tune out and tumble in.
The mass media alternative reality world is already imagined, produced and packaged for us by others and we are simply a passive recipient of the information download, or programming as the networks readily admit it is called. We are just along for the ride so buckle up, open your eyes wide and fully disengage the discerning mind. Suspending disbelief in three, two, one………
Do some research on brainwaves during different activities, then compare the mind while reading, writing, even dreaming, and when passively watching the television or a movie. Even when the brain absorbs so called ‘educational’ documentaries, when viewed through the brain imaging MRI, the results are little different from “CSI” or “Days of our Lives”. Garbage in garbage out makes for a garbage mind, with the body soon to follow.
Not only are we being deeply programmed into hundreds of alternative realities, the cumulative effect of which we are increasingly unable to discern, but we are also being conditioned to remain in a near constant state of belief suspension, the most psychically, emotionally and spiritually vulnerable condition we could possibly allow ourselves to remain in.
Comparable to Pavlov’s dogs responding predictably to specific stimuli, we willingly and eagerly suspend disbelief while consuming pulp fiction on TV and other mass media. While we claim the ability to re-enter the ‘real’ world when the news or a commercial comes on, from what I have learned our brain wave pattern doesn’t change all that much when we switch from ‘True Blood’ to the bloody evening news and then back again.
And make no mistake about it; mass media news and other ‘real’ programming is just another form of prepackaged pulp fiction that we vacantly consume with little or no discernment between one alternative reality and another. The principal difference is that we have been conditioned to believe that the news is ‘real’, thus it is even more deeply absorbed into our psyche as ‘truth’ where it mixes and melds with other deeply programmed beliefs we mistakenly call facts, reality and truth.
Similar to an inch worm’s incremental progress, as long as the latest alternative reality conditioning is similar to the old one (it doesn’t need to be exact) we inch our ‘real world’ perception further and further away from reality and closer to the world our handlers create for us. This is one of the reasons predictive programming is so successful. Repeatedly plant the suggested meme seed now and reap the harvested alternative reality later.
Reflexively we fall into a state of passive receptivity when plopped in front of the boob tube. And as much as we may protest to the contrary, there is less of a tendency to apply critical thinking when in front of the glowing conditioning apparatus then when reading the exact same material or discussing it with others.
The brilliance behind this type of deep conditioning is that it targets our natural tendency to rationalize away any negative aspects under the guise of entertainment. “Hey, we’re just having some fun. It’s a TV show for crying out loud, not real life.” The programmer doesn’t need to convince us to suspend disbelief when we willing do so under the cover of fun for all. Open wide and say “Please sir, may I have moar”.
The latest programming phase started more than a dozen years ago with so called ‘reality TV’ programming, which supposedly features ‘real life’ people dealing with contrived difficulties in purportedly unscripted situations. While I agree that every action seen on the viewing screen is not strictly or rigidly scripted, both the characters and producer, along with the editing room, insert false conflicts and drama where little or none would normally exist, all under the pretence of a ‘game’ show. More importantly we are shown, and expressly informed, that something is ‘real’ when clearly it is not. So once again belief is engaged by suspending disbelief in order to swallow whole the patently unbelievable.
If we examine the term ‘suspending disbelief’ we realize that what we are asked to do, what is demanded of us in order to ‘enjoy’ a harmless little activity and accept our programming, is to ‘believe’ what we are seeing in order to internalize and embody it as real. Our imagination is the creator of our own personal reality so hijack that and you and I are effectively controlled.
Only if we accept what we are seeing and hearing as ‘real’ will we express emotion and empathy and fully engage in the alternative reality. This in turn enables and allows our ‘self’ to be fully assimilated Borg like into the proffered fantasy hook, line and sinker. When all the moving parts click the programming results are spectacular. Just watch the apparatus work its magic when imminent war is being announced or the next financial crisis ‘suddenly’ occurs.
Every twelve to fifteen minutes during prime conditioning time our primary programming is interrupted for commercial breaks during which, while our empathy and emotions are fully exposed and vulnerable, we are showered with sales ads precisely designed to do the same. Meaning we are programmed to desire whatever it is they are selling using our own fully exposed emotion and empathy as leverage against us. Talk about striking while the fire is hot.
