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Question Everything, Believe Nothing - Chapter Two - Group Think and the Hive Mind
Question Everything, Believe Nothing
Chapter Two
Group Think and the Hive Mind
By
Cognitive Dissonance
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Chapter One may be found here.
There is a pretty common ‘belief’ among many that to ask questions of some ‘things’ that others consider settled or ‘true’ is a sign of weakness, of someone who is weak minded, indecisive or one who just can’t be trusted when the nitty gets gritty. They ‘believe’ that the very act of questioning something that is obviously correct implies instability, doubt, hesitation, uncertainty, etc. They ‘believe’ that these people, the shameful Doubting Thomas’s, cannot be trusted and must be viewed with suspicion and distrust. You are either with the herd or you are against the herd.
Group think is most prevalent in the conditioned mind, a phenomenon that is completely invisible to the group members who truly believe they are thinking independently. The irony of group think is that each member is afforded just enough wiggle room with which to modify or mold the groups common ‘beliefs’ so that each member can call it their own original thinking. Does this sound familiar? No two members of the same political party are of exactly the same mind, yet they all pull the same political lever as one with the herd.

The hive mind is most certainly capable of great feats of strength and perseverance precisely because it is narrowly focused and of ‘one mind’. A common argument in favor of the hive mind is the great feats of human engineering that are part of our daily life. I do not argue that the results can be quite spectacular. In fact I am somewhat of an engineering geek and marvel at today’s ships, planes, bridges, buildings, technology and so on.
But I do not accept the premise that these co-created ‘things’ would only be possible under the direction and control of the coordinated hive mind. From my point of view it is a marvel that they actually exist considering all the truly cruel and destructive effects of the hive mind. War and genocide come to mind as something that can only be accomplished by way of group think and the hive mind.
This state of mind is the antithesis of awareness and perspective, of true compassion and empathy, the act of actually transferring yourself emotionally and spiritually into someone else’s shoes rather than simply believing yourself to be in their shoes. Believed empathy is telling someone you feel their pain dawg. True empathy is doubling over in pain and nausea as wave after wave of the shared agony crashes over you.
Those who claim they have a flexible mind often have the least and those who worry they don’t have enough flexibility usually have the most. The same applies to those who ‘believe’ they have questioned their beliefs enough and found them sound, and those who continuously question what they believe precisely because there appears to be no doubt. There is nothing more certain than the certainty that our perception of reality has been seriously distorted and we do not, and cannot, perceive clearly now.

Personally I have no substantial problems with questioning certain fundamental ‘truths’ that I have believed in the past were unassailable, yet still carry them with me to use until I have something better to replace them with………or I just decide to discard them altogether. Rather than flee in terror from this Cognitive Dissonance because it might undermine the very basis of my existence, I welcome the opportunity to cast off the binds that tie my mind to the hive.
For the hive mind though, this is a true paradox that sends the mind reeling and the stomach spinning. Having never begun an inward journey to locate the true source of their power, or if so, then quickly abandoning it as obviously too dangerous to the ‘self’ to continue, ‘certainty’ is the only force that group think has to propel itself forward. Remove that and the mind freezes, the body falters and the resolve quickly melts away.
For the conditioned mind there is no other fuel source to tap other than those resources supplied externally by group think and the hive mentality. This is why any approach to life other than slightly modified group think is seen as dangerous to the hive’s existence and must be repelled at first sight and expelled if found to already exist. Independent thought, let alone action is as dangerous to group think and the hive mind as Gold or any other ‘real’ substantial foundational basis is to ‘faith and belief’ central bank fiat.
To question everything and believe nothing is not an all or nothing proposition, a dead ended process of a lost soul endlessly chasing its own mind. To the contrary it is a fearless moral, spiritual and emotional self examination, an inner exploration that yields as much, if not more, from the process of journeying than from actually arriving at any particular destination. In fact if one allows their ‘self’ to believe they have actually arrived at enlightenment, most likely they are standing face to face with their carefully concealed ego.
Here’s the rub though. How does one even achieve enough sanity to begin questioning everything while simultaneously surrounded by, and interacting with, an insane world? Worse, how can we trust anything we might discover when we have finally accepted that deliberate deception runs ten layers deep and we haven’t even penetrated level one?
