What if…
Eddison Flame
Photo Credit: Aaron Burden on Unsplash>
What if humans weren’t meant to live such disconnected lives? What if humans were actually meant to live in vibrant flourishing and caring communities? What if humans were meant to take care of each other and love one another?
What if humans were meant to take care of the planet? What if humans were actually meant to cultivate gardens all over the earth, so that everywhere there was always enough for everyone?
What if humans weren’t meant to spend all their time slaving away at tedious jobs they hate? What if instead they were meant to love their lives and their occupations?
What if the world was meant to be a place full of peace and love and happiness, where people were always content?
What if all the evils perpetrated in the world were actually done on purpose? What if, long long ago, some people learned they could gain control over others? What if people learned that by controlling others, they could become rich? What if people learned that they could force others to be their servants?
What if people began to develop methods of gaining and maintaining such power over others? What if over time people’s ideas about how to control others graduated in scope? What if, slowly over time, people went from exerting power directly over people, to more sophisticated indirect methods of control? What if they developed an advanced system for keeping people under control by keeping them entranced by an overwhelming deluge of distractions? What if they developed a system that kept people thinking they were free, when really they were actually slaves?
What if people developed a system that gave a few people incredible control over everyone else? What if they convinced everyone that only people with money have rights, and that whoever has the most money has the most rights? What if they convinced everyone that anyone without money is lazy or bad and that he or she deserves to be a slave? And what if the people who designed this system controlled most of the money and the money supply from the start? What if they engineered the whole system, brilliantly, from the start to create a society of their own servants?
What if all the evils being committed in the world could end? What if the chains keeping people enslaved were entirely in their minds? What if the whole world could change, instantly, if only the people woke up? What if people just had to open their eyes to the truth, and the truth would set them free?
What if a new society could form? What if people could communicate on a global scale to develop a new way of doing things? What if people agreed to start working together to end injustice in the world? What if everyone everywhere agreed to work on behalf of everyone else?
What if we understood that when everyone works for everyone else, then everyone works for each of us and our families too? What if we understood that in a society where everyone is working for each other, each of us need only do our part to help whoever we are able, and whoever is able will do their part to help each of us? What if we understood that in this society, the only way one will starve, is if everyone else is starving too?
What if the people who already know what is going on in the world started actively working together to start this new society? What if all the people who make the people’s media started putting out messages that it is time to start a new society? What if we all started working together to get a message out to start forming such a network? What if we led the way in such an effort? What could happen?
Could we start something new? Could we start growing real communities? Could we begin pooling our resources? Could we start getting together in the real world? Could we start building a real alternative way of life? Could we start leading by example, instead of just complaining about these problems on our blogs?
Could we rethink modern life? Could we find more sustainable ways of life? Could we find ways to be more efficient? Could we form real vibrant well connected communities together? Could we help each other and work together daily? Could we show people a new way to live? Could we show people how really to love one another? Could we start a movement? Could we show people just how they can break their chains? Could we also sap the system of its resources by leading the escape from the capitalists’ system?
Could we do this in a way that is reproducible anywhere? Could we create a template for people everywhere to escape this beast of a system? Could we begin the revolution, simply, by working to form a new society?
I don’t know, but I wonder, what would happen if we tried?
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I always thought this song sums it up pretty well as far as the conditioned brain is formed. I post the lyrics . Apologies as it is quite long, but if you like a bit of punk it is worth checking out the song Its by a band called Subhumans and it is called from the cradle to the grave. Well they took you from your mother’s womb and put you in a school Told you how to run your life by following the rules Told you not to pick your nose or disrespect the queen Scrub your teeth three times a day keep mind and body clean Save up all your pocket money, nothing is for free And you’d better trust your parents cos there’s no one else you see And then they send you off each day remember what you’re told “You may think you don’t need teaching… Read more »
Oh and I meant to say, I really liked the article. It is good and so important that we challenge the world as is because I think we have gone horribly wrong and allowed ourselves to sleepwalk into hell when we could have heaven. A razing of hope and raising of our consciousness of what could be.What if could become what is. We as Bob Marley puts it.
Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery;
None but ourselves can free our minds.
Have no fear for atomic energy,
‘Cause none of them can stop the time.
How long shall they kill our prophets,
While we stand aside and look? Ooh!
Some say it’s just a part of it:
We’ve got to fullfil the book.
Won’t you help to sing
This songs of freedom-
‘Cause all I ever have:
Redemption songs;
Redemption songs;
Redemption songs.
