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The Death of Hope and Belief

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The Death of Hope and Belief

By

Cognitive Dissonance

 

 

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As much as we would like to ‘believe’ we are all clear headed, logical individuals who only deal with verified ‘facts’ while shunning hearsay, rumor, ‘hope’ and ‘belief’, the reality is to some degree or another we integrate all of the above, and so much more, into our personal cognitive operating system. The tendency when reading such a statement is to immediately emotionally trigger, become annoyed or even angry, and then listen to that soothing inner egoic voice as it assures us we are not the one Cog is looking for.

Regardless of whether we attribute this cognitive juxtaposition to raging ego, genetic predisposition, normalcy bias, cultural conditioning or simply denial, critical thinking, if ever truly deployed, is often limited to those times when we ‘believe’ it is in our best interest to think outside the box. But even then, our effort is severely limited by the tendency to hold on tightly to the comforting handrails when venturing into foreign territory.

Try as we might to convince ourselves otherwise, hope is just the ugly stepchild of belief, interchangeable and indistinguishable, especially during periods of high emotional stress and cognitive fight or flight. Naval gazing, pretty much all we see when engaging in hope and belief, is the ultimate human blinder and the chains that bind.

Once we accept something as ‘true’, essentially a non specific condition arrived at with minimal critical thinking and even less logical reasoning, rarely if ever do we revisit the subject to check our premises. And why would we since we ‘believe’ what we want and not what is actually there. Since the only unchanging ‘truth’ throughout the universe is that change is constant, ‘We the People’ often hope our beliefs still hold true………assuming we honestly question our beliefs in order to discover if they ever rang true.

Often we pig pile falsehoods, misconceptions, hearsay and the ‘trusted’ opinion of authorities and acquaintances on top of each another and call the resulting mishmash our opinion, a cleverly encrypted carrier signal demonstrating the true genesis of our underlying hope and belief. While we bitterly complain about mainstream media reporters all repeating from the same contrived script, we might just be the most egregious of all serial repeaters. After all, it takes one to know one.

Since so few of us have the actual courage to walk the path alone and be truly contrary to the dominant groupthink, why then would we expect ourselves to take the first step and think deviant thoughts in blatant opposition to the consensus of the hive mind? Even when we finally do break from the majority, both exhilarated and frightened by the audacity of hope that personal salvation could be found elsewhere, we immediately seek out the comfort of the nearest like minded minority.

Nothing soothes the savage ego beast quite like collective affirmation and psychic reintegration into a colluding collective. Our desperate attempts to be perceived as unique and special in the eyes of our fellow herd members is the egoic trap that keeps us chained to false hope and belief and all its various complications. Only the strongest among us willingly withstand the pain that springs from self isolation. Knowing this to be the truth, how can anyone declare themselves original thinkers, free from significant cognitive influences and meme traps?

I will be the first to admit I hold no original thought, only slightly unique word constructs and voluminous regurgitations. But contrary to consensus thinking, ‘knowing’ this is not a deficit but in ‘fact’ a valuable strategic asset. I am content in the knowledge I will most likely not blaze new cognitive ground, but instead simply follow faint trail sign left by many others before me. Knowing this, and being settled with it, I can then busy myself with the recognition and disarming of my ego. In the process I might possibly gain some personal insight and enlightenment, a perfect example of winning by not playing.

 

Settled Sand

Even Shifting Sands can be Settled

 

We are our own worst enemy simply because we self identify with our ego, the ultimate slave master. If we were to recognize and then fully embody this ‘truth’, suddenly the mind and spirit soar to heights unimagined but easily attainable. Completely ignorant of our enemy, in a cognitive judo match with our ego we are the perpetual white belted novice pitted against the black belt sensei. The only way to win is not to play at all because the egoic sensei knows us so much better than we know ourselves.

Since few will actually withdraw when their ego is egging them on, all the sociopaths need do to manipulate and control us is to remotely leverage the power the ego already commands. And that power is exercised primarily through our mostly false hope and belief. I often say we are only as sick as our deepest darkest secrets. How better to control us than by accessing those secrets via the ego and leveraging them against us, sort of spooky blackmail at a distance.

While there are always exceptions to every rule, one merely needs to examine the mindset of both the children and adults of any household to discover where many long held and cherished ‘truths’ (aka ‘hope and belief’) are formulated before going forth to multiply. Born of pride and prejudice, fired in the crucible of stereotypical hatred and ignorance, then cemented firmly in place via constant repetition and familial affirmation, for the most part we are the product of our upbringings, be they the good, the bad and the unimaginably ugly. It really doesn’t matter if the propaganda we integrate when young comes from mother dearest or fascist Fatherland. In practice it winds up being a toxic stew of both.

Particularly with regard to personal relationships (and make no mistake about it, our cultural ‘hopes’ and ‘beliefs’ are extremely personal in nature) rarely is logic or reason employed when rushing out another label carefully disguised as knowledgeable fact. All this is done to demonstrate our steadfast conviction in truth, justice and the American way less we appear weak and indecisive to our fellow egoic slaves. Believe what you want, but never let them see your sweaty indecision. Labels are the lazy man’s prodigal thinking, the more derogatory the better to feel superior while fanning the flames of self righteous indignation or despondent victimhood.

But alas hope springs eternal, especially for those of us who are a product of our rigid belief system and the certainty we are the exception to the norm, therefore we alone can see what no one else is able to behold. Banishing all doubt from our mind, steeled with the singleness of our purpose to bestow upon those poor unfortunate others not blessed with our insight, we echo each other when declaring the utter ruination we’re all headed towards. Endless doom porn is such an aphrodisiac that I’m a bit surprised we aren’t all walking around permanently aroused. On second thought, maybe we are. After all, there is an ever so fine line between titillation and terror.

Even those who have lost all faith in the ability to correct the present state of affairs and are simply awaiting the ‘inevitable’ collapse and re-set, still retain hope and belief that once the collapse is complete and the debris has been cleared a new beginning will emerge. Thus it is indirectly but clearly inferred those most responsible for the Empire’s fall will be purged from the system, paving the way for sanity to return and a new era to follow, a renaissance if you will, a cleansing of the filth, decay and corruption that rejuvenates the mind and body politic.

Seen from this perspective, how can anyone claim this isn’t unadulterated hope and belief, especially when thousands of years of history indicate this will not be the case? Of course, if our history is manipulated and altered to deliberately keep us lost in the historical wilderness, how can we learn from our ancestor’s mistakes if we do not question our historical premises? At some point during our maturing process we really do need to take personal responsibility for our hope and beliefs and everything they intersect. I guess this explains why so many remain childlike in thought and deed.

I have argued time and time again a very simple proposition, that we support the system even when we claim to oppose it. Direct opposition, often expressed as personal polarization, tends to increase the support we lend to the system by playing into its strength in much the same way those we claim are deaf, dumb and blind mindlessly engage with the system. Being polarized pits “We the People” against each other, leaving us all exhausted and discarded on the side of the road.