I looked up ‘belief’ and ‘believe’ in several dictionaries and found near universal definitions that often had little to do with religion and much to do with everyday living and thinking. For example, from Merriam-Webster comes the following.
be·lief: noun, a feeling of being sure that someone or something exists or that something is true; a feeling that something is good, right, or valuable; a feeling of trust in the worth or ability of someone; a state or habit of mind in which trust or confidence is placed in some person or thing; a tenet or body of tenets held by a group; conviction of the truth of some statement or the reality of some being or phenomenon especially when based on examination of evidence.
be·lieve: verb, to accept or regard (something) as true, to accept the truth of what is said by (someone), to have (a specified opinion), to have a firm religious faith, to accept something as true, genuine, or real; to have a firm conviction as to the goodness, efficacy, or ability of something; to consider to be true or honest; to accept the word or evidence of.
Wow, I could not have said it better myself. Who among us has the courage and internal steadiness to examine ourselves for any and all traces of unexamined belief, then thoroughly remove all threads from our everyday use, all while maintaining some semblance of continuity in relationships, work, play and growth. Personally I find the task daunting at best and just about impossible at worst. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t even try.
Chapter Two to follow soon.
03-05-2014
Cognitive Dissonance
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Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.
Buddha - Kalama Sutta.
believe half of what you see...
and none of what you read.
I think Ben Frankin.
Do not believe every comment. (paradoxical)
Great Post-- Always a pleasure to read your work, and you point is precise.
While its minor & somewhat splitting hairs, the expression is actually 'Strike while the iron is hot', which comes from a blacksmith having to form the metal quickly after removing it from the forge. Wait too long and the iron gets too cool to form easily. Back into the forge it must go.
I have always been intrigued with idiomatic expressions that we often hear mis-stated, like, 'chomping at the bit', which is really 'champing at the bit'. It all started when I was correcting a person who said, "chomping at the reins". I said it was chomping at the bit, the correction was champing.
Anyway, great post. I have been unable to watch the telivision for almost 18 years now. Can't read a newspaper either. My belief in what is real lies elsewhere.
I like mixing idiomatic expressions such as chomping at the bit to strike while the fire is hot. :) :) I have a friend who simply cannot watch TV because he then can't stop. He becomes mesmerized. He has no TVs in his home and arranges ahead of time when staying at a hotel to have the TV removed or disabled. He once lost a job because he missed a business appointment because he couldn't walk away from the hotel room TV.
30 years without a TV and yes if i am in a room where on is on it's Hypnotic
the people who don't notice the hypnotics are not Immune.. they are already hypnotized
"the people who don't notice the hypnotics are not Immune.."
They are the most easily manipulated
"The 'Mulholland' experiment in the early 70's wired ten kids to electroencephalograph (EEG) machines (which measure brain wave activity) and sat them down in front of their chosen favourite programmes. He expected to see plenty of fast beta waves, which would indicate that they were actively responding to something (as is produced when reading or during conservation); instead all he could find were the slower alpha waves of the kind found when a person is in a coma or put in a trance where the subject is not interacting with the outside world at all."
for deprogramming, try the dreamachine
Television could be a force for good.
In UK years ago, the Open University was a great educational tool.
As with everything else on planet earth, once the psychopaths gain control, things get fucked up.
Problem is, most humans seem to avoid having to make any effort.
If you rely on being spoon-fed, the person doing the feeding is likely to take anvantage.
If you never make an effort you never experience the feeling of accomplishing anything.
I've never watched a lot of television.
Haven't owned one for 15 years.
I don't invite lying manipulative people into my home. Why, therefore, would I have a television?
If I'm in a room with a television I find it, at least, annoying, but most of the time, frightening.
Around were I live in Silicon Valley, there are TVs in strategic corners of just about every place people meet casually. Bars and restaurants, malls, shop windows facing the sidewalk. If you have one in the house this seems fine. But I don't have one and it really frightens me. People sit around watching the game or maybe taking in the news and not talking, their eyes glazed over.
Everyone is so alone. It's just them and the TV. But the TV is a greedy master and eats the mind of it's slave.
cougar_w, I have spent, and continue to spend, a fair amount of my time in places where people do not have electricity, much less TV or internet blogs (one and the same, in my opinion, in terms of their monopoly or lack thereof on the truth and in their aim of altering opinion). In these “developing” lands, people have no choice but to be social. What I have found is that a good portion of their social time is spent…..gossiping. Also, if Person X gets miffed at Person Y, the two might go years ignoring each other’s existence, even though residency forces them to be proximal on a daily basis.
