"Suffering has a noble purpose: the evolution of consciousness, and the burning up of the ego." That is a quote by Eckhart Tolle. He is an author who wrote "The Power of Now" and "A New Earth: Awakening To Your Life's Purpose" to name two. I have never read any of his work, but the above quote really struck me because in a perverse way, it is true.
Believe me, this is not what I expected to write about this morning.The only reason I chose it is because I thought back to my wife's illness and death, and I thought of the way I think now, versus what I thought then, and I see that my state of consciousness is different and that what I care about has changed greatly. I do not mean to say that the suffering had a purpose. "Purpose" was likely a poor choice of word for that quote. The use of the word "noble" was also a little bit unsettling. But I do see that the suffering I went through watching my wife disintegrate, changed me in profound ways. To start, I no longer care about money at all. I have my house paid off. I make a good salary, and I am not very motivated to work longer hours to make more money. My daughters are the most important things in my life, and I just want to spend my time raising them and making sure they are ready for adulthood. I also noticed that my ego has just about dried up and disappeared. I really don't care what people think of me any more. I care about making sure my daughters know I love them and that I am always here for them. I dress the way I like, and I can care less about what others think about that. I have no urge to buy the latest car or watch the most popular TV shows. In my work, I write about what I think will drive the stock price higher or lower. I try to do my best for our subscribers...and that is what I am focused on. I try to keep my editing honest and focused. If someone makes a mistake, I tell them. I was never one to let things slide, but I am even less like that now. I no longer care about what others thik about me (at least I think I don't). Now, I do things for me and my daughters...and my Mom too. If I can help someone else out, I'll do that too, but I don't really feel compelled to do so. In the end, there is nothing "noble" about suffering. I watched my wife suffer. I suffered with her. As did my daughter. I doubt anyone who saw what happened with my wife would think there was anything noble about it. To what purpose did we suffer. In my mind, it was pointless. I would not wish what my wife went through on anyone. Nor would I wish what I went through, or my daughter went through on anyone. It was pointless. It was sad. And it never really goes away. Some people, like Eckhart Tolle, write things without ever really experiencing what they write about. He writes a sentence and puts in words that he thinks will make people sigh and feel better about themselves...and he fails miserably. Suffering is not a noble purpose. It is suffering. And while suffering will change the way you think, It takes a horrible mental and physical toll. If you really want an evolution in consciousness and a burning away of the ego, you need to think. Not about a bunch of sappy sentences written by a man who has likely never experienced the things that he is writing about... but about what is right and wrong in your own life. Think about how you can change what makes you unhappy. Think about what truly makes you happy. What changes can you make today that will help you to build happiness for your lifetime? It is this type of thinking that will lead to a burning away of your ego. When you live for yourself and stop caring what the neighbors will think. This will bring about a change in your consciousness. Be true to thine own heart.
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Well. It's 2:00 AM and I'm out of blog ideas. SO without further ado- here are things that make absolutely no sense whatsoever.
I don't know... this is my blog post I guess. I'm probably going to be told it was shitty. But I don't really care. These are my thoughts. ~Maddie I have expressed my hatred for this subject before; but I feel the need to write about it again to stress its importance. So many people walk around feeling that they know everything there is to know about addiction. I've been told by people before "alcohol can't harm you unless you abuse it".... I disagree. An addiction is an addiction; whether you abuse it or not. As long as you're drinking regularly... you're addicted. It doesn't matter if you 'abuse' it or not. Abusing it just makes the case worse. IT. IS. STILL. ADDICTION.