 

Side of the Road

Exhausted and Discarded on the Side of the Road

 

The opposite of support is not to oppose, though any competent dictionary will claim otherwise, but instead to withdraw and withhold. The insanity will wither and die on the vine only when there is little active participation of any kind. And by this I do not mean apathy, a sucking psychic nothingness of total cognitive and spiritual disability. Instead I speak of an active and purposeful redirection of our power and spirit away from the psychopathic parasites and towards creating our own healthy and self enabling reality.

We are desperate to believe ‘they’ alone control us in order to absolve us from personal responsibility. It is our blindly proffered hope and belief which nourishes the sociopaths who then peddle their insanity, the ultimate symbiotic codependent dialectic speaking louder than words ever could.

Believing’ ourselves powerless (because we want to be) we blithely and blindly empower those whom we ‘know’ are already powerful (because we want them to be). Conceding defeat before the blade is even drawn, the battle is over before it ever began. One must admire such brilliant tactics, so Sun Tzuesque even he would stand in awe of the majesty of such total and complete self defeatism. Then again, it is the only way the few can control the teaming masses and still reap the rewards of the plebs ever increasing productivity. Welcome to the new slave plantation.

The system as presently constructed thrives on mindless zombie consumers and disgruntled malcontents/disaffected souls (as well as everyone else in-between) because what is most important to the perpetuation of the system is not actually physical in nature. The sociopathic system controls us not by subjugating our physical bodies, bound as they may be by their fictional fiat chains and by their threats of fatal force. Rather their power is derived from our ‘belief’ in those chains and guns and their declared divine right to use them.

Instead, or maybe I should say in addition, what feeds them is a mental, emotional and spiritual energy which springs from within us (metaphysical some might say) a concept so far off the radar screen of the average person who ‘believes’ the only energy that matters is petrochemical or thermonuclear in nature, that all other possibilities are dismissed outright. Our false hope and beliefs, which perpetuates and propels our utter blindness to nearly everything else that is possible, exposes our vulnerable Achilles Heel as we travel the road to perdition.

Many years ago when I first attempted to apply critical thinking on a consistent basis, the best I could come up with was to minimally recognize the very denial I employed to reject the notion I was in some respects complicit. I began to recognize my denial was the chain that bound me to all my impossible situations. Because I believed myself the victim rather than an enabler, clearly I wasn’t the problem. Therefore I would make no effort to withdraw since that would solve nothing and only hurt myself in the process.

It was only some time later, during deep conversations with a more aware and enlightened friend, that I came to see my false hopes and beliefs were actually anchor stones around my mind and spirit, deliberately harnessed by outside forces to hobble and weaken me. It was then I remembered a mindlessly repeated Latin phrase from my childhood days as an altar boy/server. Recognizing it as ‘truth’ I accepted and embodied it using the strength of humility rather than the constraint of self righteous piety. “Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.” Through my fault, through my fault, through my very great fault.

We are witnessing the blooming of unprecedented sociopathic evil in the present day that is quite frankly unimaginable, therefore ‘unbelievable’ to the average sleep walker, let alone those of us who claim clarity of vision and mind. And as we all know, anything unbelievable is considered not ‘real’ or ‘true’ and thus there is nothing we need to do about the non-thing. This is how we bargain with our hope and belief in order to minimize the threat and therefore our need to become involved.

 

Hiding Behind the Mask of Hope and Belief

Hiding Behind the Mask of Hope and Belief

 

In the interest of clarity the term ‘evil’ is not used to infer a religious connection of non divine intervention, but simply to describe something thoroughly and dangerously alien to nearly all by using a term commonly understood as terrible and ominous, all powerful and consuming. Left speechless otherwise, when covering new territory one must occasionally employ old words to describe new worlds. The trick is to take ownership of the words rather than succumb to the propagandized version of them. Either we (re)make our own reality or we live in someone else’s.

Once finally recognized for what it truly is, the evil of the sociopathic perpetrators is obvious and self evident. Which then begs the question; if I go along to get along, what does that make me? What if I am not actually forced to participate, but instead see it as simply in my best interest in order to survive? From that point of view the road from rags to riches, modern crony capitalism at its best, is the path of least resistance and greatest self interest. If this is the path I follow, how am I superior to those I claim are the problem?

Regardless of whether I recognize the lead psychopathic dogs as evil or inspiring, what is my responsibility when stepping on those below in order to gain advantages from above? Do I declare it a dog eat dog world simply to get in the first and last bites? What is ‘evil’ other than maximum self interest run riot? Just because I tithe ten percent doesn’t wash my hands clean of the blood.

In the ultimate act of victimhood we solemnly declare force majeure via evil doer, which neatly absolves us of any responsibility for the state of current affairs and our supposed ‘coerced’ participation. When viewed with hope and belief, material science completely and competently explains all there is to know about how the physical and metaphysical world ‘works’. Confidently assured that our present paradigm is just human nature, there is nothing left to do but wash our hands of the entire affair and bunker down to await the global blast and follow-on shock wave.

And there is no doubt some will be crushed under the falling fiat landslide, thereby lending perceived credibility to the idea bunkering is the best and only option. However, dug in deep like a tic while screaming at the computer monitor about some anonymous asshole commentator whom we claim knows nothing only perpetuates our support for the system. Do our childish minds really think those whom we blindly empower will scurry away like cockroaches exposed by the refrigerator light and leave us be after the fall? Really? Are we serious?

The playbook employed against us is thousands of years old and consists of one simple rule. Leverage the plebs’ hope and belief against them time and time again. When the cycle ends in a flash of self-immolation, start it up all over again with fresh actors and a whitewashed stage. Rinse and repeat endlessly because no matter what, the mind memes deeply implanted within the survivors of the present generation spawns the next generation, creating new zombies needing only small adjustments to fit the present day circumstances. WE are the problem, an insight glaringly obvious since our children become part of the next problem and we raise our children to be little replicas of us.

Only when patently false hope and belief are thoroughly uprooted and destroyed, then replaced with awareness of our personal responsibility to be honest with ourselves in all our affairs, will these self destructive cycles come to an end. I am not suggesting the reader is responsible for all that is wrong with the world today nor is it his or her responsibility to fix all of it. But I am suggesting we are responsible for cleaning up our own house.

Once we begin this process we quickly discover we have been carrying around dozens of pounds of needless cognitive and emotional weight, a needless burden which has obscured our vision and understanding from birth while leaving us cognitively impotent, emotionally immature and growth impaired. As individuals we cannot change the world today. But we can change ourselves, and in so doing we plant the seeds that will change the world tomorrow. It all begins within.

 

03-29-2015

Cognitive Dissonance    

 

Blind Hope and Belief (Collective Self Portrait)

Blind Hope and Belief

 

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Sun, 03/29/2015 - 17:06 | 5939972 ISEEIT
ISEEIT's picture

Brilliant. Also a perfect segue.

Apologetic?

Sun, 03/29/2015 - 14:32 | 5939560 blindman
blindman's picture

"People who lie to themselves, and believe their own lies, becomes unable to recognize the truth, either in themselves or in anyone else.

And they end up losing respect for themselves and for others. When they have no respect, they can no longer love.

So they yield themselves up to their impulses, indulging in the lowest forms of pleasure, and behave in the end like a thing obsessed in satisfying their vices.

And it all comes from lying — to others and to yourself."

Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

" “THE PROBLEM FOR THE MANIPULATORS IS NOT HOW TO MANIPULATE, BUT HOW TO STOP. JUST AS WITH LYING, MORE AND MORE LIES ARE NEEDED TO COVER THE FIRST LIES, AND MORE AND MORE LIES ARE NEEDED TO COVER EACH ADDITIONAL LIE. THE LIES MUST CONTINUE NON-STOP OR THE GAME ENDS." LES TO BILL MURPHY IN LE METROPOLE CAFÉ, 15 NOVEMBER 2005 (AND A NICE EXAMPLE OF THE CREDIBILITY TRAP)
Jesse's site
.
evolution has a very hard way of encoding the truth
in all life forms so maintaining flexibility is important.
man kind is the supreme manipulator among the animals,
maybe to the point of self destruction? certainly to
the point of normalized and institutional homicide.
we should recognize it and stop it. it is a disease
and sickness of the modern age and modern belief system
based on the illusion of "money".

Sun, 03/29/2015 - 13:47 | 5939425 blindman
blindman's picture

Solomon Burke - Diamond In Your Mind
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1ZDjRnNUJQ
.
Tom Waits - diamond in your mind
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8tB6nINWrc
.
i have a bone to pick here. hope, is that
even of the mind? or is it a substance
of the heart that the mind in the head
has trouble recognizing? the mind in the heart
has no problem with hope, it beats to it.
no one can soil it nor should anyone be
distracted or dissuaded from it. imho
.
and belief has nothing to do with knowledge.
it is just a guess the mind in the head accepts
or proffers resulting in exhaustion from trying
to do all the calculations after attempting to
eliminate all the assumptions, presumptions and
rounding errors. it is like a tattered snap shot of a
street scene from the 20's, do you really know what
was going on from that evidence? the mind attacks
beliefs and tears them to shreds in pursuit of knowledge
and something we call the truth. that is the process
so the words frequently fail to address the difference
between the dynamic moving nature of experience and instead
attempt to simplify the situation to a less dimensional
and static affair where people mistake beliefs for
realities and then behave and demand conformity to
those limited and mistaken potentialities. blinded
by the light, the glare, the pushing and pulling
from all directions?
.
Tom Waits - Make It Rain
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZS-B1Afc1c
.
john trudell does a good talk on belief from
a clear perspective.
not even the machines can kill "hope".
"..make it rain, i stand alone here,
make it rain." t.w./k.b.
belief was always a still birth.
anyway ....

Sun, 03/29/2015 - 13:47 | 5939422 Usura
Usura's picture

Well then, abandon hope all Ye who enter here.

Sorry Cog, I liked your article but without hope and belief there can be no vision.  And without vision you are cast adrift, in this case on the internal sea of the self.

The problem with your article is that you do not address is the definition of "false", as you apply it to "hope and belief".  And this can only be determined after the fact.

I am reminded of the Chinese saying, "Man who say it cannot be done should not interfer with man doing it."

Sun, 03/29/2015 - 15:56 | 5939752 Cognitive Dissonance
Cognitive Dissonance's picture

You said....

 

"The problem with your article is that you do not address is the definition of "false", as you apply it to "hope and belief"."

When I speak of 'false' hope and belief I am speaking of knowingly or unknowingly being 'false' to myself and others.

I suppose I would then be asked "Well, what if I don't know I am being false to myself?"

To which I would reply "Knowing myself, or at least attempting to know myself by asking of myself, is a sacred demand of myself. To deny knowledge of myself by never asking of myself is the ultimate denial of myself. From that denial any action, hope or belief that springs from a deliberate unknowing of myself is in and of itself 'false'".

"And this can only be determined after the fact."

I do not demand an impossible task of myself (or others) of demanding I know myself completely and honestly. All I ask of myself (and others) is to make an honest and continuous attempt to do so. Knowing myself is an endless task, thus there is no 'after the fact'. It is a process. I may find in a year or ten I held false hope and belief in something or someone. But this discovery was not made because 'facts' changed, but rather I changed and became more aware primarily because I did not stop questioning myself and therefore was able to dig deeper and discover more about myself.

It is the intent which is important and not necessarily the results. If I honestly desire to know myself I cannot know myself completely.....instantly. Therefore there is always work to be done. But if my intent is to know as much about myself as I can now and later and next week and next year, my intent is to 'know', not hide or deny, and the results will eventually follow. There are vast billions out there who have no desire to know themselves in the least and spend most of their days avoiding the entire subject. That is what I would describe as 'false' regardless of whether we are discussing hope and belief or just ignorance.

I can be ignorant because I have yet to learn or 'know' something. Or I can be ignorant because I do not wish to know something. While the word (ignorant) is the same in both cases, the intent is worlds apart.

I liked your article but without hope and belief there can be no vision.

I was not aware 'vision' was solely the result of hope and belief, regardless of whether it is false or not. But I would say false hope and belief often results in false vision. Despite the title of this piece I thought I made it clear throughout the piece I was discussing false hope and belief.

I personally have great hope and belief man will eventually shake the chains he employs to bind himself to his tormentors primarily because of what has transpired within myself and others I know. I am not unique. If I can make progress anyone can make progress. I have little hope and belief this will occur tomorrow. I have great hope and belief this will occur over the next 5 or 10 generations. My hope and belief has afforded me a vision of where we are going and my miniscule little part in the unfolding awakening and my vision is the energy source that drives me forward.

Your comment was most welcome. It got me thinking deeply. I often say the comment section under my articles is where most of my learning occurs. Your comment is but one example of that principal. Thank you.

Mon, 03/30/2015 - 00:02 | 5940790 Element
Element's picture

 

 

COG: "There are vast billions out there who have no desire to know themselves in the least and spend most of their days avoiding the entire subject."

USURA: "I liked your article but without hope and belief there can be no vision."

 

Butting-in here to make a point that I was trying make above but didn't actually type it in at the end. People who realise the conditioning of the mind is occurring often see the movie Matrix and immediately see the movie as describing a metaphor of the wool being pulled over our eyes, constantly (i.e. "no vision", just contrivances and illusions to motivate).

But what occurs is most people view "the machines" (the controllers and infrastructure of the Matrix in the movie) as being external to them, and that the 'matrix' that blocks their vision as externally imposed, by 'others', by devious manipulators and their processes.

People and systems and processes we can blame, and rail at, as the 'culprits', remove this and change that, externally and all will be fine, vision restored, the view of reality will be repaired, a new future is bestowed by external action and tweaks, etc.

But the totally fail to notice "the machines" supporting the Matrix is in fact their own thinking mind. The matrix is actually them, it is internally imposed, and playing with things leaved them right where they began, in the matrix they permit to impose on themselves. Railing against eternal force, politics, money changers, authorities, belief structures, and responding by changing the exterior, but are changing the underlaying Matrix not one iota.

The 'vision' we usually are fed, or feed ourselves, is that action of will and purpose will change the world and progress it. But the world is what it is, and can be, and does not actually change.

That is the matrix that we impose on us, via a desperate mind, desperate to change 'the world', which is an IMAGINED WORLD, a facade. We are the ones who recklessly erected it in our minds at the prompting of educators, and peers, and only we can remove it, internally.