The question is similar to walking into a clothing store and not knowing your size or even what you like. What do you do? The answer is simple; proceed slowly and try on many different garments for size, shape and feel. Most of all trust your intuition and gut. Equally important, before starting, be settled in the knowledge that you will make many mistakes and that this is entirely expected. Navigating a maze while blindfolded is not an easy task and managing your own expectations and disappointments is paramount to moving forward.
As well, we must recognize that because we were conditioned from an early age, a time when our vulnerability was the greatest because we had no real ability to differentiate between programming, propaganda and believed ‘truth’ (nor did most of our familial programmers), we enter this examination process with our cup full of beliefs and our mind convinced in ways we haven’t even begun to explore that there are unassailable truths. These ‘unassailable truths’ are thus the most difficult to question, let alone shake, and shouldn’t be the first to be challenged.
While our ego might insist we charge directly into the valley of death, understand that the ego, the supreme expert in the manipulation of our ‘self’, is sending us into a psychological trap, a sort of reverse psychology deception by luring us in with false bravado and confidence, only to put us at cliffs edge staring down into the black abyss.

Having little to no experience in these matters, many (including myself on several occasions) are quickly overcome by vertigo and scurry back to the safety of terra firma and our familiar self deceptions. Knowing what we have just done, our ego, the master puppeteer, then skillfully encourages us to bargain with what we have just seen to assuage our shame and remorse and to settle for just another comforting version of the original lie.
Instead of pealing back another layer of the onion, tragically we have successfully added yet one more deposit, this time deeply set in stone by our own frightened hands. If we ever venture back down this path again this self created monolith will mock us in ways we can only imagine. Best to travel carefully as if walking a crumbling sandstone path then to delude ourselves into thinking we are surefooted mountain goats.
How arrogant we are to think we could quickly and easily challenge decades, centuries, of pre-conceived group think notions, ‘beliefs’ really since they can be termed nothing else without a thorough examination, without losing our footing and skinning our knees or (perish the thought) breaking some cognitive bones.
I remember well the cold sweat that formed on the back of my neck when I realized I had been criminally deceived into believing the ‘official’ story of nine eleven. Why then, after such a disorienting blow to the egoic mind, would I not expect whiplash when the dawning realization finally sweeps over me that I actually enabled The Big Lie, that I wasn’t quite the helpless victim I had comfortingly conceptualized?
The cognitive problem is never a difficulty in learning about new people, places and things, but in letting go of the old ‘certainty of belief’. We are attracted to the perceived ‘order of certainty’ because our conditioning compels us to seek it out precisely because that empowers outside forces, external author-ities (those who create or ‘author’ their own right to receive/take our power) to supplant our own inner knowing. By rejecting the certainty of belief we are confronting the complete ‘self’ destruction, a rebuilding from the foundation up and then the reordering of all that we ‘believe’ constitutes ‘me’.
Once the curtain is pulled back just a smidge to expose the wizard and his motley crew, our world begins to fly apart as if ravaged by centrifugal forces greater than the human mind can withstand. It is ‘we’ who find ourselves swimming naked when the tide goes out. Worse, we are the gravitational force that determines when, and if, the tide actually ever recedes. The pain we feel when balanced at the cliff’s edge is entirely of our own making and completely within our control to extinguish. All we need do is to abandon the certainty of belief that is presently stuck in our craw.

Our identity, our ‘self’, our very basis, all that we think ‘we’ are, is called into question when we seriously question everything, then look within for some real honest answers. It all comes back to one of the questions I posed at the beginning of this piece. Who, or more accurately, what are ‘you’ if very little of substance differentiates ‘you’ from ‘us’? This is the stark reality we face when we find ourselves beached naked as a jay bird after being blissfully ignorant nearly our entire life.
Consider just for a moment that we carry around with us, on our backs if you will, a huge pack stuffed to the gills, crammed with all our suppositions, assumptions, beliefs and precious ‘truths’ we hold so dear to ‘us’. That in a nut shell pretty much describes each one of us once we are released from the primary school indoctrination machine, competently instructed in the ways of the beast (these days more like trained as disposable shock troops) and ready to make our mark upon the ‘real’ world.
Now consider how much more that backpack has been stuffed after twenty or thirty years of ‘real’ life experience and imagine what a burden, what an absolute impediment, it must present to real substantial organic growth, the type that nourishes from within, that frees the mind and spirit rather than furthers our enslavement.
