Our System Promotes Hopelessness And Selfishness

             

Most of us have a learned sense of helplessness. It is most often aided by a learned selfishness. This is in no way a blanket condemnation of the majority of people, it is simply a diagnosis of the situation. We are in fact victims of mindsets that have been passed along by our media and our institutions of learning in order to promote the attitudes of our ruling class. Allow me to explain.

Our ruling class is composed of those who have the most wealth and power. In life, you tend to get what you desire most and work hardest for, and those with the most wealth and power tend to have them because they focused their energy and attention on them. Assuredly there are other factors involved that aide them in their quest for wealth and power: physical prowess, good looks, winning personality, intelligence, talent, work ethic, etc. (To be fair, there are also negative attributes involved: heartlessness, obsessiveness, dishonesty, etc. We have to include these since many a fortune has been made through immoral and illegal means. Pablo Escobar, for example, was extraordinarily wealthy.) But overall, wealth and power are acquired by those who most desire them. It is no different in any other field (e.g. First chair is generally given to the musician who focuses most on winning it. Good health is generally given to those who prioritize it the most. Sexual conquest is achieved most often by those who prioritize it over stable relationships.)

So our ruling class mainly consists of those who have acquired the most wealth and power. They do this by concentrating single-mindedly on acquiring the tools and attitudes which will help them to gain wealth and power. This requires an immense focus, and such a focus means not even being aware of lesser aims. Anything that does not lead to their further acquisition of wealth and power becomes irrelevant. In fact, for them, practically speaking, such things do not exist.

Narrative control is a vastly underestimated dimension of power. Those who tell the stories can shape the behavior of others. It has always been this way. The divine right of kings justified the actions of those who had most successfully pursued wealth and power. So too do rags-to-riches stories help promote the view of the wealthy and powerful. While almost none of our ruling class were born into poverty, they like to believe in a system where it is hard work rather than privilege that has put them in the position they inhabit. They like to believe they are in positions of power and have a disproportionate degree of wealth because of their superior attributes and not because of their positions of privilege and an obsessive and unnatural desire for wealth and power at the cost of nobler pursuits. And not only do THEY want to believe it, they want EVERYBODY to believe it.

Those with power wish to share their understanding of the world, which is that pursuing wealth and power is the noblest way to spend your life. They want everybody to believe that the system that brought them to power and maintains their wealth is the finest system there is or ever could be, because it makes the rulers look good and assists in their continued pursuit of ever more wealth and power. They want you to look upon them as role models and want you to live according to their values.

Narrative control is one of the greatest forms of power, and wealth helps them to buy the media that shapes narratives. I don’t think most of us would be too different if we had the wealth and power to shape our world. I know radio would sound a whole lot different if I were in charge. I know the books people read in school would be different if I had a say. So I’m not necessarily even blaming the super-rich for our learned helplessness or our learned selfishness. It’s not a matter of finding someone to blame, it’s about understanding why we feel so helpless and allow ourselves to become so selfish. It’s because the narrative that is controlled by the obscenely wealthy is focused on the things that benefit them and not on the things that might benefit the overwhelming majority of human beings on this planet.

Now that we know that those who most desire wealth and power have both the desire and the means to shape the narratives that instruct us, it becomes easy for us to understand why we feel so helpless. We feel helpless for two reasons. The first is that the rich and powerful (and they are mainly different from us because of their obsessive need for riches and power) have no interest in discussing mindsets that do not further their own goals. This is a conscious decision of theirs. They want to deprive the majority of people (who do not share as passionately their desire for power and wealth) of the powerful tools they need to create a society that helps the masses at the expense of the ruling elite. The tools that would help the majority are those narratives that do not stress self-interest and domination over others. Our rulers obviously do not want to give the majority these tools, so they use their wealth and power to promote a narrative which works in their favor.

While the ruling elite consciously use their power and wealth to shape the narrative, they also unconsciously shape it. As I said earlier, those who desire wealth and power are so singularly focused on their pursuit that they simply do not see the things that have meaning to those who prize others values, such as building strong communities, preserving the natural world, and being present for friends and family. Our rulers have no time for such pursuits, and have no interest in talking about them. Therefore, the institutions which they control will neither talk about nor promote such values.

