I really feared becoming "out of touch" when I first considered turning off the corporate-owned news sources. In fact, the opposite is proving to be true. I have gotten into a lot of really great conversations and heard many first-hand accounts of things that would undoubtedly not have happened if I had continued to consume the corporate derived swill that passes for news. there have been a few stories that have made me wince, because of the obvious slant applied to them by the storytellers, but by and large, the rew3ards have been well worth the effort. yes, in the world today, it requires effort to avoid what passes for "news".
One of the most important things for me is hearing of the learning curve that friends and family are on. Instead of being led to think that everyone is cold, rude, hateful and intransigent, I have been hearing stories of renewal and growth, even from folks who had seemed to be stifled and in a few cases, virtually petrified in their views and beliefs. Learning more about the great awakening that is taking place has been the singular best thing that has come from my self-imposed news blackout.
I would like to share something that one of my friends and spiritual advisors shared that may have snuck by under my radar, had I been preoccupied by the media war that rages against common sense. Thank-you in advance to all of you for taking the time to read and understand this post. Wade, of Deeply Rooted has my utmost respect and honor, in sharing his writing, I bestow upon him the status of cohort in the revolution that has never been televised. I also love and respect the brutal honesty that follows, so if you feel hurt or out of balance after reading it, perhaps you need the information even more than I. Humbly, and with deep respect I share it for we all need to hear these truths at this important moment in time. please, after reading it and reflecting upon his writing, take stock of all the things you want to be different and act accordingly.
An End to Hope
There are few things more demoralizing and disempowering in our culture than the idea of “hope”. When you hope, you do nothing to fix or help the situation, it is an invitation and justification for apathy and inaction. If a man is standing outside a burning building listening to his family screaming in pain and watching his possessions falling to ash doing nothing but hoping the fire will go out would be called insane. A person living in a place with an oppressive government doing nothing but hoping things will get better would be called a coward, at best. Sadly that is exactly the mentality that is promoted by the doctrine of hope. The entire premise is based on the idea that there is some outside force in control that you are not part of or have any real influence over and that said force is benevolent and kind and has your best interest at heart. When you look to our movies and books you see this theme repeated nearly endlessly; something bad happens from an attack by savage Indians and/or alien overlords, a natural disaster, a horrible crime, an evil political force taking over, a plague and endless other bad things coming down the pike. For a while things are dire and most of the time the protagonists scrape by and run around barely surviving, hoping against hope. And then…. The cavalry arrives and saves the day, a miracle drug to cure the disease, the government trucks or helicopters arrive, the rebel alliance or secret society rise up and smite the evil government, the vigilante steps from the dark and delivers justice, and on and on. All in the nick of time, at no cost to the ones getting rescued who didn’t have the ability or power to save themselves. What has been told to us is that we shouldn’t worry our little heads about, its above our pay grade, the experts or ‘somebody’ is going to take care of whatever the problem is. Hope that someone will save you, hope that somebody knows what’s going on and will swoop in at the last minute to save the day, hope that the inherent justice of the world will kick in and the good guys will win, hope that it can’t be so bad and that it’s all part of some god’s plan that has your best interests in mind. And it isn’t true.
Not only is it a lie, it’s a contrived lie that serves a larger purpose of keeping people exactly as they are, never really stepping into their own power, never believing they can accomplish great things. It is a mentality that creates and maintains a mass of frightened and cowed children who will never strive to better themselves or the world around them. Personally I don’t think it’s a conscious conspiracy(they always take too much work and are more implausible the larger they need to be) but merely a useful psychological tool that a small minority in any society in history can, and have, used to keep people down and docile. Religion, politics, and now consumerism have all found the hope model endlessly useful. You create a need (original sin/salvation, comfort services/government , lack of self- esteem/product based salvation), then you make it important even vital to the average person and then present them with the HOPE.