I don’t mean to suggest you see TV as the primary source of communication or relationship problems in society, but my own experience tells me that a good many, perhaps even a majority of people, are hard pressed to fill their day in ways some of us might define as rewarding and fulfilling, although it’s to each his own. It isn’t the TV per se; it’s the person watching it. Since I also have spent considerable time amongst the elite, I can say that it has been my experience that the poor are not all noble or salt of the Earth types (or self-actualized just because they are not bombarded with modern forms of electronic entertainment), and the rich and/or powerful are not all shallow, self-serving demons. I cannot even say if the average at one end of the wealth and power spectrum is any better than the other.
People are people. Most endeavor to find some way to feel superior in some form to others, whether in character, knowledge, possessions, integrity or insightfulness. That is probably hard wired into our biomechanics, as being better or perceived as such carries reproductive advantages. Most also believe that ‘if only’ they were at the other end of the spectrum, they would evidence the same character and integrity they believe they evidence in their current realm. Today, many even seem to believe that if only they could go off grid and free themselves from society's candy, they would become "better humans", whatever that means. The jury is still out on that one.
Abraham Lincoln (yes, I know he is frowned upon around here) once said that the true test of a man’s character is not how he behaves when times are tough, but how he behaves when times are easy. Having once been poor and struggling, but no longer so, I can say I would never have truly understood that statement until I had gained a certain degree of ease. We can be thrown off our step anywhere, but (in my opinion) this can be done more easily in some places than others.
An aside: There are researchers today, some private and some public, who have discovered the very nature of consciousness (yes, it’s our old friend “science”, but it does have the advantage of being repeatable and reproduce-able). Perhaps it was inevitable that a curious species would one day stumble upon it. If we as a species survive nuclear war or nuclear accident, pollution, resource depletion, a post-antibiotic world, or any of the other Swords of Damocles currently hanging over our heads, I fear that as knowledge of this discovery becomes more widespread, it will lead to social mayhem on a scale never before experienced in human history, for it challenges many people’s deeply held beliefs about the nature of human existence. In and of itself the knowledge changes nothing from love to anger, but it affects how people see themselves and distill meaning from existence. As much as I might like truth to see the light of day, I’m not sure if this genie would be better kept in the bottle, though that's just my view. /aside
Okay, so I’ve jumped all around in this post, but I think there is a common theme in most of it. Maybe.
Only if a people accept that the mechanism provided is compelling and can be considered wholly sufficient in explaining all aspects of observation plus peoples own experience of consciousness. It also requires that people care to listen to or take it seriously and process the implications, which is by far the largest impediment to it causing the end of civilization. But as harbinger of certain doom, it's already surplus to requirement.
Interesting remarks, I've gone from rich to poor to rich ect,. saw the same changes in myself and others.
simple people talk about stuff
average minded people talk about other people
artistic minded people discuss ideas...
easy way to figure out where tf someone is at...
I've often referred to it as 'the brain destroying box in the corner'
Thing is, it's not the box itself, it's the people that control what it displays, and their motives.
Once you see through it, its power over you is gone.
It is "The One Eyed Mind Sucker". It is a parasite.
The Tubes created an album, "Remote Control" that served to open my eyes to see through that infernal contraption. I wish that it was online.
TV is King LyricsI wish I were the man
With the mechanical heart
I'd conquer all my enemies alone
I'd tear the guys apart
Then scatter the pieces
I wish I was the man in the soundproof booth
I wish I had a chance
To stump the band or maybe tell truth
And maybe I could win a color television
I really love my, television
I love to sit by, television
Can't live without my, television
TV is king, you're my everything
I wish I had the girl with the bouncy hair
We'd ride off in a brand new car
Or fly a plane somewhere
Like probably Jamaica
I brush my teeth, shampoo my hair
And shave my face
Apply the necessary aerosol
In the appropriate place
And we'll spend the night
Together watching television
I can't turn off my, television
Don't really know why, television
I understand my, television
You got your works in a drawer
And your color's on track
You have to break away
But you always come back
You make a hundred changes
But you're always the same
You make me so excited
And you make me so lame
You're just a tube full of gas
And a box full of tin
But you show me your charms
And I want to jump in
Oh, if only your chassis
Was covered with skin
'Cause TV you're my everything
I really love my, television
I love to sit by, television
Can't live without my, television
I can't turn off my, television
Don't really know why, television
I understand my, television
I really love my, television
TV is king, you're my everything
TV is king
Satan's dreambox
bill hicks
its painting a false reality across your optic nerve every moment you are looking at it. It only exists for a single reason to sell you that false reality and all the bullshit they can construct within that platform.