Parameters are therefore set for those seeking change from within the system. The average person who seeks to make a better society feels hopeless because the solutions they are permitted to discuss are strictly limited. In the realm of voting, they are given the choice of voting out one party that serves the ruling elite by voting in the other party that serves the ruling elite. Given these options, it is no wonder why the majority of people in our society feel helpless.

                 

Helplessness in one aspect of life leads one eventually to find some other aspect of their life they might be able to improve. A runner who becomes paralyzed might shift his energies into wheelchair sports. A singer who loses their voice might take to playing the piano in order to still participate in music. A person who feels helpless to build a better world will likely direct his energies into personal ambitions. The desire to make things better still exists, but the energy will be directed into avenues that jibe with the narratives of the ruling elite.

In wanting to improve our own lot in life, we quickly learn that we proceed more quickly when we share the same values as those who are above us. Those who are in the position to allow us to move upward in society in turn have already discovered this, and so have adopted the values and the attitudes of their gatekeepers. And so it goes, straight up to the top. The more you assimilate the values of the ruling elite, the less barriers that are placed between you and success in the system they have created. Therefore, along the many different levels of society, it is understood that embracing the values of the ruling elite enables you to achieve greater success, while embracing values that run contrary to the people on top are only going to hurt you. When you have already assimilated the idea that you are helpless to make change outside of the system, it is easier to succumb to the values of those who will at least enable you to have some success within the system.

So the ruling elite instill a sense of helplessness in the people in order that they might choose the elite’s preferred “virtue” of selfishness. This in turn increases the power of the ruling elite still further. It also further increases the feelings of helplessness among those who do not place the acquisition of wealth and power above the desire to build a world built upon values such as community, fraternity and equality. Concepts for building a better world that have existed for thousands of years are being systematically scrubbed from our consciousness by a system that works for an elite few while making the rest of us needlessly suffer.

I would like to leave you with a few thoughts. You are not helpless. The idea of you being helpless has been implanted in you by a narrative created by those who want you to feel helpless. Selfishness is not your path to success, it is the path that those who wish to control you would like to see you take. The story they tell you is not one that is intended to serve you but them. There are other ways, better ways that we might take. There is so much more to this world than the tawdry narratives of selfishness and helplessness would have you believe. They have constricted your world, put your mind in a prison of their design. Only a beaten-down slave or a sadistic prison guard would accept the narrative that is given us.

If you want to support my work or read more of it, you can purchase a copy of Essays On Awakening here: https://www.amazon.com/.../B0FS274XXB/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0

10 Reasons To Buy Essays On Awakening

 

In celebration of the release of my newest book, I am sharing 10 short snippets from it for your perusal. I have even been so kind as to provide you a link at the end where you might purchase it, kind person that I am.

                                

In our quest for achievement and progress, we have walled ourselves off from joy. Joy requires a certain amount of leisure and silence in which to work its magic, whereas our society has killed silence and replaced leisure with never-ending distraction. We toil ceaselessly in order to chase a happiness that is ever illusive, or else fritter our restful hours in consuming externally-produced information and entertainment that serves only to sell another’s narrative. The voices from outside drown out the one within that alone can experience joy and make us aware of all the joy that is available to us, that is our right as human beings.

Often we seek to be good, ignoring Oscar Wilde’s advice that when we are happy we are always good but when we are good we are not always happy. We feel the need to be something other than what we are, and forget the miracle of our own being, instead pursuing fantasies of what we should be. We seek to be good, valiant, noble, self-sacrificing, when in truth simply by being human we will be all that and more. It is in our nature. That is what it means to be human, but we have somehow come to believe that being human is not good enough.

We struggle to acquire wealth, and once we have acquired it, we need to justify our struggle by purchasing things we don’t really need. We spend on lavish dinners while we forget the joy we experienced from harvesting from our own little gardens. We purchase berries out of season at the crowded supermarket, forgetting the miracle of chancing upon them while hiking on an early summer day. Convenience is convenient, but no substitute for joy.

What joy does society give us today? It seems so many of us dread the company of our fellow human beings nowadays, since the sharing of joy seems to be a thing of the past. We shop at stores that don’t offer us human interaction, giving us convenience and speed at the expense of joy. We joylessly interact with machines rather than face each other, seeing in the eyes of others the joyless reflection of our own souls.