In the monotheistic religions the premise is that you are bad, really bad, so much so that the one true God hates you and is eternally disappointed at how unworthy you are. But, at the same time he loves you and wants you to be with him, so there is a way out, a great hope of salvation and of all sins being washed clean and forgotten about. You are taught to have faith in the hope that God Has A Plan, that Jesus Died For You and such. All things you as an individual have no power over and thus, no responsibility, it’s out of your hands and in God’s. This is the basis of the modern world’s assumption of a benevolent universe in which individuals are taught they have value and worth but only as part of the exterior “god” and his plan for all of reality. This has the neat and tidy effect of putting the responsibility of absolutely everything on a force outside of the individual’s ability to control, influence or have any affect upon what so ever. When something happens, for good or ill, the individual is able to step away and not engage because its ‘in god’s hands’ and if it’s a negative thing the person has the option to hope that it’s for the best and, if they are really invested, they can pray. Praying is active hoping, you are telling an assumedly omnipotent force something (which by definition is impossible) and asking it to change or alter what’s going on. Nonsensical in every sense of the word, but this is the reflexive action taken by billions of people when confronted with a situation they have been told is beyond their control. And after they have prayed/hoped what do they do? Nothing, they have done ‘everything they could’ and are therefore no longer responsible for what happens to them or the world around them. When you say, “at least we can pray” or “if nothing else we can hope” then you are saying you are willing and/or able to do nothing of worth but still want to be considered part of the solution even though you are contributing nothing of any value or worth.
In politics everything is always really bad and disaster is just around the corner, usually caused by the other political party/entity or ‘the economy’ or other impersonal forces that no one can really control but none the less can be fixed by voting the right one in and getting others to embrace the right and true political philosophy. We then hope they are telling the truth and will remain true to their word and hope that the better way of doing things will magically overpower all the things in it way and that the world will become a better place. The fascinating part of this is that in the political arena there is virtually no one that actual says they believe this and will in fact state the obvious(and more accurate) point of view that nearly all politicians are deceitful and have neither the power nor the inclination to do what’s needed. And yet the political system stays the same and the same people get voted in, why? Because even when we say we understand something is not true, even impossible, we maintain hope we are wrong and somehow, somewhere it will all be put right. This is not an accident. When a rational mind recognizes the horrible state of a political system they are faced with a few options; decide it’s the only way things are going to be and seek to take personal advantage of it, trick themselves into thinking it’s really not that bad (or even believe it’s the best system ever in the history of the world), dedicate themselves to selflessly do the grinding and unforgiving work necessary to change the system, or hope that someone somewhere will fix it and make everything all better. Guess which one most folks go with?
Those who have learned from the previous two realms of politics and religion have refined and essentially mastered the craft are those that are in the consumerism and corporate world. They have successfully created the idea that nothing about you is good enough. Look at the base ideas put forth in every form of modern advertising; you smell wrong, you dress wrong, people think you are stupid because of your choice in hairstyle, members of the opposite sex find you unattractive, you are unworthy of attention and success, you are a disappointment to everyone that matters. But then we discover that all of these manifold shortcomings can be fixed, and fixed so easily, just buy the right product and suddenly you are sexy and smart and affluent and the envy of all your peers. So what is being sold? The hope that this next product you buy will make you feel good about yourself, this next product will hopefully give you a place in the world where you are wanted and loved. When that fails to occur very few people will then question the premise of the situation and will instead assume that they are still doing it wrong. They didn’t buy the right thing or enough of it and therefore it’s still their own fault they are miserable. The addictive and predictable cycle will repeat itself endlessly until death with few ever stopping and saying simply, ‘no, this is stupid, I’m not going to play along any more’. Advertisement sells the same thing regardless of product, perceive personal lack. To look inward and actually figure out which of your levers are being pulled by commercials is really hard work and most folks are more terrified of self-knowledge then they ever will be of anything else coming down the pike. Some people will avoid looking inward at all costs, which is yet another lever used to sell things and why people are attempting to be distracted and/or ‘entertained’ every moment of the day. Think how rare it is to have silence and stillness promoted in our culture, reality is that those things are feared because in the stillness and quite there is no escaping yourself and if more people knew themselves down to their cores there would be far less hope/fear to sell.
Hope is about giving away your personal power, sense of perspective and your rational mind, along with all of your self-interest. When you say ‘hope things work out’ or ‘hope you feel better’ you have actually said, ‘you are on your own and there is nothing I can or will do to actually help’. When someone is sick we don’t hope them well, we get them to a doctor or healer or get them some medicine. Faith healers hope people well, and are rightfully mocked for their failures. When someone we care about is sick don’t hope they get better, help them get better and when you leave you don’t say ‘hope you feel better’ you say ‘anything else I can do to help?’ or ‘see you when you are up and about’. When you are feeling depressed and down about yourself and your place in the universe don’t buy something with the hope it will take the pain away, instead do the hard work of looking inward to discover why you are depressed or unfocused or lazy and then change it. Hoping is easy, it’s for children who don’t know better. Self-knowledge, personal change and hard work is for adults who wish to actually live a life worth living. Let us chose wisely.