These things below are quite impossible to accept for most people, so I'll just assert that they are correct:

"The world" we reference is imaginary, and we don't generally realize we are imagining it.
Oh yes, there is a physical real cosmos, and planet under our feet, too though, but what we perceive about it, interpret it, is imaginary.

The 'problems' we fester most about are imaginary.
Yes, real physical problems, like starvation, infection, running out of fuel do occur, but that is not what I'm referring to here.

Our 'solutions' to our imaginary issues and problems, are imagined as well.
There are no problems which life does not routinely 'solve', all by itself, with zero intervention. We just prefer to be "in control", but we aren;t and we can't be, but we make a good fist of thinking we are and pretending we are. The imagined 'solutions' to our conjured imagined problems that we have set for ourselves, tend to disappointments, frustrations, and lashing out (in some people).

The 'resolution' of the problem is also imagined, even when it appears to be resolved amicably, or just ceases to be a 'problem'. It is just one falsehood cancelling out another, and creating the appearance of resolution, via some other action or event. But nothing actually changed. That's hard to see or accept, but examine it.

The 'result' is always fictional and imaginary, an alteration of the imagined Matrix, only. i.e. you got frustrated, so you reached up and bent the fucking spoon, with your hands, and the result was a bent spoon. No messing about seeing that there is no spoon.

We have been bought up and educated or systematically indoctrinated to treasure imagination, we use it and call it things like 'creativity', we imbue it with mystical charm, we glorify its works as 'art', we revel in detailed staggering dreams at night, so we vindicate it as a co-feature of intelligence, etc. And it is a very useful tool.

But it is also a duel-use tool, and its use can be very destructive, it is the home of illusions, and deception, lies, and the belief of lies also, and every artifice of control, via inventing imagined boogieman, to enable all politics polciy 'futures', all war aims, all enemies. So our imagination is also extremely dangerous and most people have not realized that it is poison as well as fairy-floss, and so will balk (jump like sheep) at any such suggestion.

Nevertheless, it is the case.

Imagination is at the core of the greatest dangers we face. It is the duel-use nature and its creation of 'vision', and 'vision(s)', as well, and its ability to make us 'see' what's not even there, and to not see what actually is there, and to imagine a future state to create an irresitable desire in use for it, wherein lies the enormous danger to us and is how all manipulation occurs.

We actually react to it (jumping sheep style) as though it's real, and amazingly most people have not realized this, and are even far from ready to recognize.

It's feared to be dangerous to trouble our mind with such cogitations, it looks like it might be 'madness' (another boogieman invented to keep us 'sane' and on the accepted path, btw). Your friends and family will not understand if you insist on asking such questions. Many ->will<- think you're 'mad', lost the plot. You will isolate yourself if you do that. More fear poured on us at every turn! No, stop! Go back!

Thus the "The machines" mind defends the Matrix when one is unwise enough to opt to take the 'red pill', regardless of all warnings, and that is 'mad' to "the machines" imaginary minds. In the movie 'Neo' takes the 'red pill' because he's become desperate to know what's actually real, his office job that he hates, the agents, of something else, and a recombining mixture of both, desperate to find out, no matter what it is!

And it sure wasn't anything that he thought.

The thought mind is the Matrix, it is not external to us, it is us. Now you have a problem, for you are the think you are taking the red-pill to leave.  

You can not end the matrix without ending thought.

The only place it can be worked on therfore, is the interior, the exterior action path is the distraction that our Matrix throws up at us, to prevent that 'mad' path being taken. But it is the correct path.

The exterior distraction is the 'Agent' chasing "Mr. Andersen" (Neo), and his path clear of the agents of the Matrix is to exceed the Matrix, via going inside, and not outside. Outside is where the Matrix is made 'real' to us. But inside is where the Matrix's computer network is that creates that exterior 'reality', with has both a virtual reality, due imagination, plus a physical reality that is material.

That Matrix is the source of every conflict, of every grievance, over every resentment we feel to the 'system', The system is just all the personal inner Matrix's being expressed in the exterior worl. Every false perception, every misguided or fruitless response to "how the world is", whether we are pro or whether we are con its present state.

The only 'exit' from the personal Matrix mind is further inside and hidden behind its facade, which we perceive 'virtually', as the world with its troubling "major problems".

There is no 'problem' that we did not imagine, just as there was no 'spoon' (in the movie) that was not also imagined, and not there.

And that also is where almost no one is prepared to tread, and can not accept, but for the odd desperado, who has finally realized the Matrix is 'me', not 'them', out 'there', somewhere, who are imposing external control on me.

The impression of external control is internally generated.

I control my own prison, I even make the fucking spoons! And thus we fool ourselves into reaching up to bend the spoons with our hands, which is what we seek to do with exterior acts to change the problems we imagine.  :-)

When you realize that you also know that you can not go on like this, living in a world of imagined self-deceptions (or at least some come to that point). So you work on it and you may discover that it stops, that something else other than the Matrix is there.

 

A DIRECT ACTUAL MIND is there, and not just an indirect imaginary mind (The Matrix).

 

Oooookaay ... so ... that's really a bridge too far ... you've clearly gone full banana-split there kid!

Regardless of how it sounds, and how you respond to that, nonetheless, it is.

And just like the movie, where a guy drowning in fluid awakes in pod with hoses coming out everywhere, looks out to see tower pods to the horizon full of little Neos, and the machines operating the Matrix infrastructure of the illusion mind.

And let's say you did stop trying to, 'bend the spoon', via misguided external actions to address imaginary problems. Would that not result, finally, in a sort of 'inner-peace', a sort of 'self-knowing', an inner-grasp, a composure that sees a different perspective of the ' virtual reality' of the Matrix we create? To see 'the system' for what it is as imagination being very dangerous and harmful to humanity.

(oh, for the want of less sappy or suggestive terms here)

And do people see it in those terms yet? NO! They most certainly do not!

But it is so.

 

And the real resolution and ending of the great danger of that imagination-run-amok, is on the inside - ONLY

 

Otherwise, 'the system', of the combined Matrix minds, of imagination-addicted humanity, that is roiling with external 'solutions' to external 'problems', often resorting to force, which creates more 'problems', will always be the supreme danger to all of humanity going forward from here.

The discovery that all humans have a DIRECT actual mind as well at the one I use to type this, and which you to read it, is equally as shocking and unexpected, staggering, impossible to describe in words, and 100% worth it.

 

Is that sufficient "vision"?

 

What if Chinese man is not doing, but imagines Chinese man is doing?

 

 

Mon, 03/30/2015 - 05:48 | 5941144 ebear
ebear's picture

"There are no problems which life does not routinely 'solve', all by itself, with zero intervention.

Intervention, by definition, requires an active agent, and only living creatures can be active agents.  Thus, as living creatures, we ARE one of life's "problems" in the process of being solved.  The end result may be in question, but the process itself is not. 

Separation between Man and Nature is a false paragdim.  Everything we do, is part of nature.

Bitchez.