Joyfulness is not only our default setting, it is our destiny. If we do not look towards our future with the anticipation of joy, we are severely off-track. Regardless of the incessant call for individuality and freedom that is used to promote the path we are on, no group of free individuals wants a future bereft of joy. No free thinker looks forward to a time when we are all ruthlessly competing to see who can become the joyless king of a joyless planet. If joy — true contentedness in both being and working towards becoming the human you were born to be — is not part of the equation that formulates your world view, I would humbly suggest you are walking a needlessly painful and ultimately futile path.

More than a cup of coffee or anything human civilization has been able to create, staring up into a bright blue sky with the sight of the occasional bird soaring high above is the best way to start the day.

Another world exists. I have seen it. I see undeniable evidence of it daily. The more clearly I am able to see the matrix for what it is, the more beauty and rightness I am able to see outside of its confines. This other world consists of all living things, of all history and culture that has been able to live outside the corporate-created matrix that so many never stop to question. There, miracles exist. There, beauty is more than surface deep but incorporates spirit and soul. There, is a connectivity and sense of belonging we shall never experience in a corporate matrix that exists to create discontent and desire for more, always more.

Even after you begin to realize what is taking place, you will need a good amount of faith in human nature and the inevitability of change not to be freaking out a little. Because what is happening cannot be placed in convenient little boxes in order that we might understand it. Something big is happening, the situation is very fluid, and our intellects are not the tools we think they are that can get us through every problem we encounter.

Donald Trump was the first huge manifestation of the change roiling within. He is an ugly crack on the dead epidermis that we mistook for what is, but has only been covering what is becoming. Trump is no reflection of what it is that’s coming, merely a warning that something is indeed coming. But Trump is enough to terrify those who do not see change as necessary and positive. They wish only to patch up the shell, because they are terrified of what lies beyond their superficial understanding. They would allow what is being born to die rather than lose their simplistic notion of what life is.

Trump is not the face of the transformation, he is but the death rattle of the existing order. And Democrats are not the answer to Trump and to outmoded ideas, they are the life support system that is keeping the existing order alive longer than it naturally should be allowed to live. Democrats are the existing order, Trump an echo from the past that seeks to be an answer to that existing order. Between the two you have the insufficient present and the past that needed to be replaced fighting it out over the future. Neither is the future. Both are preventing the future from being born. It’s like a Grandpa arguing with his daughter about how his granddaughter ought to behave.

As promised, here is a link to Essays On Awakening. I assure you that this is but a taste of what you can find within those pages: https://www.amazon.com/Essays-Awakening-James-Rozoff/dp/B0FS274XXB/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0

Syria, Russia, And What I Can Say With Certainty (Part 3)

What I Can Say With Certainty

It came without warning like a force of nature, a tsunami crashing upon the land, sweeping all other concerns away. It was like a sudden lightning storm in the dark of night, making clear what was previously obscure. And yet there was a sense of coordination to it, perhaps more like a blitzkrieg than thunderstorm. One moment everything was in the shadows, the next everything so clear, so fully certain.

And fear. Although we were oh so very certain of so much, fear was nevertheless part of the equation. We were both absolutely certain of many facts while possessing a gaping hole in our knowledge where our worst fears could reside.

I refer to the revelation of Russian hacking, where in no time at all the story became the story of stories, driving everything else from our consciousness. The media only broke from the story to report on Syria, which only further highlighted the insidious nature of the Russians.

The source of all this certainty and fear, at least initially, was unnamed. Sometimes this source was an unnamed intelligence insider, sometimes the source was an anonymous senior congressional staffer. Here is an example of the typical news article reporting on Russian hacking, containing many different esteemed sources without names or faces: NBC News In this case, the source was listed in the title as “U.S.”

This is not journalism, this is not even reporting. This is simply putting into print press releases sent from government agencies. And yet they somehow needed three reporters names on the byline: what exactly did they do?

As far as I’m aware, not a single news agency did any actual investigation into the matter. They simply reported what was told to them by government officials, reported the narrative and in the process swallowed it whole. In the weeks and months that have now followed, never once did I witness in any mainstream American news outlet any sort of critical questioning of the official narrative. It was simply accepted as fact.