This sharing that Wade did with me and the facebook community was based on the fact that I made a post this morning about how when Pandora opened her box, all the evil burst forth into the world, but last to emerge was hope, it cowered in the corner and had to be coaxed from the box, but it is no less terrible than the others. a friend frequently says "Let's wish in one hand and shit in the other and see which one fills up first", he could easily replace the word wish for hope and the meaning would be the same.
One of the most important things for me is hearing of the learning curve that friends and family are on. Instead of being led to think that everyone is cold, rude, hateful and intransigent, I have been hearing stories of renewal and growth, even from folks who had seemed to be stifled and in a few cases, virtually petrified in their views and beliefs. Learning more about the great awakening that is taking place has been the singular best thing that has come from my self-imposed news blackout.
I would like to share something that one of my friends and spiritual advisors shared that may have snuck by under my radar, had I been preoccupied by the media war that rages against common sense. Thank-you in advance to all of you for taking the time to read and understand this post. Wade, of Deeply Rooted has my utmost respect and honor, in sharing his writing, I bestow upon him the status of cohort in the revolution that has never been televised. I also love and respect the brutal honesty that follows, so if you feel hurt or out of balance after reading it, perhaps you need the information even more than I. Humbly, and with deep respect I share it for we all need to hear these truths at this important moment in time. please, after reading it and reflecting upon his writing, take stock of all the things you want to be different and act accordingly.
An End to Hope
There are few things more demoralizing and disempowering in our culture than the idea of “hope”. When you hope, you do nothing to fix or help the situation, it is an invitation and justification for apathy and inaction. If a man is standing outside a burning building listening to his family screaming in pain and watching his possessions falling to ash doing nothing but hoping the fire will go out would be called insane. A person living in a place with an oppressive government doing nothing but hoping things will get better would be called a coward, at best. Sadly that is exactly the mentality that is promoted by the doctrine of hope. The entire premise is based on the idea that there is some outside force in control that you are not part of or have any real influence over and that said force is benevolent and kind and has your best interest at heart. When you look to our movies and books you see this theme repeated nearly endlessly; something bad happens from an attack by savage Indians and/or alien overlords, a natural disaster, a horrible crime, an evil political force taking over, a plague and endless other bad things coming down the pike. For a while things are dire and most of the time the protagonists scrape by and run around barely surviving, hoping against hope. And then…. The cavalry arrives and saves the day, a miracle drug to cure the disease, the government trucks or helicopters arrive, the rebel alliance or secret society rise up and smite the evil government, the vigilante steps from the dark and delivers justice, and on and on. All in the nick of time, at no cost to the ones getting rescued who didn’t have the ability or power to save themselves. What has been told to us is that we shouldn’t worry our little heads about, its above our pay grade, the experts or ‘somebody’ is going to take care of whatever the problem is. Hope that someone will save you, hope that somebody knows what’s going on and will swoop in at the last minute to save the day, hope that the inherent justice of the world will kick in and the good guys will win, hope that it can’t be so bad and that it’s all part of some god’s plan that has your best interests in mind. And it isn’t true.
Not only is it a lie, it’s a contrived lie that serves a larger purpose of keeping people exactly as they are, never really stepping into their own power, never believing they can accomplish great things. It is a mentality that creates and maintains a mass of frightened and cowed children who will never strive to better themselves or the world around them. Personally I don’t think it’s a conscious conspiracy(they always take too much work and are more implausible the larger they need to be) but merely a useful psychological tool that a small minority in any society in history can, and have, used to keep people down and docile. Religion, politics, and now consumerism have all found the hope model endlessly useful. You create a need (original sin/salvation, comfort services/government , lack of self- esteem/product based salvation), then you make it important even vital to the average person and then present them with the HOPE.
In the monotheistic religions the premise is that you are bad, really bad, so much so that the one true God hates you and is eternally disappointed at how unworthy you are. But, at the same time he loves you and wants you to be with him, so there is a way out, a great hope of salvation and of all sins being washed clean and forgotten about. You are taught to have faith in the hope that God Has A Plan, that Jesus Died For You and such. All things you as an individual have no power over and thus, no responsibility, it’s out of your hands and in God’s. This is the basis of the modern world’s assumption of a benevolent universe in which individuals are taught they have value and worth but only as part of the exterior “god” and his plan for all of reality. This has the neat and tidy effect of putting the responsibility of absolutely everything on a force outside of the individual’s ability to control, influence or have any affect upon what so ever. When something happens, for good or ill, the individual is able to step away and not engage because its ‘in god’s hands’ and if it’s a negative thing the person has the option to hope that it’s for the best and, if they are really invested, they can pray. Praying is active hoping, you are telling an assumedly omnipotent force something (which by definition is impossible) and asking it to change or alter what’s going on. Nonsensical in every sense of the word, but this is the reflexive action taken by billions of people when confronted with a situation they have been told is beyond their control. And after they have prayed/hoped what do they do? Nothing, they have done ‘everything they could’ and are therefore no longer responsible for what happens to them or the world around them. When you say, “at least we can pray” or “if nothing else we can hope” then you are saying you are willing and/or able to do nothing of worth but still want to be considered part of the solution even though you are contributing nothing of any value or worth.