Is it really so hard to recognize that ‘belief’ is just another tool we may use, one of dozens we can employ at any time we wish to transport our ‘self’ from one way station to the next as we work our way through life? Instead, when unsettled or directly challenged, we desperately grasp for our beliefs with the ferocity of a drowning swimmer, our backpack clutched to our bosom with a death grip, certain beyond belief that we are identified by our beliefs rather than condemned by them to be chained to a life of spiritual stagnation and decay on every level. Either we sink to the bottom firmly anchored to the herd’s beliefs or we rise to the surface and beyond buoyed by true freedom of thought, mind and conscious spirit.
If I were to hold my hammer, chisel or even my chain saw with the same death grip I hold my beliefs I would soon find myself maimed for life, if not pushing up daises six feet under. Fortunately any and all damage done by the mishandling of my beliefs by my ‘self’ can be undone in mere minutes with a decision born of desperation or determination, it matters not, that I am not my beliefs, that it is my beliefs that control me and not the other way around.
This is why it is advisable to hold the contents of my backpack as I would a butterfly rather than the anvil it so often is. If I view my certainties as fragile and fleeting rather than anchored and immovable, much less effort is required when displacing one for another. Or better yet, to simply discard as no longer need or wanted, as outmoded and useless, what previously I could not imagine living without. Cut the ties, one by one, that binds our mind to the hive. This is the true genesis of substantial original organic life fulfilling growth.
03-06-2014
Cognitive Dissonance
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A good habit to keep for print but thanks to HTML we can do linking to memes, articles, Fails & such to give the right balance of /sarc + proof/counter-proof. A good comment should be both informative & snarky enough to put someone in their place who's clearly stepped off the cliff of logic & needs the helpful slap in the face that takes the place of a soft-landing at Fight Club.
Listen to Stefan Molyneux, "The Handbook to Human Ownership" It will show you just how deep it goes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k67_imEHTPE
While I take issue with some (just some) of Stefan's work, he is brilliant and well worth watching/reading.
I don't think his de-FOO work is brilliant, helpful in any way, and he must know this because anyone making negative mention of it is banned from his youtube channel immediately. I am for that reason alone.
Remember the story (fictional) about an experiment where the monkeys in a cage were sprayed with cold water whenever one tried to get a banana?
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/games-primates-play/201203/what-monk...
Cog, fucking bullshit bro. It is not our minds fucknig us, it is the powers that be fucking us.
Only if we allow it. I found questioning everything includes asking what motivation is involved in what I am being led to believe the best way to determine truth and make decisions.
We cannot control what is done around and to us all the time but we can control our reaction and how it bends our minds. I refuse to be f'ed in the ways that matter.
Exactly. This is why we must turn within first. To even consider, let alone be convinced, that we are free of hidden motives untainted by manipulation is a serious mistake.
steveo77
Steve, the people doing that have the same issue to address. It isn't actually 'us' and 'them', even though is sure feel like it to you.
Cog, fucking bullshit bro. It is not our minds fucknig us, it is the powers that be fucking us.
Enslavement begins by breaking the will of the enslaved. It is all a mind fuck. It is also an illusion. You choose to believe it or reject it. But it is YOUR CHOICE.
Whatsoever you choose...OWN IT.
THIS IS NOT BULLSHIT.
Ya? Then how come so many people demand and enjoy the servitude?
StormCloudsGathering. Good video. Been listening to him for quite awhile...
How about Oingo Boingo???
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0Fc9lvRMy0
I liked that link TT. I like this guy with his chakra bowls. I have been listening to him a for a while and sometimes it can be the best thing you can listen too. It's not for everybody I'm sure but it works for me. I would love to see this performed in person. I find it so elegantly simple yet complicated. It is philosophical and this seems to be the right place to post about it.
Good article Cog.
I would say it's even worse than you describe Cog, when you do first mentally glimpse the depth briefly it appears to be literally the path into madness. That's frightening to anyone, to let go to that complete degree, and have no safety net, no way back. It's so terrifically fear-inspiring to glimpse it even momentarily, that I suspect everyone pulls away.
It takes a combined act of total mental desperation, and unlimited resolve to take whatever it is, wherever it leads, and keep going. And if you mess up, there is no money-back guarantee, you live with where you left it, where you stopped. You can not stop. If you are going to stop then do not start. It is not for you, deep mind is not a play area.