Never in the history of germs, conspiracy theories, or cute puppy videos have I ever seen anything spread so quickly, so authoritatively.

Well, that’s not quite true. I have seen this sort of behavior on the part of the media before, many times in fact, though the previous practice has obviously made for perfection. It was the very likeness of those other examples that made me question the Russian hacking story, even more than the story’s inherent flaws.

I have seen it played out before, in the build-up to wars. I have seen it played out when we wished to demonize a country or a government. I have seen it every time our government is about to do something very bad and knows it needs to invent justifications for why they are doing it.

Usually such media blitzes are accompanied by first-hand accounts of babies being killed. Usually words like “genocide” or “WMD” are used to pepper arguments that are strong on emotion and weak on facts and logic. But as such typical propaganda tools didn’t seem to apply, we relied on unflattering pictures of Vladimir Putin to become a focus for our rage. His very Russianness was enough for us old enough to remember Rocky IV or Rambo III (you remember, when Rambo went to help the heroic “freedom fighters” in Afghanistan, those same types who later killed little girls for trying to go to school, who blew up statues of the Buddha and harbored the likes of Osama Bin Laden. Those freedom fighters are still alive and well today, fighting our enemies in Syria as they once did in Afghanistan).

It turns out it’s not the strength of the argument that counts but the conviction in the voice of those who deliver it and the frequency of times it is delivered. Cults indoctrinate members by surrounding them with people repeating the same message while cutting recruits off from those who might say something different. The Russian Hacking story is a similar case where the story was everywhere at all times while any voices to the contrary were made to seem like Russian propagandists or ignorant, racist Trump supporters.

I suppose that’s why the story caught hold in the more liberal sections of the population, among those who despised Donald Trump and could not fathom how Hillary could be likewise despised by anyone with morals and a brain. Surely Russian hacking is the only possible explanation.

Besides, what if it is true? What if the Russians did hack our election and managed to get their chosen candidate elected? If this is the case, then is not all of the fear warranted? Isn’t it only common sense that the media spend so much time getting to the truth on an issue of such importance?

Perhaps, but that is not what the media is doing. It is not attempting to unearth facts and string them logically into different possible narratives. The media is merely repeating what certain government agencies are leaking to them. Many, often the ostensibly most “progressive”, are amplifying it. Funny, but I can no longer recall what Rachel Maddow used to talk about before the Russian hacking story came along.

In short, the only thing the media has done was to foster panic and hatred. It has used the Russian hacking story as a focus for all the hatred Hillary voters are feeling while ignoring all the horrible things Trump is doing. The Democrats have now become the party of war and imperialism and they just don’t seem to see anything wrong with that.

Thank God for the deep state. They are the heroes in this narrative. The cry is that something must be done and the only people who can possibly get us out of the crisis we’re in are those anonymous, unaccountable government agents who want what is best for us. We must surrender thoughts of being in charge of our own government in moments like these, must relinquish control to the experts who have selflessly prepared their whole lives for a situation like this. Once the crisis has passed, they will gladly cede the power they have temporarily taken on as a burden. The only thing you need concern yourself with now is maintaining a proper amount of fear and helplessness.

That is the argument being given by the deep state. The media does not merely not question it, it wholeheartedly endorses it. I have a different take. I believe there is never a good time to panic, there is never a good time to refrain from critical thinking. One needs to keep one’s head, especially in a crisis. When a group foregoes reason and abandons themselves to the herd mentality, that is when things go horribly wrong. That is when people stampede each other in an attempt to escape a burning building, it is when economies collapse because of runs on the market. It is the start of wars.

Human beings should never forsake their higher faculties in troubling times, nor should the media ask them to. And while we’re at it, there is never a good time for the media to abandon their central tenets, their standard operating procedures and their principles. Which brings me to the point of this post.

In the first two parts of this three-part blog, I spoke of what I was not sure of, whether Russia hacked or Syria gassed. Now it is time for me to speak of what I know with certainty: when the government has an agenda to push—a goal it is intent on achieving—it is then that the illusion of an independent media dissolves. When called upon, the media abandons its alleged commitment to objective journalism in favor of channeling the official line. Of that there can be no doubt. Never have I seen it work otherwise. It seems to be a universal law that power wins out over principle.