Mon, 03/30/2015 - 00:08 | 5940924 Miffed Microbio...
Miffed Microbiologist's picture

"But the totally fail to notice "the machines" supporting the Matrix is in fact their own thinking mind. The matrix is actually them, it is internally imposed,"

True. The mind in its essence is simply pure consciousness. Everything is observed by consciousness and if it is perceived, then it cannot be yourself. Just as you perceive a dog, tree or rock and acknowledge they can't be yourself, any voice from the thinking mind is also not yourself because you perceive it. Yes, it is an implant and the problem occurs when you listen to it and the more you do, the more power you bestow to it.

Frankly, the answer is simply not listening to the thinking mind and ascribing doubt to all thoughts as unreliable and suspect. Failure to do so results in auto domestication and relinquishing ones personal freedom to another. It is simply a choice. And everyone has the keys to his own escape.

I guess I am not enamored by the idea of hope. Hope implies wishing and when one wishes, once simply creates a State of Wishing. The universe is no Santa Claus.

Miffed

Sun, 03/29/2015 - 13:32 | 5939389 delacroix
delacroix's picture

a good hit of lsd can do wonders for your conception of reality

Sun, 03/29/2015 - 13:12 | 5939330 Cognitive Dissonance
Cognitive Dissonance's picture

Dup....please excuse the brain fart.

Sun, 03/29/2015 - 14:02 | 5939461 blindman
blindman's picture

brain farts are good,
that's what i say.
Tom Waits 1985 Rain Dogs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oe44dRlY7LQ
.
"Singapore"

We sail tonight for Singapore
We're all as mad as hatters here
I've fallen for tawny moor
Took off to the land of Nod
Drank with all the Chinamen
Walked the sewers of Paris
I danced along a colored wind
Dangled from a rope of sand
You must say goodbye to me

We sail tonight for Singapore
Don't fall asleep while you're ashore
Cross your heart and hope to die
When you hear the children cry.
Let marrow bone and cleaver choose
While making feet for children shoes
Through the alley
Back from Hell
When you hear that steeple bell
You must say goodbye to me.

Wipe him down with gasoline
Till his arms are hard and mean,
From now on boys this iron boat's your home
So heave away boys.

We sail tonight for Singapore
Take your blankets from the floor
Wash your mouth out by the door
The whole town is made of iron ore
Every witness turns to steam
They all become Italian dreams
Fill your pockets up with earth
Get yourself a dollar's worth
Away boys, away, boys, heave away

The captain is a one-armed dwarf
He's throwing dice along the wharf
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is King
So take this ring

Repeat First Verse

Sun, 03/29/2015 - 13:05 | 5939324 Nockian
Nockian's picture

It all manifests from the same point so that it is only necessary to gauge when you are 'off the path' , it is not necessary to force ourselves to try and follow what is only ever in the moment.

The way we might follow a road is to look into the distance and determine a future point. This is the belief in our control of the future in order that we might determine the direction and position. However, once we let go of the idea of a controlled future we can know only this single moment. We are blind and therefore must follow our internal compass - if we have found it.

Once you give up the idea of control and can follow the internal compass then there is no requirement to struggle with what the best course or action might be.

As Bruce Lee said "i do not hit, it hits all by itself". This is action without action. It comes about by true knowledge and not the false knowledge of the intellectual mind. Give yourself to the force and you become one with it and in perfect unity. Each task will require no effort of mind, no multiplicity of choice. Things are presented and are carried without effort and without concern about the result.

Maybe that helps.

Sun, 03/29/2015 - 13:05 | 5939289 Element
Element's picture

 

 

The common factor of hope and belief is they are both a state of desperation.

We grow up desperate to hope, we are even taught to hope and be become desperate for something else.

Thus we are and have become desperate to believe.

And belief is the nature of knowledge.

And knowledge is all we have, and as you pointed out, none of it is really original, we just swap things around and make up words, redefine conceptions, and alter the mix of connections.

So it is very much the case that ardent hope and fervent belief and refined knowledge of the world is a state of psychological and physical 'desperado'.

Pretending to be self-assured.

People who follow archaic esoteric religions and practices are fundamentally desperate people. People who believe in the scientific method also do so out of deep desperation (hope) that it works, to create a mentally solid real knowledge, as a foundation that can be relied upon.

But of abstraction!

And is totally not able to be relied on and has no actual foundation, as even observations and interpretations are relative and rendered subjective.

You sort of hit on the desperation angle of the mind a bit in this remark:

"... We are desperate to believe ‘they’ alone control us in order to absolve us from personal responsibility. It is our blindly proffered hope and belief which nourishes the sociopaths who then peddle their insanity, the ultimate symbiotic codependent dialectic speaking louder than words ever could. ..."

And the reality is that only the most desperate mind will be prepared to admit it has all failed, that it is all flawed, that none of it has a 'real' basis, and only the most desperate to explore to find what is there in the mind, if anything at all, will go to the most desperate, apparently (or appearing) unwise and  unlimited extent to find the hell out for themselves.

So the desperation that's the origin of the hope, belief and desperate acquisition of knowledge, is the unabating pest that drives you to recognize the total nonsense and lack of basis, of hope and belief, and the termination of the stranglehold of knowledge on the mind.

"... Even those who have lost all faith in the ability to correct the present state of affairs and are simply awaiting the ‘inevitable’ collapse and re-set, still retain hope and belief that once the collapse is complete and the debris has been cleared a new beginning will emerge. ..."

No new beginning has ever come, or never will, there is no need for one. the situation does not change, the same basic unoriginal elements apply within the mind of the thinker. The attempt to change it is the thing that recreates the very same thing, in a different package, different cultural embellishments, maybe a different language.

Same desperate thinker.

"... The trick is to take ownership of the words rather than succumb to the propagandized version of them. Either we (re)make our own reality or we live in someone else’s. ..."

Even that does not work, your reality and someone else's adopted or else imposed reality, is as flawed as each other. It is not that you can find a true realty, that's a false errand, a hunt for a mythical state of a still desperate and unresolved mind. That search, that hunt, is just more desperation poured on past failureto resolve the thinker's imaginary 'problems'.

The end of that desperation is what the mind can bring to itself, and something impossible to even put in word form. Words are where desperation is expressed in abstract utterances of the thinking state.

The non-desperate state (totally inadequate metaphor, as a horse being flogged to smithereens to keep cantering a bit more) is not a thinking state.

The end of the thinking mind is the absence of the desperate mind and defines actual 'inner peace' for want of another less absurd and abused phrase.

"... Regardless of whether I recognize the lead psychopathic dogs as evil or inspiring, what is my responsibility when stepping on those below in order to gain advantages from above? Do I declare it a dog eat dog world simply to get in the first and last bites? What is ‘evil’ other than maximum self interest run riot? Just because I tithe ten percent doesn’t wash my hands clean of the blood. ..."

Your 'responsibility' extends to resolve both the external desperation of life, and internal desperation of the mind, and be in a state of absence of confliction, with the world, and your being, as it is.

"... WE are the problem, an insight glaringly obvious since our children become part of the next problem and we raise our children to be little replicas of us. ... "

The parent can not do it for the Child, no matter what they do to prepare them to live. The child does it for the child, or adult for adult, and always will (if they live long enough, and even care to). The transcending (yikes! what a freakin word!) of the desperation, is not communicable to ANYONE.