It's a killing-floor where what you think, is butchered, mercilessly, until there is nothing left, except what's past the level of the 'thinker' mind. The thinker mind is destroyed by your own reckless and relentless examination, so that what else is there, if anything, is the only thing that may suddenly operate.
If you bailout early and screw up your life, don't blame me.
You are 100% responsible.
A very early draft of this piece contained a much more severe description of the fear one faces when looking into the abyss. I toned it down because it might have been considered fear mongering. It was sufficient to simply describe the fear itself and the act of pulling back.
I think that if one were to conduct an informal survey of those who consider themselves in the process of awakening I suspect you would find that many more than average have experienced some sort of trauma or inner crisis that in and of itself created a personal need or desperation to push past the pain and look more deeply within.
Ya - You have to decide to charge the abyss but the warning of that other commentator is true. It was an easy decision for me because I got bored of this life. But I agree that what you glimpse is past, present and future simultaneously for a moment. This can temporarily drive a person mad if you don't shut it off. Shakespear's Hamlet and the theme is based on reality that some can perceive what others cannot. that perception is what has built almost every useful tool on the planet. Such have increased beta brain waves through the release of adrenaline. Why fasting was encouraged in the bible, for when you fast you deprive yourself of nutrients needed to be metabolized into chemicals for the brain. Without them, your body will release adrenaline. Some called "mentally ill" with anxiety disorders you will find a high correlation of such people with digestive issues. This subject is something I am looking into a bit further.
Anyways about charging the abyss. Mathematician Georg Cantor was an interesting fellow. He created some math of recursive lines that ultimatley created equations of infinity upon infinity. Afterward, he was checked into the Sanitorium. Bernoit Mandelbrot picked up where he left off in 1977. You use recipricating function of such equations to create a singularity (partial process). Cantor was correct in his math. Anyways, you want to tie those two people into what Ron Egash is working on today. Here is a link for his 20 minute TED talk. It is amazing: http://blog.ted.com/2007/11/29/ron_eglash/ . Yesterday's religion is todays science.
He is correlating many useful things for "charging the abyss" using physics. What is the abyss? 4D. Devices are not needed at the end of the day but will be built anyways because the hive must "see" to believe. And as far as I am concerned if I must feel a little more pain to learn on there behalf to mitigate suffering and get to the promised land of 4D then "we" collectively are worth it. I'll add my contribution and be done in about seven more years. The victory will belong to all mankind. Humility and having a servant attitude is a blessing once you learn how to defend against predators which mistake service out of unconditional love for weakness.
What exactly do you mean by 4D? Dimensions?
I ponder this because the world as I perceive it has many more. The dimensions of time are at least 2 and beyond mere dimensions of space one must consider electric charge & mass, due to gravity, since that can adjust what moves in space, how, and how space itself changes shape.
How many dimensions do you really think we are working with?
Have I misunderstood & gone too far in an unintended direction?
Dupe
Indeed, most describe it as an unimaginable 'crisis', but that's not the right word/image either, it is, but it is also staggering, like incredible views that come along with the possibility of a great plunge out of existence.
I understand your reticence to be more blunt. It's natural to pull back in fear but the fear is in fact good, it makes you fully face it and commit. People can only walk around it for so long, cogitating its various shapes and curves, then it's time to get down to brass-tacks. If people get as far as the shock-horror pullback you and I both know that's an invite to finish it. They will automatically decide what to do. I would suppose that if people get that far they will not stop. But I don't know that. I can't imagine anyone walking away at that point is all. I'd think how could they? But if they do, they'll never do it anyway. And maybe they actually can't. I do not know. I don't think anyone has ever understood that.
So maybe it helps to spell it out some? A little 'bad-cop'. People need to fully realize this is not actually just about nice ideas and some introspections, there is a job to be done here. When that 'crisis' comes, and it will if they are really listening Cog, it's 'batter-up' time. It would be nice if they understood that much. If they want this to end they have to end it, themselves. No words are going to help from there on.
I admire what you're both doing, and hope it works.
Here's a good example. People take a great entitlement to the abuse of water & land of others, causing not only self-injury but great, if gradual injury to the health of others. Much of it is not intentional but this leads to a cognitive dissonance: to change requires admitting error and admitting error means admitting one's entire life has been devoted to destruction of others for one's personal benefit, if even doing so without an understanding it is so. The amount of change required is mostly mental, not physical, the physical means are available but the mental change is too dire.