NPR, The New York Times, CNN, etc., they all capitulated to the official story that had at its source anonymous officials from private and unaccountable government agencies. They did not do what news organizations are supposed to do, dig for the truth and corroborate testimony.

There is not a single reason for the failure of the U.S. media, not a heavy-handed power that is easy to point to. Don Henley made it all too clear in his song Dirty Laundry just how vapid TV news was in 1982 and it has rapidly gone downhill since then. Where once news sources made some pretense of putting truth over profit, now just as in every other field, profit is the only justification for anything. It would be foolish to believe that the same media that obsesses about Caytlain Jenner can switch gears when an important story arises. Talking heads are cheaper than hiring a staff of investigative journalists, and a whole lot less troublesome.

There are few independent media outlets anymore, institutions that aren’t funded directly or indirectly by powerful interests. There are some real investigative journalists still out there but they have been pushed to the edges. And now those edges are being labelled “fake news” by those who wouldn’t know news if it bit them. Journalists who practice the long-established craft are either forced to beg for contributions like Greg Palast, or have gone to work for RT like Chris Hedges. Do your country a favor and throw a few bucks in the tin cup of one of the last of the old-time journalists: Donate

Journalism is dead. What they now call news is whatever they feel will draw and keep the interest of viewers for their advertisers. Investigation is expensive, while talking heads from the pentagon are willing to come in and recite the official position for free. War is profitable, not only for the weapons manufacturers but for ratings as well.

I can’t tell you if Russia was in any way involved in the hacking of the 2016 presidential election, nor can I tell you if President Assad used Sarin gas on his own people. The information is not available to me. The mainstream media has no interest in or ability to deliver the information citizens require to make the best decisions for ourselves and our country. Of that I am quite certain.

Charlie Brown, Lucy, and War

I give Charlie Brown a lot of credit, he really tries hard to kick that ball. Granted he’s foolish for trusting Lucy to hold it for him when she’s lied to him EVERY SINGLE TIME, but he’s a trusting individual and he really wants to show what he can do.

And Lucy always has the best excuses. Well, maybe they’re not the best excuses, but they’re what Charlie Brown wants to hear.

All right, let’s face it, Lucy’s mean for constantly making Charlie Brown fall for the same old trick, and Charlie Brown is stupid for falling for it over and over. More than stupid, there is some egotism involved that urges Charlie Brown to believe her. There is something deep in his psyche that makes him want to believe.

But for all of Charlie Brown’s shortcomings, he is the one to pay for his folly. He comes charging up to kick the ball, Lucy pulls it away, and Charlie Brown falls flat on his back, knocking the wind out of him. Time after time. You’d think he’d learn, but he never does.

As George W. Bush once tried to say: fool me once, shame on you, full me twice, shame on me. At some point you have to stop feeling sorry for Charlie Brown, although you never have to stop blaming Lucy for her behavior. At some point Charlie Brown has to wise up. At some point you have to call him a blockhead for trusting someone who’s fooled him countless times.

Now imagine what we would think of Charlie Brown if each time he fell for Lucy’s prank, people died. Imagine if he went to kick that ball, Lucy pulled it away, and little children got blown into bloody chunks. How tolerant would we be of Charlie Brown then?

Because that’s what is happening, over and over again. Every time a nation gears up for war, it (Lucy) prepares its population (Charlie Brown) by telling it anything necessary to get it to go along.

There are many reading this who remember the Gulf Of Tonkin incident. It was an alleged attack on a U.S. ship by the North Vietnamese that President Johnson used as a pretext for escalating our involvement in Vietnam. Except it never happened. Lucy, dressed as Johnson, held the ball for us, the American public, and we charged. Only when she pulled the ball away 58,220 of us died, far more scarred for life by a war that shouldn’t have been. Oh, and if we count the suffering of non-Americans, a million men, women and children more died, a country defoliated, and generations of suffering ensued.