I have also had friends say "you can't get addicted from one beer" and other dumb shit along those lines. Well guess what, genius? How do you think addictions start? Do you think you take one sip of beer and become a full-blown alcoholic? No. It takes time. The more you do it, the worse it gets. It doesn't start full-blown. Just like anything else, it has to grow... and to grow it has to be fed. This is the exact reason that I refuse to ever consume alcohol or drugs of any type. All it takes is one... and then I could potentially be ruining my life. Addiction runs in my family, particularly to drugs and alcohol. This means that I myself am susceptible to becoming easily addicted. I watched it ruin my mom's life and I've watched it ruin the lives of people in my family and I do not wish to follow in their footsteps... I know that it is possible to live a happy and healthy life WITHOUT alcohol or drugs being involved. I try to distance myself from those who include it in their lifestyle simply for my own health. I cannot stand to see people drink, even though I do unfortunately have to witness it from time to time and jokes about it making it seem like it's no big deal make me physically ill. Do not tell me addiction is nothing to worry about. Do not tell me to "just get over it". Do not tell me things could be worse. Do not tell me that it doesn't matter. Do not tell me that it is normal. And do NOT tell me that it is acceptable and a part of society today. That is bullshit. Addictions end lives. I know that too well. Don't be stupid. ~Maddie The war is not meant to be won, it is meant to be continuous. Hierarchical society is only possible on the basis of poverty and ignorance... The war is waged by the ruling group against its own subjects and and its object is not the victory versus Eurasia (ISIS) or East Asia (Al Qaeda), but to keep the very structure of society intact." That is quote by George Orwell written in 1949 in his masterpiece "1984" I added ISIS and Al Qaeda in there just to show how dead on his book was back then about what the future held. Think about it. Do you ever really think the government is going to give up on "the war on terror"? I mean it's perfect for them. Because they are not fighting an enemy from a particular country, they can bomb and kill people where ever they like! And the sad part is that they can do this, then mention that they killed so and so a leader of the bad guys. And we are all supposed to cheer...as if we knew exactly who they were talking about! Most people have no real clue as to who we are fighting...only that they are bad people and they want to kill us. How do we know this? Because the government tells us so, of course. And the sad part is that they are probably right. There are people out there who want to kill us. Just like there are people in our own country who want to make the Middle East into a gigantic parking lot. The poor and uneducated like to blame people in far off lands for their troubles. And our government wants to perpetuate this type of thinking. As I said in my last post, I think it is strange that "our enemies" choose targets that are poised to piss off our general population and bring the might of our military down on them. What did they really gain by killing a bunch of civilians that have nothing to do with them? Why did they not go after the heads of some of our major corporations that do the deals that change their way of life? Or our politicians who enact our foreign policy that seems to enrage them so much? Attacking those types of targets would likely not enrage our populous and have them signing up to go kill people in foreign lands. It might scare the pants off of the elites of our country and have them clamoring for war even more than they do now, but it's likely the regular Joe Six-pack out there wouldn't be going to the recruiting station to get revenge for some CEO. So who benefits from the targets that are chosen? Did Al Qaeda benefit after we sent thousands of troops over there to kill them? Or did our government and some large corporations benefit? Follow the money folks. Who benefited from the patriotic fervor that shot across the United States? Did the shareholders of the large aerospace and defense companies benefit? I think so. Did our military and political leaders benefit in anyway? I think the answer there might also be a big yes. Were all of these people involved? No. Did terrorists take down the twin towers? Yes. I am just not certain it was the terrorists we so quickly went out to kill. Think about our world people. Think about your cell phone and our computers. Think about our politicians and our media. Isn't it amazing that a man in 1949 could write a story about a twisted future and have it be uncannily accurate...even if he was off by a couple of decades! I'll leave off with one more George Orwell quote for you to think about. Leave a comment after you have thought about it and let me know what you think. "War is peace. Freedom is slavery Ignorance is strength" Okay, one more. I promise, no more George Orwell quotes or conspiracy-type posts...at least for a while anyway! "In a time of universal deceit
telling the truth is a revolutionary act!" "The most successful war seldom pays for its losses." That is a quote by Thomas Jefferson. And he is right. The problem we have nowadays is that the men who decide to go to war are usually not the men who are sent to lead it. The men who die in war are usually the poor, the misguided or the unlucky. The poor are the ones who thought that the military was a good way to earn some money or a good way to get a college education. The misguided are the ones who joined believing they were fighting for our country and our way of life, and the unlucky are those who were either drafted or sent up through the National Guard because they thought they were only going to give up one weekend a month for some steady cash.