Burning oil & coal instead of using a non-burning, chemical process. Dumping medicines & plastics into water instead of recycling them. Having composting toilets instead of ones that flush perfectly clean drinking water now filled with poop. Et cetera, et cetera. Why do you think so many people cling to the myth that global warming is a hoax? It's real, the hoax is the hive-mind's recoil in terror that "we did this to ourselves" because to admit it is to admit "we'll keep doing it to ourselves another 30 years" as the mentality change is more drastic than the physical change.
Thanks to technology like the bloom box we can extract electrical energy without burning. Thanks to bio-gas & landfills we can extract energy from garbage. Thanks to composting toilets we can have sanitary conditions without putting clean water into toilets to be wasted (relevant meme here).
It is for this hive-mind terror-recoil only, not a shred of fact, that people say global warming is a hoax. You've even said it yourself many times, that AGW is a hoax, a myth. It isn't. We've done it. This is why you say it. Your own hive-mind fear that you can not bear the mental anguish of admitting your mistake & making the physical changes to reverse course. It's harder to change your mind than your actions. The technologies exist & are highly sustainable vs our present-day use of technology. It's the mind, not the machine or the body, that is the greatest challenge.
Mrs. Cog has been requesting that I spend some time on an article series spelling out in more detail what the process is like, at least for me, and how to push through, at least how I was able to.
The thing is that for many, myself included, it is not a one time occurrence of dealing with the pain, but in fact a lifetime. Yes it gets better, much better, but still there is much work to be done, thus my references to the journey rather than the destination.
We are been so severely damaged that it can take the remainder of our lifetime to reverse the damage done to, and by, our 'self' before the healing process began.
Speaking only for me, I have slowly trained myself to recognize that the pain I'm feeling is actually the sign that there is more work to be done here. By extension, when I recognize and acknowledge this, I also know that the relief I will feel when I lift my pain will be wonderful. Sort of a carrot and stick approach to coax myself out from under the bed and into the abyss once again.
Pain & self is not really the proper singular focus.
Think about it.
Cells within your body grow & die all the time yet you continue living your life and start to finish is 1 generation.
This larger hive-mind hive-body thing is composed of people & machines and the changing land itself. Various things within that land live & die, people too, and it is not even a single generation passed for the hive-body and its hive-mind until a total change of its composite structure of emergent-will, not individual will, emergent body, not just one person with one set of fears (or all of them alive at the same time) changes. It has to be multi-generational for us to be just ONE generation for the hive-body & it's associated hive-mind.
To question everything without coming to some conclusion about the parts and pieces and the totality of what you are questioning is foolishness. Questioning alone is a waste of time, a whistling in the dark.
If you force the examination to the point of forming conclusions you'll find that some things, maybe even most things, are just what they seem to be.
Of course we will come to some conclusions after questions are asked. I agree. The problem is in thinking that the conclusions, and thus the question(s), are always static. Not only do 'facts' change, but so does our perception and awareness of what constitutes 'facts' and information.
Beliefs are not the same as conclusions or facts. Beliefs are most often a preformed external ideology (political, financial, religious, science etc) that we have imported and adopted.
is there a point when one has arrived? i mean, the journey has got to the point where we disconnect.
because if (imagine) i had no computer, no media, cell phone dial/text only, and an existence without this white noise of distraction.
say going to town and hearing a story or two and walking away simple saying to oneself "who fucking cares".
i mean just talking and posting about this bullshit we all have come to understand is part and parcel of this conditioning.
of course the journey of self discovery never ends. jm thoughts. be carefull of the addiction of the addict:)
"Beliefs are not the same as conclusions or facts."
There is no "fact" or "conclusion" possible without first being examined through the prism of belief.
We are generally bound by the limits of language (not exclusively), in our case English, which shamelessly steals any word discription from any other language that it finds descriptive, and is constantly creating and adopting new words.
Cog, I generally enjoy your musings. Question everything and Believe Nothing is not possible. Start with Descarte- how ever tenuous your connection to "reality" may be, you have to have the shaky foundation of believing you exist.
For myself I try to keep within the narrow boundaries of skepticism and cynicism.
And as you well know authority does not like to be questioned.
Regards,
K
Incorrect. I am this very thing you say doesn't happen or can't ever.
I have no beliefs. For whatever reason to me having belief is like having blond hair or a particular colour of skin. Some have it, some have something else and I have something else.