In politics everything is always really bad and disaster is just around the corner, usually caused by the other political party/entity or ‘the economy’ or other impersonal forces that no one can really control but none the less can be fixed by voting the right one in and getting others to embrace the right and true political philosophy. We then hope they are telling the truth and will remain true to their word and hope that the better way of doing things will magically overpower all the things in it way and that the world will become a better place. The fascinating part of this is that in the political arena there is virtually no one that actual says they believe this and will in fact state the obvious(and more accurate) point of view that nearly all politicians are deceitful and have neither the power nor the inclination to do what’s needed. And yet the political system stays the same and the same people get voted in, why? Because even when we say we understand something is not true, even impossible, we maintain hope we are wrong and somehow, somewhere it will all be put right. This is not an accident. When a rational mind recognizes the horrible state of a political system they are faced with a few options; decide it’s the only way things are going to be and seek to take personal advantage of it, trick themselves into thinking it’s really not that bad (or even believe it’s the best system ever in the history of the world), dedicate themselves to selflessly do the grinding and unforgiving work necessary to change the system, or hope that someone somewhere will fix it and make everything all better. Guess which one most folks go with?
Those who have learned from the previous two realms of politics and religion have refined and essentially mastered the craft are those that are in the consumerism and corporate world. They have successfully created the idea that nothing about you is good enough. Look at the base ideas put forth in every form of modern advertising; you smell wrong, you dress wrong, people think you are stupid because of your choice in hairstyle, members of the opposite sex find you unattractive, you are unworthy of attention and success, you are a disappointment to everyone that matters. But then we discover that all of these manifold shortcomings can be fixed, and fixed so easily, just buy the right product and suddenly you are sexy and smart and affluent and the envy of all your peers. So what is being sold? The hope that this next product you buy will make you feel good about yourself, this next product will hopefully give you a place in the world where you are wanted and loved. When that fails to occur very few people will then question the premise of the situation and will instead assume that they are still doing it wrong. They didn’t buy the right thing or enough of it and therefore it’s still their own fault they are miserable. The addictive and predictable cycle will repeat itself endlessly until death with few ever stopping and saying simply, ‘no, this is stupid, I’m not going to play along any more’. Advertisement sells the same thing regardless of product, perceive personal lack. To look inward and actually figure out which of your levers are being pulled by commercials is really hard work and most folks are more terrified of self-knowledge then they ever will be of anything else coming down the pike. Some people will avoid looking inward at all costs, which is yet another lever used to sell things and why people are attempting to be distracted and/or ‘entertained’ every moment of the day. Think how rare it is to have silence and stillness promoted in our culture, reality is that those things are feared because in the stillness and quite there is no escaping yourself and if more people knew themselves down to their cores there would be far less hope/fear to sell.
Hope is about giving away your personal power, sense of perspective and your rational mind, along with all of your self-interest. When you say ‘hope things work out’ or ‘hope you feel better’ you have actually said, ‘you are on your own and there is nothing I can or will do to actually help’. When someone is sick we don’t hope them well, we get them to a doctor or healer or get them some medicine. Faith healers hope people well, and are rightfully mocked for their failures. When someone we care about is sick don’t hope they get better, help them get better and when you leave you don’t say ‘hope you feel better’ you say ‘anything else I can do to help?’ or ‘see you when you are up and about’. When you are feeling depressed and down about yourself and your place in the universe don’t buy something with the hope it will take the pain away, instead do the hard work of looking inward to discover why you are depressed or unfocused or lazy and then change it. Hoping is easy, it’s for children who don’t know better. Self-knowledge, personal change and hard work is for adults who wish to actually live a life worth living. Let us chose wisely.
This sharing that Wade did with me and the facebook community was based on the fact that I made a post this morning about how when Pandora opened her box, all the evil burst forth into the world, but last to emerge was hope, it cowered in the corner and had to be coaxed from the box, but it is no less terrible than the others. a friend frequently says "Let's wish in one hand and shit in the other and see which one fills up first", he could easily replace the word wish for hope and the meaning would be the same.
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