I realize that my point of view is likely not a popular one. Still, when was the last time that you heard a Rockefeller or a Buffett was killed in Iraq or Afghanistan? Or when was the last time you heard that a Bush or Obama were killed in action? Nowadays, our wars are about money and oil, pure and simple. If there is no clear reason to have a war somewhere, the powers that be invent an enemy to battle. False flag attacks are used to rile up the population and push the country into war. Nowadays, our politicians don't even have to have the guts to declare war. Instead we have police actions...or war on things. We have the war on terror, the war on drugs, the war on poverty. Instead of protecting our borders, which would go a long way towards stopping crime and terrorism in the U.S., our Department of Homeland Security makes a big show of harassing travelers at the airports. See how safe they make you as they grope the women and pat down men and x-ray your luggage while you are on your way to Disney Land? Whenever there is an attack on U.S. soil, we need to ask two questions. Who did it? And who benefits? Usually, you will find that the group that is accused of perpetrating the act isn't the group who will benefit from it. Nope, usually the group who is accused of doing the deed is in for a shit-storm of negative publicity and brutal deaths. Meanwhile, the victims of these acts of terror are usually low-level nobodies or low level military personnel. In the grand scheme of things, the people who die hold no value for the group accused of killing them. The dead do have great value for the powers that be in our country though. These people lose nothing important to them, yet they have everyday people who have died that they can use to whip the general population into a frenzy of blood lust against the accused. It's sad actually. The people who die are used to get the general population riled up against the people our government wants out of the way. Meanwhile, targets whose deaths would have benefited the group that is accused of doing the attack are left unscathed. An attack on the rich and powerful of our country or our political leaders would be a much better target for these terrorist organizations. Yet they never attack them. At the same time, an attack on these same people would get less of a response from our general population. Yet every time, these groups supposedly go after the target that will actually hurt their movement more than help it. Why? Go back and ask yourself, who benefits the most from one of these attacks? What does the attack achieve, and who actually benefits from it? Finally, ask "who gets hurt by the attack?" If you see that the group that is accused of doing the attack is more likely to be hurt by it than helped, then you are likely looking at a false flag attack...particularly if the people who actually benefit from the attack are the same people who would have likely made a better target for the accused group in the first place. Face it folks, wars are here not because you want them, or I want them, but because someone who can benefit from them, while being reasonably sure not to be pulled into them wants them. If we had a simple rule that our political "leaders" actually had to lead our troops in the war, regardless of their age or sex, we would have a whole lot less wars. The politicians don't mind punching the patriotism card and calling for wars or police actions because they know they are reasonably safe from ever having to go anywhere where they would be in danger. Since they and their families are not in danger, why not play the war card for some of their benefactors who would likely benefit from it? Meanwhile, the poor, misguided and unlucky will continue to die. In my mind, even one life is too much to lose in a phony war. If we have to go to war, then target the politicians who force us to go to war. Target the money that funds our enemies. Target the families of those we know are involved in the war. Right now, we don't do that because our leaders do not want that done to them! Go ahead, kill their military personnel, but leave their politicians and wealthy class alone! Otherwise, they might attack our wealthy as well...and that would not do. A wise man once asked "what if we had a war and nobody came?" I would truly love to find that out. But as long as our wealthy can trick our people to go die while doing their bidding, then we will never really find that out. "And so castles made of sand, slips into the sea...eventually." That is a quote from the incomparable Jimi Hendrix. If you don't know Jimi. you just haven't lived! His songs are haunting, and stay with you for decades. At least they did with me.