You can get busy living or get busy dying and watching tv is getting busy dying.
Life is what you do without a television.
"the people who don't notice the hypnotics are not Immune.. they are already hypnotized"
Couldn't agree with you more. Me and the Mrs. rarely watch the tube (maybe an hour or two a week if that) but when we do we can feel the pull despite the garbage that passes for TV these days.
Warning. An hour a week is too much. In fact just having aTV in the house as an altar to the attention manipulators is asking for trouble. Would you have an altar to Satan just sitting around, that you sacrificed at only once a week? Well if you were a Satanist you would. Even if you only sacrificed to it once a year at Christmas, even if it spent more time out in the garage under a sheet until the one day, you would still be a Satanist.
Having it at all makes you the thing it needs you to be.
Kill your TV.
That is not a euphemism, it is an act of defiance. You say get behind me Satan when you kill your TV. You kill the TV, you kill the attention you give it, you kill what it stands for, you kill the message and the messenger both, you kill all diplomatic relations with the brain eaters, you kill the thought of them having you, you kill the chance of them having any meaning or relevance at all for any purpose contrived by any delusional and fevered mind in all the corrupted halls of mental filth that's been fisting us off in the guise of a religion of the deranged.
I feel very strongly about this.
"Kill your TV."
Well.......I do need to sight in my latest acquisition. :-)
Forget that.
Just use an ax.
Some things you really need to do with your own two hands.
a well shot arrow ain't bad either. plus, it makes a nice sculpture in a post-post-post-modern sense.
these guys might be onto sumthin: http://www.scrapclub.co.uk/
now.every once in a while. you have to smash them up..show your appreciation . . . .respect them as entities of your imagination….and retaliate.
That might be saleable. I think that you ought to do that and offer it to a Gallery...if I do not do it first.
Someone has to ask you... you're writing again, aren't you? Something wonderful with a sick/dark twist perhaps?
Yes and it's actually very sweet I think. Diamond at her most gentle and whimsical.
It's about the corner office. That center of all human power and desire, badge of success, corporate fortress and moat.
Nice view of the streets far below.
There is indeed a small dark thing you will learn about the corner office, but I'll save that for a bit later. It is really very small. A trifle really. Nothing important. Really. Look I mean a girl's still gotta eat is that fine with you huh well is it?
Everyone is so tense.
But apart from that ... whimsical and all such. Really.
Well.......when you are ready to post it please let me publish it on "Your Turn" on my website.
I agree. Kill the TeeVee Set at once.
It is the poorest substitute for reality that is known. It stimulates the audio and visual senses and is programmed to overload them. There is no taste, smell or tactile sensations.
If you want drama then LIVE IT. Engage with people and stop isolating. If their conversation turns to TeeVee...which it invariably will...then redirect the conversation and invite them on a hike. Take interest and find out who they are.
If you want a Nature Documentary then walk around and explore Nature. If you want to watch Staes then get yourself a good pair of Binoculars and enjoy the Night Sky. If you are in a city then travel to where it is dark. Enjoy the trip.
Do not watch someone else cook. You cook.
Don't watch someone else lose weight (Believe it or not there is an actual TeeVee Show that is called "The Biggest Loser" which concentrates on that theme??? You can vicariously enjoy someone else losing weight??? LMAO) You diet and you lose weight.
Kill that TeeVee Set and read. Read books, novels (there is a lot of good fiction), and engage your mind.
The only excuse for TeeVee is viewing the Earth from an Orbital vantage. That you do with the sound off and some good music to listen to as you watch the World turn.
TeeVee robs you from the experience of LIVING LIFE. Lose your TeeVee Set. It is essential for your health.
I have a TV, and clearly so do you ;-) But I did have a ten year window there where I watched no TV, and it was the best thing I ever did.
And I would strongly suggest you abandon the radio and movies too, you do not need entertainment in any form. I can say from experience I am much healthier and happier when I have none of it any of it, and then I can finally do the real work.
I have a TV by default now, simply becasue my computer monitor is a huge high-def flat panel TV instead of a dedictaed computer monitor, so I foolishly attached an antenna to it. So I do now see a narrow sellection of TV but ~95% of the time it is off.
I never leave it on - ever. It is on for a reason and then it is off. It annoys me at any point, it is off.