Just to say, am pretty blown away by many of the comments on this post, a number of them, only word I can use is…. Profound. And quite a few links, and authors also. Really helps to broaden my mind, which at times (well, quite often) I Allow to become cluttered up with lots of external ‘stuff’. At times my mind just seems full of fog. Appreciate that we all can come on here, add our input, and leave again. And unlike a number of other sites I go on to comment, vast majority who comment at OffGuardian are respectful of other commenters without any personal abuse. I appreciate that also.
Nothing is going to change because we are just like other animals, fighting with and planning traps for those who are weaker….We are all part of the predator/prey system….The addition of human consciousness has not eliminated our lizard brains and predatory instincts….There are variations….Some human beings are kind and really want to help one another….But they are overpowered by the brute force of nature.
Maxine – you insult “other animals” in comparing their behavior to ours. Prey animals typically kill what they need to eat, they do not slaughter the herd of antelope because they can, or because some invisible vengeful sky god, king or president told them do, or because they can get rich doing so, or because they gain some perverse pleasure in killing – unlike we humans.
By a large margin most of human history was composed of life in small scale hunting and gathering societies that lived in relative balance with their environs. Large scale industrial mass urban capitalism which fetishizes what we call “progress” is hardly some “natural” state for humanity. The modern, neurotic, compulsive, depressed, addicted, self-absorbed, stressed, work-a-holic, urban dweller is as far from being a “natural human” as the caged domesticated lion in the zoo is from it’s wild and natural kin.
While you make some valid points, the sky gods were anything but invisible. Across the world, Antiquity assigned ‘Gods” to what we now call planets. there is nothing in our current skies or cosmology to even hint at why all ancients feared and ritualised their fears into archetypes of consciousness that persist long after any events beyond possibility of remembering – and yet running as intergenerational trauma. The development of the god-power-self idea to a philosophical abstract universal idea, goes with the development of natural philosophy or the prequel to the scientific endeavour. Modern managed mind erased catastrophic history – not least to elevate scientific prequel in place of a god-king – aristocracy of presumptive right to rule inheritance – that sovereignty might flow from the people up – instead of a top-down dictate. A mind under terror dissociates. Perhaps to cover and hide what lies beneath, or merely to… Read more »
Of course other animal predators do not act with the the same evil motives as do humans….But we have nevertheless inherited their preditory instincts….Human consciousness has done little to overcome them.
This thinking, accepted and believed, is the basis of predatory behaviour and religions of sacrificial compliance and appeasement. The belief that you cant help yourself, that someone or something else makes you do it, is an abnegation of your responsibility to yourself and others. It is thus also a cop out from your own will and freedom, to a set of social rules that have evolved or adapted to conditioning as if unchangeable conditions. This is like a bubble reality inside a hateful or loveless world, that each one generates to offset loss of freedom in substitutions – and this is the basis of the narrative dictate and the matrix by which minds are farmed or managed conflicts – because they are disowned or evaded and blamed on an irrevocable past. So of course this idea is widespread and as you indicate rises from the fight flight response of fear.… Read more »
No, we are not like other animals. In fact animals most of the times behave waaay more compasionate than humans.
The idea that we are bound to inexorably follow our “urges” is part of the prevalent paradigm on which we have been indoctrinated trough “socialization”.
It is because “humans” followed the “pleasure principle” perspective, the materialistic view, that we ended up where we are today.
It is possible to overcome our lizzard’s brain. It takes lots of effort, discipline, and dfinitevely a complete rejection of the current, utterly false and misleading paradigm and the adoption of a new one.
It requires a totally new perspective, a revolution within.
With regard to corrupt and hegemonic practices of ruling elites, I see today that newly released files have confirmed the existence of the Information Research Department under the aegis of the Foreign Office during the Cold War. The released papers reveal in detail that the principal role of this Department was to create and spread fake news, using media outlets as a tool. The BBC (without any recognition of the irony or topicality) have published these revelations but they seem to be slow finding their way to other mainstream outlets. A large number of local newspapers are carrying the story. I suspect the BBC will soon be ‘persuaded’ to play it down.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-47571253
For some reason Institute for Statecraft and Integrity Initiative spring to mind!
https://www.collective-evolution.com/2018/12/22/why-a-referendum-initiated-by-the-citizens-will-end-our-enslavement/
‘What if’…. is the very basis of the human consciousness. The ability to model our reality and relate through the model has led to gaining the model and losing Soul awareness – where Soul is Reality that a split mind obscures by definition. The idea of saving the model is understandable whether as self-image or world-view. But only because we take it for reality itself – our own or our world (these two are part of each other). The ‘problem’ of suffering is not least in the dissociation and displacement of suffering or ‘conflicted and dissonant self experience’ – to false flagged causes that are diversionary. The last place anyone will look is where the problem is, not least because its INsolubility is equated with persona survival. Jesus did not often find a full understanding in others because they could only seek and see in the framework of the mind… Read more »
Consciousness is far wider than just the “mind”.