When I chose the above lyric to write about tonight, I was thinking of my wife, and how her life just slipped away like a sand castle built too close to the water at the shore. But that is not what that lyric is about. If you listen to the song (Here is a link), I think he is implying that all life is transitory and that all dreams come to an end, no matter how strong a foundation they may have. In fact, all three stanzas of the song speak of broken dreams. The first two are tragic, a love that falls apart leaving a man shattered in the street, and a young boys dream ending the night before its achievement due to his unexpected death. It's only in the final stanza where the girl's dream is broken, but the outcome is for the good. What good is a solid foundation for our hopes and dreams, if it can all be taken away from us at any moment? Jimi never touches on the why of the destroyed dreams...what caused the relationship to crumble or what caused the sneak attack that took the young boy's life. Instead, he just focuses on that it happened...and that it CAN happen to any of us. How would you respond if your entire life was suddenly turned upside down? What would you choose to protect? What would you let go? How would you decide? Or, here's another question: How would your family respond if you died suddenly? Would they survive? What would they do? Or not do? I can tell you what I'd do for the first part. You see, it happened to me. I let it all go and tried to protect my daughters as best as I could. I fought the waves crashing into the foundation of my castle and shored up the defenses. Between the crashing waves, I trained in karate to forget for an hour each day all the troubles that were plaguing me. I took every step I could to shelter my daughters from the storm, and I came within inches of going bankrupt. I fought the storm until all of my hope was lost... and it was at that point, while I kept pushing on, that light finally appeared at the end of the tunnel. I know now that our lives are like castles made of sand. No matter how strongly we think we are grounded to reality. It only takes an errant wave to start our castle crumbling. Things have gotten a bit better lately. The tide has receded a bit. But I don't fool myself. Nothing is permanent. Each day, I make sure to hug my daughters, and tell them how much I love them. I try to have a smile for everyone. A joke or two for some, and wise words for others. While I tend to work hard, I try to set aside time for what is really important too. It is hard though, work has always been an interesting and fun part of my life. Still, I love to spend time with my daughters, or a few minutes with my Mom to enjoy a cup of coffee. Lastly, I look for a little alone time so that I can catch up on reading and write these blog posts. I like to look at my woods and know that I can walk out my door and enjoy solitude within fifty feet of my house. I think back on holding my wife while she lie dying in my arms. I held her for six hours. Words failed me. I tried to let her know that I was there for her, that she wouldn't die alone, but the words, I felt, were hollow. I wasn't dying with her, and in the end, we all die alone whether someone is there or not. I hope that she knew she wasn't alone. I hope she knew I was there for her, and that since the time we had started dating I had always tried to be there for her. My heart breaks thinking about her..about my inability to help her. Sharon died two years ago, and yet her castle is still washing out to sea. Some of her things are still out in the garage. I have been trying to sell them and/or bring them to good will, but it takes time and energy. The emotional toll is high. At times I feel my castle walls start flowing out to sea as well, and I know that I have to step back again and focus on other things. There are a lot of good things. I just have to look. I can't just wash away. I need to be a strong foundation rock for my daughters' lives. Because castles made of sand, fall into the sea...eventually. "When we talk to God, we are praying. When God talks to us, we're schizophrenic." Don't worry this won't be an overly religious post. That quote, by Jane Wagner, was said tongue in cheek to get a laugh. But of course, I am going to ask my usual question: But is it true? My answer to that is that it could be true. It might be true for some people...or it might be false. And nowadays, with the government, or anyone else with access to microwave technology able to beam voices into your head, we will never actually know now will we?