Not one part of my entire life has been shaped by belief. I have been hit hard by the actions of others when those others are guided by belief but internally I foster none. I simply can not. The concept is actually foreign to me. I've had to work hard most of my life to construct a description of what belief is based on observation of others: their actions, their words, their stated intentions, then comparison to each other & to the facts of what happens around them. Without this observation I'd have no basis. The concept is as foreign to me as knowing in every nerve of my being what it feels like to fly like a bird. I'm not a bird, I could never know, I can merely form an evolving descriptive basis for myself.
"We are generally bound by the limits of language (not exclusively), in our case English"
Not me & not many others that I can see. A lot of language is visual, not auditory, is in the things we make & spaces we create, is in the structure of objects & body language. This is sensitive to timing & context and is multidimensional, requiring a minimum of a good concept of a 2-dimensional angular view & a decent memory of what happened in which time-frame & connecting them together to form a context. The purpose of that context is to compare to a prior context & prior actions/states and to form a transition. That transition is the real language.
Mere words don't even come close to describing this. If anything I would say the strands of events (actions, states, time delays) from one small segment of context to another small segment of context (spatially in the same time frame, or distance/time > 0) would each require the full totality of language to express themselves & the combination of many with recurrent conditions breaks language entirely that is merely spoken or written.
"And as you well know authority does not like to be questioned."
In this context to be concerned only with authority is like being concerned whether or not a particular leaf is blown to a particular doorstep while ignoring an approaching tornado. Foolish & useless.
I would say there's a process toward ending, but the real resultant process emerges instantly that the end occurs. The end is an instant. I know the date and time within minutes, location within meters. Cataclysmic tangible bolt-out-of-nowhere, totally fails to capture it. I won't talk about anything after that. I only say this much so people understand that this is an internal life event. If you win the lottery or break a leg, that's an external life event.
Internal events are EVENTS, they are far more shocking and fundamental than any external event.
'the end' will be a slow & painful grind and will be anything but obvious because many good things will happen along the way.
Sounds to me like you have your own fervent belief structure through which information filters.
Try the other way around.
Filter information in by speed, location, memory capacity - as we are all mortals & have no choice but admit our faults in total information awareness - and let beliefs start to form after.
Maybe you'll get the hang of it after a while & realize belief is only holding you back and skip that final step, discarding them all.
Maybe then you can make some progress.
CD: I just had the time to read your last piece and this one.
Brilliant series, my friend!
Thank you GW. Keep posting your insightful articles as well.
When I was very young, started junior school, i was chatting to my father about how I had answered a lot of the teachers questions because I could put my hand up really quickly.
He said to me, next time you are in the class and the teacher asks questions, I want you to keep your hand down. I want you to watch the other kids then, not the teacher, watch the other kids putting thier hands up.
Then I want you to think about that when you keep seeing what happens.
I did.. I never raised my hand again in a classroom. or anywhere else for that matter.
I became the instant outsider but at the same time realised it gave me power over myself.
It was exhilarating for a 6 yr old
That taught me more about human conditioning than anything before or since.
I urge you to tell your children the same thing and the sooner the better
fail.
Not sure you learned the lesson you think you did.
An important part of education is interaction and your father told you to opt out of that and now you're repeating the same bad advice.
Just what do you think education could & should be? Silently pondering like monks, asking no questions? It's a process and for the sake of cost tends to be many students with 1 teacher. You didn't learn anything, all you did is remove yourself from the process. This is no doubt to the benefit of others but not yourself. To pass on this mistake as good advice is shit-poor.
It's not like you said you were mistreated for asking questions, it's not like you said you were given wrong, dishonest answers because you asked questions, it's just a matter of you pushing yourself out & off from it and thinking the result was good.
It isn't.
If at least the interaction was in fact negative then pulling away from something negative does have justification. That's simply not the scene you portrayed.
This is not a question of human conditioning, this is a question of purpose & place. Children understand they go to school to learn things & somehow you got a different idea and it doesn't look like it was a good one.
Bravo !
Now in context of this article, try flip what your Dad told you...
raise hands in other life session(s), see how you feel / believe / question ...
Me trying still...
and thanks for sharing.
And I am going to share this with young folks.
Good read, CD, thank you.