Fast forward to the First Gulf War. Babies were being ripped out of incubators and thrown to the floor to die, said Lucy, posing as a nurse who had actually witnessed such things. Except she wasn’t and it didn’t happen, but we all fell for it and fell flat on our back. Fortunately, few people died in the ensuing war, less than a hundred and fifty. Well, unless you count Iraqis, in which case tens of thousands died, not to mention the hundreds of thousands who died as a result of later sanctions, not to mention the deaths caused by depleted uranium used by us. But we don’t have to worry about depleted uranium, Lucy said so.

How about the time Lucy dressed up as Colin Powell and started talking about chemical labs being transported on trains and trucks around Iraq? Boy we sure were going to clobber the ball that time, weren’t we? We’ve gotten up and moved on from that incident but people are still killing and dying because of our naivete. What has it been, now, 14 years? It’s hard to keep track, especially since Lucy’s been keeping us occupied with her old games since then.

Remember Libya and how we were going to help them? This is what it looks like today.This is what happens when we let Lucy sweet talk us. Shame on you, Lucy, shame on us.

And yet we go on with our lives as though nothing has happened. And Lucy now holds the ball for us and somehow we’ve all forgotten our entire history with her. But it’s not cute and it’s not funny because people die. And while we try to pass the blame by saying it’s not our fault, we are responsible. Charlie Brown had issues, but they were almost endearing. We have issues and it’s costings millions of lives. It’s costing people their limbs and their health and their sanity. The billions of dollars we spend on war is money taken from those who do not have enough to eat, do not have a decent education. Hell, we can’t even afford drinking water for Flint. But Lucy is sweet-talking us, and what she says appeals to a weakness within us.

I’ll tell you what that weakness is. We are lazy cowards. Working for peace is hard work and can even be dangerous. Look what happened to Martin Luther King.  So instead we permit the government to make our decisions for us, so that we don’t have to be responsible. We fear in moments of crisis to stand alone against the herd and speak against the popular narrative. We wish to blend in, not make waves, or else shout loudly as one in the crowd. We prattle on about peace all the while acquiescing to the warmongers.

We don’t want a nation of the people, by the people, for the people, because then we the people might have to make adult decisions and that idea terrifies us. Better to listen to someone else, even if in our heart of hearts we know that that someone else is lying, has always lied.

This is the road that leads to fascism. Fascism is the bending of the individual’s will to the state, to power, to war. That is our fate if we do not choose our course for ourselves, if we continue to listen to the seductive lies Lucy speaks.

Governments don’t demand peace, people do. If we ever want peace, it’s up to us as human beings to create it. We cannot leave it up to our governments, because they will always insist the way to peace is through war. How many more times will we let the ball pulled away from us? Because when we fall flat on our back, people die.

Truth matters, Your Simplistic Beliefs Do Not

We are in a post-truth world. Why? Because truth is no longer a priority for us. We’ve become so used to accepting lies that we no longer have the capacity for discerning what is real and what is fake, what has merit and what is without substance.

We live in a world in which spin is in the very air we breathe. We are bombarded by advertisement nearly every waking moment, and advertisement has no interest in giving an honest or balanced perspective. Though I am probably wrong, I can’t help thinking television has more ads than content, each ad pushing an agenda, an agenda which is not the pursuit of truth. And the programming itself must not in any way countermand the essential ideas the ads are pushing or else the advertisers will withhold their business.

Turn off the television. You will still be surrounded by the distortions of those trying to affect the way you perceive the world. Use your cell phone to Google something and you will be subject to advertisement, though most times you won’t recognize it as such. While you may be annoyed by the delays caused by ads on YouTube, you likely won’t even notice them when on Facebook.

Take a drive and try to unwind. The radio is there to sell you something, and it’s not appealing to your desire for truth and reason. Turn the radio off, you still can’t avoid the billboards, even though you may not be consciously aware of them. You think you’re not affected but they wouldn’t spend billions of dollars for access to your mind if they weren’t confident of achieving the intended result. While not interested in truth, they are very alert and in tune when it comes to return on investment.

Lies, spin, and distraction are the building blocks of our culture. Money and power warp truth the same way time and space are bent by gravity.

Facts are no longer pieces we assemble in order to build a better picture of the truth but instead are stones that we can load into our slingshot and fling at others. The idea of a greater, knowable and understandable truth has become a foreign concept to us. Our political discussions are no longer between two sides earnestly attempting to get to the truth but cheap theatrics or gladiatorial combat.