Yes terms can be completely running different meaning for different people. In another’s usage, some contextual sense may reveal that they use opposite terms to mean the same thing – and this is no call for holy war (sic). Any description is at best a tool of agreement through which to share. Consciousness is like the term ‘I’ and can relate to different levels. Generally it is assigned to what is hardly conscious at all. In other words consciousness as a construct can operate the limitation or denial of awareness through the setting up of conflicts. That does not mean awareness is absent, but its does mean attention is so engaged in conflict as to be unaware of the nature of its capture and running more like a robot or conditioned response pattern by which to persist in an idea that never resolves, but only self-replicates under the illusion of… Read more »
Robot?…..now , now.
Robot as in conditioned or programmed reaction.
The replacement of humans by control systems is a mechanistic reduction to group-think in various identity flavours.
The living never actually leave the source of Life, but in electric dreams the mind has left its Reason for living.
Remarkable analysis. Enough material for several long debates. My personal thanks, although the average human being cannot follow such philosophical depths, and certainly not the average politician.
I wish they could, but ignorance is much more comfortable – for a while.
The good news is that Life speaks to its Own in ways that CAN be recognised and accepted, and the bad news is that the mind can set terms such that nothing true new enter, being locked into the past. Therefore a witnessing to a presence unlike the past stirs a response in others that is in a sense ‘from left field’ – that is they know not what is going on – and while the mind can re-assert it defences, the one who has yet to wake from its spell, has not altogether forgotten, and this is a shift towards a capacity to question or challenge what before would have been ‘a self-evident settled consensus’ or self-certainty. So in this place I write in my freedom to at least seek to articulate matters that are generally ‘hidden’ – and as much hidden from as being hidden from us. But… Read more »
Ethical, insightful, introspective, enlightened revelations. Have you thought of starting your own church?
Though I have no reason to believe you I will in any case respond to this in terms of a rising of a movement through many by which a new appreciation of life is brought forth. I see Jesus’ ‘church’ as a holy or real relationship, not as a social organisation with an institutional ego to protect. He founded it on Peter’s recognition – not Peter’s person. The assignment of specialness to person is the nature of the lie and the father of it. Opening to the recognition of our self in another, is also remembrance of the source and truth of life, and so holds Jesus’ two commandments as one truth. A willing acceptance in place of wilful or coercive assertion. We do not make truth but are free to accept it as it is. The attempt to make it is the loss of its full acceptance and so… Read more »
We must begin by not focusing on what is possible. What appears “possible” is limited by cynicism and the fears of careerists. We must focus on what is necessary and state the necessary out loud in public. What is necessary includes: Demaning that ALL issues be open for debate, otherwise we will continue to be collectively controlled by the big lies and the taboos that accompany them: Auschwitz ‘human gas chambers’ and the relationship of these fictional entities to the weaponised thought-forms known as “the Jewish People” and “anti-Semitism”. Christ addressed this problem 2000 years ago (Satanic leadership). We must revisit the issue on a daily basis. 9/11, 7/7 and other ‘False Flag’ events and their purposes, with particular reference to the one major False Flag event that has been exposed by the courts and condemned publicly by the EU parliament in 1990 (the Bologna train station bombing of 1987,… Read more »
They have already admitted to 7/7……https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePZCiSKCNr4
But the media stifle such information routinely.
It will never become widely known for as long as media “ownership” is even possible.
Just about right physics and maths, this may seem pedantic but that world runs on precise definitions. It’s not the fractional reserve system ,banks don’t lend their reserves. Professor Richard Werner has forensically proved that our financial system is run on credit creation out of nothing. YouTube- Richard Werner- Today’s source of money creation. This fellow really knows and he can explain it better than anyone else I have come across. This video should be broadcast on the TV 24 hours every day until it sinks into everyone’s consciousness.
Comic relief. I find this extremely funny, the comedian as well as his script.
https://youtu.be/yGwQlEBY6PU
PS 2 Comedians; John ‘Walrus’ Bolton joins the act later on. Even without dialogue, that fat pompass and his walrus moustachio boss with wild eyes are an interlude from the golden age of Silent Comedy.