Allan Frey was the first to publish a paper about the microwave auditory effect, and that's why it is also known as the Frey effect. I touched briefly about this in a blog post a couple of weeks ago. Frey wrote about the effect in 1961. By the early 1970's, the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research was already beaming voices into people's heads at a distance of 100 meters. In 2003, Waveband Corp. had a contract with the U.S. Navy for a system called MEDUSA (Mob Excess Deterrent Using Silent Audio) intended to remotely, temporarily incapacitate personnel. The project was supposedly cancelled in 2005. Now let me ask you a question. If the U.S. government has been experimenting with this stuff since the early 1960's, do you really think they cancelled it in 2005? More likely, the program was changed to a different name and is being studied more discreetly. Believe me, if something has the potential to be weaponized, our government wants it! Not just to use it versus their perceived enemies... which may include you, but also so that they are up to date with all of the research so that they can block the technology from being used against them. With that said, think of the havoc that would ensue if large numbers of people believed that they were having conversations with their God. Many, not knowing of the Frey effect, would listen to the voices without question. If enough people fell for it, All of the people of the world could become slaves to the perpetrators of the hoax. Think about it, who wouldn't do what their God told them to do...particularly if most of the people around them also heard the voice in their head too! Thankfully, the amount of energy necessary to reach hundreds of people at once would be too high, and many of the people would be in danger. If it wasn't for that, though, I honestly believe someone would have tried this scheme already. Still, the potential for damage could be staggering. Think about it, Some people would likely very willingly become God's assassin. And not just Muslims either! Voices in your head would likely go a long way towards convincing a person to do heinous crimes...particularly if they thought it was their God speaking to them. As for me, knowing about the Frey effect, I would never listen to a voice in my head that told me to do something violent to another. Any voices in my head will be blatantly ignored (to the best of my ability anyway). It is a sad world we live in when you can't trust your government, many of the people around you, the media or even the voices in your head! All said, don't just follow the crowd blindly. A lot of what they are told to do doesn't makes sense. Don't listen to voices in your head...particularly if it is telling you to do something self destructive or violent. And finally, take everything that the big media companies or the government tells you to do with a grain of salt. "There's is no reality except the one contained within us. That's why so many people live an unreal life. They take images outside them for reality, and never allow the world within them to assert itself." That;s a quote by Hermann Hesse. Nowadays, many people mistakenly assume Hesse was a Nazi. Not so. Hesse was a writer active during the early years of the twentieth century. While he was alive during World War II, he was not a fan of the Nazis. That would be evident to anyone who has read any of his works. There is the rub. I doubt any of you have read any of his work. In fact, I would imagine that maybe one out of every one hundred thousand people have read any of his stuff nowadays (and yes, I have read some of his work). And THAT brings me back to his quote.
Hesse was socially awkward in his younger years, and likely throughout his life. He was very bookish and wrote to express his thoughts. His first published works were not very successful, yet he persevered. Eventually, he won a noble prize for his writing. The book I read by Hesse was "Steppenwolf". To me, "Steppenwolf" was about Hermann Hesse's reality. The book was his way of expressing how he saw the world. The main character in the book (Harry Haller) has the same initials as Hesse, and his bouts with depression fit Hesse to a "T"! Moreover, in a part of the book where Harry is walking around town, afraid to go home because it is there where he figures he will commit suicide, Harry meets a dancer who gives him a reason to live. Oddly enough, Hesse wrote this book soon after he had met and married a singer. The dancer's name was Hermine. (I wonder if "Steppenwolf" is where J.K Rowling got her inspiration for her character with the same name?) Hermine teaches Harry that dancing, drinking, drug use and girlfriends are okay, and that they are part of living a "true" life. Give me a little leeway here folks on the story...I read it about twenty years ago and I am writing by memory right now. I may have spelled their names wrong, and I may have a few of the facts out of order, but I still think I am getting the gist of the story correct. (I will have to go back and reread it now to see how well I did!) Anyway, eventually Hermine introduces Harry to a musician named Pablo, who seems to be a psychedelic Buddha of the twenties. He brings Harry to his mythical Magic Theatre, where Harry meets the fantasies from his mind. So was THAT Hesse's reality? In part. In the book Hermine is killed off, and I do not remember reading about any homicides in Hesse's history. To me, Hermine might have just been a convenient way for Hesse to depict changes in his own thought patterns over