It annoys me a lot. ;-)
Funny you mention that 'program' biggest-loser Tom, as the life-style 'trainers' and re-educators and mentors on that show are a bunch of true bots, true believers in the 'lifestyle' and 'thunkun' (not much) that they are trying to force down everyone's throat.It is 100% focused on the exterior appearance and that a worth solution is found externally, namely feeling good and sensual and getting laid.
I have nothing against that, I have been extremely athletic for many years, though now I am certainly not. What I detest if this co-option into a group-think mentality of 'programs' like that. This is the thin-end of the wedge, that seeks our participation in the things that will lead us back to the dead end of meaningless mass over-socialization in the vacuous milieu of trite lies with a warm commercial smile.
The happy consumer! :-D
The real solution is internal, it has not entertainment, it does not revel in imagination, and not even the love of your life and family can be there in that, let alone the rest of societies cerebral advice or input.
There is a REAL reason that monks took on the absence of the verbal-ism and thinking in verbal terms, for years on end, and why some sat alone in a cave for years as an extended community voluntarily took them food, without fail. The society knew the result of that act was vital to the life and health of the whole society around them. It was not just sitting around and being lazy, it was vitally important, and it was not a parasitic thing either. All benefited from what came of it.
It's the same reason why aboriginal men "went walkabout", the community needed to do it, and when they returned, they bought back something in them that sustained the entire tribe. And that process of ceremonial withdrawal was a vital part of the culture's survival.
I have a TV, and clearly so do you ;-) But I did have a ten year window there where I watched no TV, and it was the best thing I ever did.
No. Clearly I do not have a TeeVee. I read a Yahoo Article complaining that this year's winner must be sick with Anorexia Nervosa. The comments were loaded with envy.
I wrote the following comment on Yahoo: Tall Tom • 28 days ago Remove
http://tv.yahoo.com/blogs/tv-news/-the-biggest-loser--season-15-winner-is%e2%80%a6--photos-073035199.html?bcmt_s=m#ugccmt-container
I get much of my information from experiences. I get some of my information from the Internet. My Homepage is Yahoo.com as my email is hosted at that location. If an article strikes my interest when opening the browser I will look at it. That one was rather sickening.
I do not go to Movies and will rarely watch them on the Internet. I do not listen to commercial radio at all.
CD: I gave you a 5 for your awesome title.
Now I'm going to sit down and enjoy the actual post...
Thank you GW. Chapter Two will be up in a day or two.
Slow day on the hedge. Where is everyone?
Everone's here (61,000 reads and counting):
"Behind The Kiev Snipers It Was Somebody From The New Coalition" - A Stunning New Leak Released
GW,
Unless I am making an incorrect and unfair assumption about your making reference to Tyler’s Voice of Russia/RT article, does believing nothing not include the statements from an Estonian FM, especially when his statements are at odds with what a doctor said in subsequent discussions? Does believing nothing not include questioning whether any medical doctor is a ballistics expert who can determine exact bullet matches while she is treating the critically injured?
Pardon me for kumbaya-busting, but doesn’t believing nothing apply to both US/EU pronouncements as well as leaked, surreptitiously recorded private phone conversations made public by the FSB? Aren’t you dismissing one belief merely to adopt another? To borrow a term oft used in other of CD’s missives, might you not be suffering a bout of confirmation bias?
To see if anyone actually took to heart what CD wrote, let's see if my post gets any down arrows. If so, he needs to to re-title it "Question Only What Sits Outside Your Belief System, and Don't Believe Anything I Don't Believe".
Of course it does. Question everything.
Hi chindit13,
As always you bring a different perspective to the threads. Thanks for dropping by.
Too funny.
Mrs. Cog tells me that if I want more reads on my new website I need to write about blood and gore. She's so smart. :)
<Looks like Tyler was listening in on our pillow talk.>
Actually, what I said was that as things escalate and begin to unravel, people would value the insights of Cognitive Dissonance especially when it comes to gaining some perspective with all the bloodshed and gore.
You're right, CD ... Mrs. Cog is smart!
Don't tell her I said this, but Mrs. Cog is way smarter than your average Mrs. Bear. ;)
CD
While I generally enjoy reading your stuff, I always find it a little amorphous, professorial. Questioning everything while believing nothing starts with recognizing the criminal baseline to most, if not all, world leaders. Once you recognize who gets the money then you might understand the nature of every media story and every law passed by politicians.
Investigative reporting has become an oxymoron. And all the philosophizing in the world doesn't change the fact that those in power will crack you in the head if you don't fall in line. Lucky for me, I have a hard head.