In other words, real communication of the thing beyond knowledge is hidden from all but the mind that discovers it. Hence is 'sacred', a secret by default, not because it is holy, not because it is secretive, not because it is hidden, but purely because it is not in the realm of words expressing knowledge abstractions.

It is a different mind in the same brain, that is not thinking. It is not a primal 'reptilian mind', response either as has been asserted as a reversion state. That is a totally wrong characterization, it is what the mind is and becomes when the mind of the juvenile knowledge reaches the end of its desperate list of imagined options and has nothing left at all and simply stops working. It can't be faked, there is not stopping thinking by choice as a short cut. It has to run it course of compete desperation and failure to get anywhere, that stops thought in its tracks.

Or not.

As no one can say that will occur to another person, or that it will follow some path to some definitive end.

"... I am not suggesting the reader is responsible for all that is wrong with the world today nor is it his or her responsibility to fix all of it. But I am suggesting we are responsible for cleaning up our own house. ..."

And only the most desperate will accept that is how it is. Most stop short and imagine they can change things for others, but that is superficial only, inadequate, and actually not the case.

But then again, the most desperate also need no encouraging or prompting, they will not settle for what any one says to them, but go to the end of what they have an find there is no mind there, just a thinker of thoughts, a fabrication of desperate abstractions.

Th world is not broken, it never has been, it is not a 'problem' to fix, it has no problems at all. The only thing that has these imaginary 'problems', in the imagining-machine inside your skull ,which creates its imagined problems, then projects them on the world, that is merely as it is, and can ever be, and then decides it must find the imaginary answer.

It is all like the 'Matrix' metaphor in action.

The machine is not outside of you, the machine is your mind.

Your thinker is that matrix.

That thinking matrix is the veil pulled over your actual, direct, non-abstract mind, and thus is rendered a Sacred mind tht can not be communicated into the matrix mind.

That is actually what we all are.

 

 

Sun, 03/29/2015 - 17:14 | 5939984 ISEEIT
ISEEIT's picture

"The non-desperate state (totally inadequate metaphor, as a horse being flogged to smithereens to keep cantering a bit more) is not a thinking state."

 

Lucidity at it's finest.

Sun, 03/29/2015 - 15:37 | 5939739 Hyjinx
Hyjinx's picture

I don't agree that science and religion are acts of desperation.  They are acts of devotion to higher principles and discovery of Truth when appropriately practiced.  I'm one such "dreamer" scientist who has literally jumped off the cliff of what everyone else thought and may just shock the hell out of everyone with what I found.  This was not "hope" driven - this was my rational response to the current information and the result is proof of my ability to out-think the rest of the fools.  This is how progress is made - no hope necessary just the drive towards the Truth.  Great story too - one touching upon issues of glucose tolerance and human longevity itself.  The result in-of-itself is quite logical and obvious to most - the new genetics on the other hand represent a quantum leap for a particular field.  BTW, genetics is very real, not abstract. 

Sun, 03/29/2015 - 13:11 | 5939332 Cognitive Dissonance
Cognitive Dissonance's picture

"The common factor of hope and belief is they are both a state of desperation."

Exactly, though few will agree with you. Many prefer to 'believe' it is in fact true strength.

"And the reality is that only the most desperate mind will be prepared to admit it has all failed, that it is all flawed, that none of it has a 'real' basis, and only the most desperate to explore to find what is there in the mind, if anything at all, will go to the most desperate, apparently (or appearing) unwise and unlimited extent to find the hell out for themselves."

It was only when I became desperate enough to give up all I 'believed' and became willing to do anything did I begin to take that first tiny little step forward. Until then I was doing little more than flailing about in the water, slowing drowning from my exhausting and clearly futile exertions.

Thank you for your thoughtful and insightful comment Element.

Sun, 03/29/2015 - 13:25 | 5939375 Element
Element's picture

 

 

"Many prefer to 'believe' it is in fact true strength."

 

Nicely put Cog, hence the compulsion of the matrix mind, as veil over actual mind, that the matrix mind knows zip about, and can not know more than zip about.

Sun, 03/29/2015 - 12:36 | 5939259 the grateful un...
the grateful unemployed's picture

our weakness is that we all want to understand, it opens us to all sorts of difficult things, self destructive tendencies, self conflicted ideologies. the buddha had it right, the big questions are irrelevant, accept them as they are, divest yourself of mental constructions.  the neat thing about buddhism is that you dont have to understand it, you dont need to constantly quote scripture and verse. you just get a robe and a rice bowl and you walk with your head lowered (to avoid stepping on any other sentient creatures) buddism is anti-material, anti-progress, its a not a way to return to some past glory which was never as glorious as we thought it was. you live in the here and now. buddhism doesnt even believe in itself. nirvana was never an issue, that was just marketing to get you on the boat (when you get across the water you leave the boat behind) you dont need nirvana. and the nice thing about buddhism is that it isnt all or nothing, you can be a little bit or a lot, but its very sneaky stuff, it gets into your system, and pretty soon you are your own buddha. if the president were a buddha he would rather organize the childrens easter egg hunt than argue with Iran about nuclear energy. of course hes not, thats why he got the peace prize first, the buddhas of the world hoped he would become one of them.

Sun, 03/29/2015 - 12:31 | 5939251 blindman
blindman's picture

The Dalai Lama walks into a pizza shop...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlIrI80og8c
.
here an attempt at levity, it doesn't
work but then it sort of works; not to change
the subject. the dalai lama has seen some
bad stuff but he keeps his sense of humour,
his hopes and beliefs too i assume. recently
he questioned whether he would reincarnate as
something other than a human being, just to mess
with the political powers in china and their
plot to hand pick his successor. oh man,
remember that story from last week? people
are funny.
just stopped in to say hi and thanks for the
prose and artwork.

"every glint in the eye and corner
of the lips tending toward the stars
reveals the great laugh and howl
of eternity. now, that may not be
what we are looking for or something
we even recognize but it is
the truth." anon.
.
somebody said it.

Sun, 03/29/2015 - 12:49 | 5939285 the grateful un...
the grateful unemployed's picture

The Dalai Lama said once, imagine a world in which everyone drives a car. The president of GM said the same thing as well, and it goes beyond mere irony

Sun, 03/29/2015 - 13:05 | 5939298 blindman
blindman's picture

the Dalai Lama is also a comedian
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DLb7NwsCTc
.
..."moving, moving." his holiness ..
.
11 Year Old Talks with the Dalai Lama
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXS-PIKLoSU

Sun, 03/29/2015 - 12:10 | 5939202 Reaper
Reaper's picture

Hope, belief, trust and rules are opiates to calm the dissonance. Who constructed our ego? Is that god or system or DNA controlling us, through its created ego? Why do we accept only a ying and yang within an existing system? Do we exist in only a three dimensional world and similar systems?

Besides ying and yang, are there more dimensions to move in? We have been instructed to place things into boxes, aka as words, systems, thoughts and the like. All these are constructs which we manipulate using rules. We presume these rules apply to realities.