time. "Steppenwolf" seems to be a journey. A journey that shows the progression of Hesse's thinking over many years, right up until the time he wrote that novel. The pessimism that pervades the novel to the end almost seems to finish with a ray of hope. Truly, Steppenwolf was a bizarre novel. If you are a thinker, it will make you think...just likely not about what you usually think about. In the end, it seems Hesse's reality was one of madness. Despair and pessimism, seemed to rule his early years (as it does with many people), yet as he grew older and he was exposed to the world, his world brightened a bit. Depression was a constant companion throughout his life, however. How little we know about a man's inner thoughts. Sometimes we can recognize little parts of ourselves in other people's writings. These are the stories that call to us. And they are not always happy ones. Reality is a mixture of emotions and thoughts swirling around us as we walk through the physical world. Two people can sit in the same room and experience totally different realities. The room doesn't change, our perceptions of it does. In a happy mood, I may notice the beautiful trees just outside my window. When I am unhappy, I may notice the dust on the furniture, or the nick in the wood near the bottom of my desk. All of those things were there yesterday...all that has changed is my mood. Reality IS what we make it. While we can share small slices of reality with each other, and find a commonality, the real game is within our head. Think, and change your reality. Act, and change everyone's. "Losing an illusion makes you wiser than finding a truth." That's a quote by Ludwig Borne, a German satirist who wrote in the early 1800's. I like this quote because I believe there are many illusions, yet only one truth on nearly any subject. Take love, for instance. Our divorce rates show that many people really don't know love, even though we are all searching for it. What is love? Can any one definition truly work for all people? To rip off another quote from Ludwig: "Nothing is permanent but change, nothing constant but death." If this is true, can there be a constant definition for love? A definition that remains constant across the centuries, and across all cultures?
The dictionary has seven definitions for "love" as a noun alone. It has seven more definitions for using the word as a verb. With that many definitions floating about, it's no wonder the divorce rate is so high! No one knows what the fuck someone else is talking about when they talk about being in love! We are all looking for love? Love is likely the greatest illusion of all. When some say love, they may mean sex. When others say it, they might mean commitment. Still another might mean great affection for. With all honesty I have said "I love pizza." And I do! I love to eat pizza is what I mean... or in other words, I have great affection for eating pizza. The love I have for pizza, is still different than the love I felt for my wife. The love I felt for my wife fits five of the seven definitions of love in the dictionary. Meanwhile, the love I feel for my daughters fit only one definition. Does this mean my love for my daughters is any less than the love for my wife? Absolutely not! It just means that there are more than one type of love, and that one is more appropriate for a wife and another is more appropriate for a daughter, or well, even pizza! Too many people talk lightly about love and cannot define it for themselves. They live a life of illusion. Before marrying someone, you need to break through these layers of illusion and find out what your own definition of love is ... And whether or not it matches that of your potential spouse. I believe many people do not know what they are talking about when they say love. Oftentimes, they will just repeat the words that the other is telling them. The best way to see if your definition of love matches up with the definition held by the one you love is to have both of you write down your definitions. At the same time, write down your expectations for what would make a happy marriage. Do the definitions match up? Do the expectations? Congratulations! You have just broken through a layer of illusion that many people never even recognize exists. So does losing an illusion make you wiser than finding a truth? I think so. In the movies, you always hear characters saying "No illusions! Tell me the truth!" In one movie, Jack Nicholson yells "You can't handle the truth!" And you know what, while he was incorrect about what he was screaming about, he is absolutely correct about nearly everything else in life. We all live lives of illusion. And it only takes a slight breeze to gently move the curtain and show you the reality. Reality often bites! When we get a glimpse of reality... a form of truth, we are wiser for it, but not always happier. Some illusions are good. They are there to protect us. Whether we know it or not. Sweeping them away, one by one, will make us wiser...just not necessarily happier. Be careful what you wish for. You just might find it. Truth can be a harsh lover. We all live in an illusion of some sort or another. Whether that illusion is love, happiness, hate, or something much smaller... we are all fooled by it at some point or another; even us realists. The reason I am choosing to write about this is due to my dad's post from yesterday. He wrote about the quote "Nothing is more sad than the death of an illusion".Clearly this quote is a load of bullshit, and my dad made that quite clear in his post.