Why? Is it because we are the first generation to come to grips with the cold hard truth that reality is unknowable? Have all previous attempts to understand the world we live in been vain attempts by more naïve and less worldly societies than our own? I guess the answer would be yes for those who don’t wish to do the hard work of winnowing their way closer to truth and a firmer grasp on our world. It is the easy answer, the kind that helps us avoid making difficult choices and being in control of our lives. It’s much easier to accept what is given us by the propaganda machine and the politicians bought by moneyed interests that don’t have your best interests at heart.

Do we search for truth when it comes to politics nowadays or do we look to be persuaded by those who are telling us what we want to hear? Because what we want to hear is not the truth but the lies. Republicans just want to hear about the lies of the Democrats, and the Democrats just want to hear about the lies of the Republicans. And if you’re like me, you see the lies of both. But nobody seems to see the truth when it is spoken. Nobody’s interested in it. Who could stand the idea that no matter what side you’re on you still need input from the other side, you still need to balance your point of view with one different from your own? Simplicity, that’s what we want, and the best way to achieve that is to allow some authority to tell us what to think.

You see, if you start listening and not only listening but really looking for the truth in what the other side has to say, then you have to start living in a more complex world. Because while we can reach more closely towards truth than we are now doing, we never actually arrive at it. Truth is something bigger than can ever be stuffed inside our tiny little skulls. To seek truth is to have to admit we don’t know everything, that sometimes we have to add a third option between the true and the false, a holding stage where we keep ideas until we have further evidence. We would need to accept ambiguity, and in accepting ambiguity, we would need to accept intellectual humility.

Fundamentalism is a much easier way of seeing the world. Choose a simplistic idea and make your every observation be colored by it. Facts then no longer sting when you are hit by them. You simply choose the ones you wish and dismiss as lies those that cause discomfort.

And that is the point where we are now at. One side is incapable of listening to the other side because if they do they might be inconvenienced. They might be taken out of their comfort zone, forced to confront unpleasant and complex ideas to which there are no easy answers.

We’ve been doing it for a while now. And once you start down that path, once you start veering from the truth in favor of ideology, you get further and further from the truth. And the further from the truth you are the more you depend on your simplistic ideology to keep you feeling secure. It’s a vicious cycle that never ends well. It’s the same sort of magical thinking that a drug addict uses. Slowly they cut ties with those who tell them they are living in denial. They seek the company of other drug addicts, those who won’t tell them their behavior is destructive. They build around them a protective bubble for safety.

But such protection is illusory and temporary. Without a widespread foundation a tower will surely fall. Similarly, belief systems established on a single viewpoint will also come crashing to the ground. Trying to base your understanding of life on one point of view is like trying to sit on a one-legged stool. You need balance, you need perspective. You need to weigh one point of view with another.

Our fundamentalism, at least the fundamentalism practiced by those in places of power in society today, is capitalism and an actual religious belief in the “magic of the free market” to provide all of humanity’s needs. This fundamentalism requires us to disregard all the other foundations upon which societies have been built throughout history. Responsibility to others, civic duty, religious principles, they are either dismissed altogether, given mere lip service, or else twisted into some freakish semblance of their true shape in order to have them fit into the dominant, simplistic paradigm.

On some level we see through the lies we are told. We yet retain some memories of and appreciation for the morals and viewpoints we once held, that have been held by any healthy family, clan, community or society on the ascent. On some level we know we are living a lie. But the fear that results from our uncertainty when what we feel is so completely at odds with what we are being told tends to stifle us, or else it leads to reacting to the dissonance in unhealthy ways. Denial. Anger. Avoidance.

It is time to abandon the simplistic ideologies that lead us further and further from reality. It is time to tear through the curtain that we have placed over the window so we don’t have to face the truth. It may be unpleasant but it is the only way that will lead us from the dungeon of delusion in which we’ve been living. One way or another the truth will eventually come crashing through our cocoon of fantasy we’ve been spinning, it is best we make the choice to emerge from it on our own. Only in that way can we achieve the metamorphosis necessary to rise and meet our future.