I don't know where we come from
Don't know where we're goin' to
But if all this should have a reason
We would be the last to know
So let's just hope there is a promised land
Hang on 'til then as best as you can
Steppenwolf - Rock Me
That we, at certain points in our life, questioned the value of 'Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?' (P.Gauguin), should this be the thing that ultimately brought us to the conclusion that our lives were a "failure to launch"? No, because I think it wasn't just our decisions, but the direction of our culture which caused this. We are a dying culture, in a dying cosmos. America doesn't have a soul anymore. Her leaders couldn't even tell the truth if they wanted to. We are witnesses to the end of nationality, the end of an age.
Excuses!
Yes, they could tell the truth.
Don't excuse predators. That is so lame!
SCREW the "culture".
The "culture" is not you!
You are an independent being.
Make a plan worthy of your enthusiasm.
Then, go for it. Just do it. And don't give up.
Unless forced, a deer will walk the easiest trail through the woods. People are no different. It is easier to follow the well-worn path than walk alone in the wilderness.
from the kitchen to the bedroom and back, sometimes resting in the kitchen:)
also note the trail is NEVER straight:)
i flagged all the trails one spring when the muddy ground availed their movement.
I picked the trails that I wanted and modified a weed wip with a circular saw blade
for green treat wood and kept those trails clear for my convienence. trails, ah so much
to learn...
If you should go skating
On the thin ice of modern life
Dragging behind you the silent reproach
Of a million tear-stained eyes
Don't be surprised when a crack in the ice
Appears under your feet.
You slip out of your depth and out of your mind
With your fear flowing out behind you
As you claw the thin ice.
Pink Floyd
I prefer Jethro Tull's "Skating Away" as it predates Pink Floyd's address...(Do not misunderstand. I enjoy Pink Floyd...)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTKu-L1b--o
Skating Away LyricsMeannwhile back in the year one
When you belonged to no one
You didn't stand a chance, son
If your pants were undone
'Cause you were bred for humanity and sold to society
One day you'll wake up in the present day
A million generations removed from expectations
Of being who you really want to be
Skating away
Skating away
Skating away
On the thin ice of the new day
So as you push off from the shore
Won't you turn your head once more
And make your peace with everyone?
For those who choose to stay
Will live just one more day
To do the things they should have done
And as you cross the wilderness
Spinning in your emptiness
You feel you have to pray
Looking for a sign
That the Universal Minds
Has written you into the Passion Play
Skating away
Skating away
Skating away
On the thin ice of the new day
And as you cross the circle line
Well, the ice-wall creaks behind
You're a rabbit on the run
And the silver splinters fly
In the corner of your eye
Shining in the setting sun
Well, do you ever get the feeling
That the story's too damn real
And in the present tense?
Or that everybody's on the stage
And it seems like you're the only person
Sitting in the audience?
Skating away
Skating away
Skating away
On the thin ice of the new day
Skating away
Skating away
Skating away
Very nice.
Yes, the softer easier way. I know it well. Nearly killed me pursuing that path.
I know my mind. It lies to me when it says that way is easier, thus better for me. Yes, it certainly is easier for me in the short run. It will kill me in the slightly longer run.
Unfortunately the world needs to be stressed a bit in order to shake itself awake. Considering the precarious shape the house of cards is in I suspect the shake coming will be more along the likes of a magnitude 9 or 10.
Who are you really?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMRrCYPxD0I
An amazing lecture given by Alan Watts a British philosopher, writer, and speaker. He wrote more than 25 books and numerous articles on subjects such as personal identity, the true nature of reality, higher consciousness, meaning of life.
Alan Watts breaks down what's wrong with the world (1970)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LXiSPpfM54
David - Great link! Nice and short too.
Pilgrimage into Chaos
Instrumental with Alan Watts talking about music and life.
thank you, thank you - keep dancing with the wolves :)
Even the “House of Cards” is created consciously and cumulated moments by moments; as in Kevin “educated us online” and POTUS twitted no spoiler…Perhaps we should exert lightest touch, so we can reflect and pick up new thingies to contra the contradiction, instead of stressed by the deadweight.
Adding one chess piece at a time on the board, like the latest Fxxk EU – RusCrim drama.
The search for truth will not lead to inner peace. At least it will not seem that way at first.
There is pleasure
And there is bliss.
Forgo the first to possess the second.
Buddha
Dhammapada.
TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth; 5 Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim, Because it was grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same, 10 And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back. 15 I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.