That set aside, I'd like to briefly discuss some of the most common illusions that a lot of us live in. Beauty There was once a time when the beehive hairstyle was popular. Dear God, what dark times those were! However, in some people's eyes, it was beautiful (as shocking as that may be to believe). It isn't very popular now; but you can still see people walking around with them. The beehive became singer Amy Winehouse's trademark look while she was still alive! The point is; we all have different definition of beauty. So while something may be beautiful to Bob, it doesn't necessarily mean that the same thing is beautiful to George. It all rolls down to perception; once again. Love Love is an illusion no matter how you look at it. I don't think anyone really knows what it is; we just know what we THINK it is and so we carry along with it. Once again- perception. I've seen so many of my friends who are young fall into "love" and let it destroy them far more than it should. In our teenage years, I really believe it is impossible to know what love really is due to the ever-changing hormones that control us a bit. I don't think ANYONE knows love. As I mentioned above; we jut pretend to. It's just another illusion- and a hard one to break, at that. Time Time is the biggest illusion of them all; however. Time is and always has been a man-made construct- but so many fail to see it as this. As far as we're concerned, time always has been. But that's obviously not the case. We live in the illusion; however... that there will always be a tomorrow. That there will always be a second chance. That we have all the time in the world to fix our mistakes... but it's not the case. Today could be our last day; and we may not know it. It's up to us to make the best of our lives while we're here... because life could come to a screeching halt at any time. ~Maddie "We live in a fantasy world, a world of illusion. The great task in life is to find reality." This is a quote by Iris Murdoch. Iris was a British author best known for her books about, philosophy, good and evil, sexual relationships and morality. She considered herself a follower of Plato, and that's likely where her thoughts on illusion and reality stemmed from.
So do we live in a world of illusion? In more ways than one, the answer would seem to be yes. Scientists will be the first to tell you that there is more to this world than we can perceive. There are light waves that the human eye cannot perceive and tones that the human ear cannot hear. These facts alone tell us that we are living in a world where we can see only part of the total picture. In fact, tests were done during the 1950's that showed that there can be a microwaved transmission of speech directly into the auditory cortex. It is called the Frey effect (named after the scientist who discovered it), and it allowed the scientist to beam a message to an individual, who would hear the message in his head while no one else around them could hear it! Have you ever thought you heard a voice but no one else heard it? Perhaps you did. The point is, how do we know reality? If people can beam thoughts into your head with microwaves, and the media willingly and easily changes photographs or only writes the news they want you to see. How can we really know what is reality and what is only an illusion. Should we assume that everything around us really is an illusion? Can we believe our eyes? Our thoughts? Our emotions? I have seen people who thought their spouses loved them, and yet later they found out that their spouse was cheating on them. Who can you really trust? If you can't even trust your own senses, is there anyone you can trust? Okay, I took that last thought process to an extreme. We all do live in a world of illusion. But sometimes, those illusions are necessary to help keep our sanity. The reality is that we can only trust everyone so far. I trust my daughters and my mother with my life. And yet I know that all of them lie to me occasionally on small matters. "That hair cut looks great!" "I didn't eat the last doughnut Daddy!" Is my trust in them an illusion. No, it is my reality. I know that my family will occasionally lie about small matters. That is a reality. On larger issues, I believe I can trust them. The reality is that I need that illusion, and so do they so that we can all live together amicably. Away from my family, my trust wears thin. While I'll generally trust my friends to do the right thing, I do keep my eye open for instances where things are not really as they seem. I have nearly no trust for the government or the media. Oftentimes, while out in the real world I like to follow the money, or the who benefits doctrine. When I hear something that doesn't sound 100% on the up and up, I try to figure out who will benefit from the situation, and then try to find if there was any manipulation to lead to the odd outcome. Unfortunately, I can find those connections rather easily when it comes to the government or large corporations. In the end, the reality is that we all live lives of illusion. Sometimes, the more you can see the illusions the less happy you will be. Other times, the opposite will be true. In the end, I'll finish with another quote. "Be careful what you look for...you just might find it!" |
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