"Once you recognize who gets the money then you might understand the nature of every media story and every law passed by politicians."
This observation has nothing to do with anything.
It can even be true and correct, but it is not relevant to anything.
You are laboring under the illusion that there was ever another way of doing things. There was not then, is not now, and there likely never will be. I will even suppose there are no viable alternatives.
Money is used to determine reality. Who has the gold, makes up the story. And then we all believe it.
If you think this is a sudden imposition on a once pure and virginal reality from which you have been ruthlessly torn -- torn like a babe from the breast -- you can get over yourself.
Humans have not had even a casual relationship with reality in at least 800 years, maybe 8,000. We conduct ourselves at all times with little regard to limits or life processes. We think of the moment and not the eons that stretch before us. And we make up stories about how great we are and how obvious is our manifest destiny on earth and we expect people with money to do that as a service, and then lord over us as the crowned and glorious representatives of immortal human triumph.
The cats know otherwise of course. Humans are here to be eaten. All else is illusion.
"Humans have not had even a casual relationship with reality in at least 800 years, maybe 8,000. We conduct ourselves at all times with little regard to limits or life processes. We think of the moment and not the eons that stretch before us."
Since I have to assume you are human then I have to agree that you have, at best, a casual relationship with reality.
From stardust to stardust, but try to enjoy the ride.
As to cats, most of them are fed- by humans; excepting of course the cats that you eat thinking its chicken.
"As to cats, most of them are fed- by humans; excepting of course the cats that you eat thinking its chicken."
Well.....as long as it tastes like chicken I don't ask too many questions.
"The cats know otherwise of course. Humans are here to be eaten. All else is illusion."
Last summer, after we had moved in up here on the mountain and were a bit more settled, Mrs. Cog and I were relaxing on the front porch rocking chairs enjoying the afternoon warmth of the setting sun. Suddenly Mrs. Cog rocked forward and asked me what was it that she was pointing to.
It was buff colored and mixed in with the straw colored wisps of hay across the street, camouflage at its back. Straining to see clearly Mrs. Cog was the first to identify what was clearly watching us from a 'safe' distance, maybe 30 yards.
It was a bobcat.
Suddenly I felt much like I suspect finger food must feel like as a guest looks it over before making a selection. It was quite clear to me who was predator and who was prey. Mrs. Cog didn't immediately get the message and started moving forward to get a better picture on her phone.
"Ummmmm....honey. Stop. Please."
She kept walking.
"Honey. STOP!"
She stopped just as Mr. Bobcat decided he needed to retreat in order to better study the strange female of the species.
A week later I'm sitting in our little office typing away at the computer with the big window overlooking the deck to my right. Suddenly I caught movement out of the corner of my right eye and turned just in time to watch the same bobcat saunter past me on the deck like he owned the joint.
Of course he did and he was making sure I understood that. :)
P.S. Mrs Cog eventually captured some images of Mr. Bobcat. I'm just waiting for Mr. Bobcat to catch her.
Mr Bobcat seems to like you (in the fraternal sense rather than the culinary) and likely will become a member of the family eventually.
It's his close cousin Mr Puma you need to be careful with. They are called lions for a reason, and humans are no better nor worse than a deer to them. And that is indeed in the culinary sense.
I agree with Kaymen - Follow the money. For myself I try and teach simply such as "look in the mirror". Damn that is hard do to! Anways, to gain perspective requires understanding. For that, I have found it is useful to make it a lifelong goal to not stop learning until I stop breathing.
If I teach it is for those with an ear. I had a business partner that even when events unfolded as predicted and what to do about it for the future (downsize expenses) he had an honest reply: "You may be correct Jason but I must believe things will get better." Hope is NOT a wealth preservation strategy. I liked the Dutch who when faced with empirical oppression said "Hope is not necessary to persevere."
I liked the first commentator and the Bhudda reference. Simplifying life gives more time for observations. I am a child of the digital age and love it. But I do force myself out to mingl in person and start feeling better the moment I do.
I do admire your deep thinking and wisdom Cog. Your a lucky man you have a wife that matches your intellectual capacity. Go Mrs. Cog!
Dufus hipster nihilism.
Believe in nothing. Trust no one. See where it gets you.
Believe everything. Trust everybody. See what gets you first.
+a trillion, CD, anxiously anticipating for Chap 2.
Earthlings would believe nothing what they don't want to believe...sigh!
that old mirror works wonders as long as you don't stand there and admire...