What we know, expect, or hope for are our imagining using rules. What I know is nothing, by Socrates, must be expanded to what "they" know is nothing. Trust corrupts the trusted and the truster. Hope, belief and rules are "their" constructs. Move into another dimension to escape.

Sun, 03/29/2015 - 12:07 | 5939196 nowhereman
nowhereman's picture

The first, and absolutely, the greatest truth, the hardest to concieve, and the most difficult to accept, is that we are truly alone.  We seek comfort in relationships to avoid facing this reality.

Relationships help is cling to who we think we are.  The people around us, family and friends, all demand that we be who they think we are and it is, in a strange way comforting to have this support.  Man as a social animal is the meme.

While extremely uncomfortable, and scary, the fact remains, you cannot ever truly know yourself unless you accept your aloneness.  Then and only then can you see yourself for who you really are, with no dilusions about expectations and roles played to maintain the ego.

Sun, 03/29/2015 - 15:09 | 5939267 Cognitive Dissonance
Cognitive Dissonance's picture

"While extremely uncomfortable, and scary, the fact remains, you cannot ever truly know yourself unless you accept your aloneness."

In 1998 I was planning a move from CT to VA and rode my motorcycle down to the Fairfax, VA area to secure an apartment prior to the actual move. I quickly found one that suited my needs. With a few days to kill before I needed to head back north I decided to spend a day riding The Skyline Drive south starting from Front Royal.

After a few hours I pulled over at an overlook and quickly spotted a group of other riders, all of them couples and doubled up on their bikes. As all bikers tend to do, I pulled up next to them and quickly engaged in conversation. Soon the entire group of about 20 were gathered around me to hear what the Damn Yankee had to say. One young lady in particular clearly wanted to ask me a question, especially after she heard I had ridden down from CT two days earlier.

"You mean you rode alone" she asked?

"I did" was my reply.

She looked a little shocked and very confused.

"Alone" she asked again?

"Yes. Why do you ask?" It was my turn to be confused.

Everyone around me had grown quiet and were waiting to hear what I had to say. The young lady paused before asking her next question. I realized later she was trying to find the right words so she wouldn't be rude.

"But aren't you lonely" she blurted out?

Instantly an answer leaped to my mind and I quickly said "Actually I think I'm pretty good company."

Obviously that was not the answer either she or anyone else in the group wanted. She made a 'poo' face, then turned to her partner and dragged him back to their bike. The rest quickly returned to their bikes and roared off.

The concept of being alone with your thoughts for hours on end was inconceivable to her, let alone her friends.

Sun, 03/29/2015 - 19:46 | 5940342 logicalman
logicalman's picture

There's a big difference between 'alone' and 'lonely'

Can't beat a day out in the woods by yourself.

Not having a choice would be a bit rough, though.

Sun, 03/29/2015 - 19:14 | 5940272 thinkmoretalkless
thinkmoretalkless's picture

Thinking is our greatest strength, our only hope...and not a team sport.

Tue, 03/31/2015 - 21:12 | 5939195 Haole
Haole's picture

CD I always enjoy your articles. 

I believe that open-mindedness as a simple approach in and of itself is vital as antidote for humanity's utterly stunned and constrained perception of true reality generally.  

How can people who have been lied to all our lives, see a sliver of the light spectrum, hear a sliver of the aural spectrum, bound by 3 dimensions for that matter, having been programmed much more than educated by the machine, etc., see truth as it really is?  On this planet and beyond.   I believe some do but humanity en masse is not ready, nor does it want I submit, our true reality.  Yet?  When I took the red pill years ago it was literally like a light switch being flipped.  I think that everyone has a time to know and unplug themselves if it is going to happen in this life.  I know of a child of a friend who was seemingly born with many of these insights and it is not isolated.  Some may never know or care in this lifetime, content in their "cage".   Envious really... It may be an event, experience, reading some articles, it may just happen looking out the window like it did with me.   We are fortunate to have our levels of awareness but the burden of it has taken it's toll.

The machine depends on it's shadow matrix of control on so many levels and the herd follows the pour back and forth multi-generationally like warm honey.  One must really hand it to these people.  They have mind control and other techniques in exploiting primitive and subliminal human behavioral traits down to an art.  The Global Warming/Climate Change/Climate Disruption/Climate What Next? agenda has been a great example in itself given the UN and IPCC have admitted numerous times it is a hoax and tool in a kit towards global communism.

Having said that I submit that more people are being turned-on thanks to people like yourself and the Tylers.  We must question everything and be aware of bias for it is virtually everywhere.  I remain open-minded, as hopeful and optimistic as I can and am becoming more and more humbled by what I am, stuck in this little meat sack in the middle of this massive, infinite, timeless "universe" of ours.

Also a fan of Jon Rappoport for these same reasons. 

Anyway, keep-up the great work and thanks always CD.

 

Sun, 03/29/2015 - 12:04 | 5939186 Consuelo
Consuelo's picture

Oh wow man...   I'm with it - but can you expand that last photo down just few more inches...?    Rock on dude...

Sun, 03/29/2015 - 11:27 | 5939145 lasvegaspersona
lasvegaspersona's picture

As productive, responsible people we are the least likely to rebel as we are bound by our obligations to others. Our children, grandchildren, employees and clients need us. Without us they would be diminished or in danger. It is this fact, that the most able and responsible among us cannot (easily) create chaos that keeps the system working. It is us, the ones smart enough to do great damage to the system who keep it going because we will not abandon our obligations.

Sun, 03/29/2015 - 14:10 | 5939479 durablefaith
durablefaith's picture

Excellent comment. 

Reminds me of a quote "if you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Instead love those who despitefully use you.."

It seems jesus intended for us to look beyond immediate provider protector role in "doing justice". 

Anyone who loves father, brother, mother, sister more than me is unworthy of me.

On the face of it, an offensive statement.  As a statement of the necessity of committed action to usher in a kingdom worth living in, makes a lot of sense

Sun, 03/29/2015 - 19:43 | 5940332 logicalman
logicalman's picture

Sounds good.

The problem is that the psychopathic fucks running the place don't give a shit about anyone but themselves because love, to them, is the same as red is to a blind person, totally outside their experience.

Sun, 03/29/2015 - 21:21 | 5940570 delacroix
delacroix's picture

the forgiveness is for your benefit, not their's.  you've got to periodically clean the resentment out of your mind, lest it fester into hatred.   ( the part can't comprehend the whole)    recently someone commented on attending his aunt's 90th birthday party. he asked her how she made it to 90.  she answered that she used to try to figure everything out, but at 80 she realized it wasn't possible, and quit worrying about it.   LET GO

Mon, 03/30/2015 - 13:40 | 5942564 logicalman
logicalman's picture

I've been aware, for a long time that hating damages the person doing the hating than the one hated.

Forgiving is different from not hating.

Sun, 03/29/2015 - 12:22 | 5939207 Cognitive Dissonance
Cognitive Dissonance's picture

Thereby assuring many who wish to maintain their obligations will no longer be able to AND by that point will no longer have the financial ability and emotional desire to push back or simply withdraw. Some might say this is the classic Catch 22 and I would be hard pressed to disagree. However the path forward is often much more difficult than standing still or giving up ground. Nobody said life was painless except the sociopaths running the joint.

There are so many here on Zero Hedge urging the Greek people to throw off the chains that bind, yet would never consider doing so themselves. At some point "We the People" will be in the same stew pot the Greeks now find themselves in. Does anyone honestly think suddenly "We the People" will rise up at that point when it is exponentially more difficult and personal risk is that much higher?

Hope and belief reigns supreme here in America and especially within those who claim clarity of thought and deed.

Mon, 03/30/2015 - 09:55 | 5941593 jughead
jughead's picture

Expecting "we the people" to rise up is a pipe dream.  TBTB are going to crash the system, either through their own arrogance, greed and incompetence, or by design.  When that happens, "we the people" will be the cockroaches scurrying for cover hoping to just survive.

Sun, 03/29/2015 - 16:51 | 5939938 RockyRacoon
RockyRacoon's picture

So long as the Greeks rely upon elections to solve their problems there will be no solutions.  The sooner we realize that the better.  But, as you say, it ain't gonna happen.  Watching the Greeks deal with their situation is like watching a prize fight.  The fiercer the fight the more fights break out in the audience.  The world as audience needs a good free-for-all to get the ball rolling.  Revolution is no panacea but it's a start in removing the deadwood.

Sun, 03/29/2015 - 11:22 | 5939137 lasvegaspersona
lasvegaspersona's picture

secula seculorum

Sun, 03/29/2015 - 11:13 | 5939120 chunga
chunga's picture

No, hope does not spring eternal. I feel it going away and it is evil.

Personally I believe that the vast majority of humans are decent and incapable of evil. In a fair fight evil always seems to win and it only takes few humans to ruin everything.

This probably sounds blasphemous but who cares. It might be a great time for at least one of these umteen deities out there to come along but they seem pretty apathetic too. Nothing else seems to work. (I pasted this from a comment I just made because I was thinking the same thing)

The only way I see to shed these "needless burdens" is to ignore literally everything outside our tiny boundaries. That's hard because it goes against the grain of being a decent human, it's natural to want to be a part of it. When everything is a lie and there's nothing one can do about what else are you supposed to do? If you don't block it out one can become very cynical, bitter and angry like I very often am, it's not healthy.

Sun, 03/29/2015 - 13:45 | 5939413 insect0man
insect0man's picture

>>Personally I believe that the vast majority of humans are decent and incapable of evil.

The vast majority of Bees in a hive have no other purpose than to serve it.

Unfortunately the vast majority of humans are kept ignorant by their keepers and are thus likewise incapable doing anything beyond obeying their programming in order to subsist.

"EDUCATE THE COMMON PEOPLE, THIS IT IS THE BUSINESS OF THE STATE TO EFFECT AND ON A GENERAL PLAN"--Thomas Jefferon

Sun, 03/29/2015 - 12:24 | 5939226 Hobo Sapien
Hobo Sapien's picture

I feel ya,Chunga. but maybe we are using different definitions of the term "evil", or perhaps you've never had to deal with toddlers. ;-)

"L'enfer, c'est des gens."  -Sartre

That's usually translated as, "Hell is other people." Easy enough to verify for ourselves, it can seem self-evident. I think my first glimpse of some of what Cog covers here was when I added, "Yes, but so is heaven."

Sun, 03/29/2015 - 12:41 | 5939268 chunga
chunga's picture

Evil to me is doing something that's just not possible for normal, decent humans. Like Tyler says maybe we just have to be disciplined enough to "let it go" How we end up with so many things that just don't seem possible is beyond me. For example from a previous anguish execrcise.

If you have any money, the last place you want to keep it is in a bank.

If you're in trouble and need help, the last person you want to call is a cop.

If you expect justice the last place you will find it is in a court.

If you're sick, the last place you want to be is in a hospital.

If you want an education the last place you'd get it is in a school.

If you're in need of leadership, the last place you'd find it is from self-appointed "leaders".

If you want to be informed, the last place to look is the media.

If you want to control a disease the last place to expect help is the CDC.

You could do this all day. It's this kind of shit that can drive you crazy. Another quote from the movie..."How's that working out for you?", "What?", "Being clever".

Trying to be clever doesn't amount to a damn thing, so I'm taking my broken hand outside.

Sun, 03/29/2015 - 19:12 | 5940266 duo
duo's picture

Food without nutrition

Law without justice

Knowledge without wisdom

Medicine without health

Marketing posed as science

I could go on, but it is too depressing.  No wonder the millenials are the way they are.

 

Sun, 03/29/2015 - 13:47 | 5939423 insect0man
insect0man's picture

Evil to me is the deliberate manipulation of others to their detriment for the benefit of the evil doer.

"The Merchant uses dishonest scales, he loves to defraud"
--Hosea 12:7

Mon, 03/30/2015 - 07:51 | 5940179 new game
new game's picture

what we have is a breakdown of gov.org agencies doing their charter(not that i would have trusted them 50,100or 200 years ago). hyjacked by the highest bidder. you are on your own(way it should be-fuck .org and even parents-who know whats best?), whether by hope, clear thinking or "experience" and self taught guidence from that experience. Irregardless, i'm giving less annd less of a fuck and withdrawing from all this "thinking". doesn't move my marker fwd, just to fucking confussing. all i know is fuck all this info shit,,,...not worried about how it goes cause not much i can do that hasn't already been done..

good luck.

Sun, 03/29/2015 - 10:14 | 5939013 Cognitive Dissonance
Cognitive Dissonance's picture

Just because we claim to be awake doesn't mean we do not (still) harbor great hope and belief. Rather than banish false hope and belief from our minds, often we just rotate a new set of self delusions into the old slots, then kick back in the self satisfying smug 'belief' we are now clearly superior to all those blind sheep we just left behind.

The 'truth' does not lay one or two levels down from the surface like a sub-surface layer of coal covered with a few feet of dirt and rubble, easily mined and exploited for personal gain and enjoyment. The 'truth' is our past and present history, as well as the ID of those intimately involved, is deeply buried and intermixed and extremely difficult to liberate and discern. Any easily separated and clearly identified information was most likely deliberately placed there for the curious to find and embrace as 'truth'.

To think we have found the jackpot on our first or second try is a perfect example of false hope and belief.

 

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Sun, 03/29/2015 - 19:37 | 5940316 logicalman
logicalman's picture

Everyone has their own 'truth'

Some have spent a lot of time and effort constructing it for themselves.

Most are too lazy to do so and let someone else tell them what it is.

Most of those who have put in the effort know this.

 

Mon, 03/30/2015 - 08:05 | 5941271 Cognitive Dissonance
Cognitive Dissonance's picture

The thing is.....some things are just not fully knowable at this time, either because the 'truth' is well concealed or all the information is not yet available to the person searching for the 'truth'. Most people simply cannot function in a state of not fully knowing once they have begun to look, so they willingly and knowingly fill in the missing pieces with conjecture, rumor, opinion and hearsay.

That is OK on the surface if those pieces are understood to be simply placeholders and the search continues. But far too often they are permanent additions and are never seriously questioned again. This self deception is easily leveraged by those with the intent to deceive, disrupt and side track.

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