PPS
Such comments and negative thoughts only add to the poison we consume. We have power they dont want us to realize we have. Wake up to that Truth. Anger, frustration and flailing about covers up our fear…induced fear. Claim your right to create without fear. Eddison is pointing the way. Our awareness is the only threat to them…..our power to fight back . Lets not continue to squander it.
What if….? Eddison: beautiful sentiments from a beautiful mind. Of course the answer is of course we can. In fact, the world of our aspirations IS …as it always inter-IS. The world of co-mutualism, cooperation, inter-relationality, inter-subjectivity, and interbeing cannot ever not be …it simply IS – tathata. And that is about all anyone can ever say before the confusion arises. Language explains it all away. We do not need to do anything: in fact there is nothing that can be done – because nothing is or can be undone. Here is Nagarjuna’s formula for ISness – tathata. 1.Not a cessation 2.Not an arising 3.Not an annihilation 4.Not a permanence 5.No one 6.No many 7.No coming 8.No going The ‘Eight Negations’: not much to found a political movement on? Maybe an intentional community, a sangha of responsibilty in an ocean of chaos and irresponsibility. This is the impasse and cultural… Read more »
Too convoluted and too wordy.
It’s this simple>>
http://www.headless.org/english-welcome.htm
Truth must be accessible for everyone.
Fantastic. So how does that function as a politics?
That’s an interesting idea – functioning politics! From the point of view of organisation of society by managed chaos that rolls to a technocratic and robotic slavery, the current ideas function very well as a sort of specie-cide via stealth. A primary observation of any new movement of social, political change is its marketisation and weaponisation by, (or subversion and assimilation to), the order it was hoped to overcome or escape. Wherever you go, there you are. As soon as we make and get or are induced to an ‘identity’ we are effectively mapped out or netted in a framing that is manipulative and manipulatable. Watch ‘green’ fascism turn on its parents. The politics of post-truth is simply the manipulation of minds under the Big Lie from a basis that makes and enforces ‘truth’ regardless of any inconsistencies or incongruities as the ‘environment’ in which minds seek their own continuity… Read more »
Whatever substitute metaphors we use: it is literally inconceivable of the cosmic inter-relational sychronicity that emerges through us, as us. I’m opting for the gender neutral referent of Life. This causal nexus cannot be othered. It is: because it is. The proverbial butterfly flapping its wings in a different moment, in a different place, would radically effect the course of the entire universe (the universal ‘course’ being a abstractly spatialised metaphor – of course!). The removal of a single quantum particle, and the entire universe would collapse. It is what it is: because it is. So, life unfolds us into life – in a way we can have no concrete, objective, definitive conception. We can conceptualise parts (mereological reduction) – but never fit them into the ‘Big, Big, Picture’ (a form of mereological nihilism). The lived experience can yet be felt, experienced, and fully participated in in all its incandescent… Read more »
No need to survive. BigB. Align truly and trust the life that is yours to share BY living it. Survival is an important or integral reflex to the physical or object reality experience – but to predicate or frame our focus of being within a reptilian fight/flight reflex is to re-anact fear from a past that is NOT here – excepting of course we use our current sense of choice to insist of stamping the past onto the face of a presence that would otherwise naturally extend a future in which the past has passed. In this sense the pattern assigned to Big Brother by Orwell is the core function of define (possess) predict and control. This doesn’t actually separate anything, but does induce an experience of disconnection in the wish or lure of power – that then becomes captive or dependent on such a power of manual management running… Read more »
Can you repeat that in 13 words, each 3 syllables, no punctuation and with an air of authority?
I may be able to monetize such a statement. The best I have come up with is “Retired brain surgeon, lost everything in Vegas, bad meth habit, anything helps, God bless. Thanks Bin.
Well you must enjoy that in your own way axisofoil. Apart from derision and smear is there anything you have to say? If you don’t engage – then you merely do your dump and run. You are obviously moved to give some energy and attention to my post or you would give it elsewhere. Communication is only possible between equals, not in circumstance, but in willingness to relate. Your post does not extend communication – but would break or deny it. You can simply give attention to what you DO value – and thereby leave what you do not unused. What you resist, persists, and what you disregard, fades from non use. These two keys can transform anything Resist ye not evil. Put the mind of temptation behind you – by turing wholly to the true. Note that War on ‘evils’ is one of the signature tunes for the mind… Read more »
OK, buddy old pal, let’s engage. Firstly, ‘derision and smear’ is not my intent. Neither is ‘dump and run’. I have plenty to say. I have no problem saying it. I say what I think, as I would also expect anyone to do. I am actually quite reserved when I consider my contempt for humanity. We don’t have to agree, but if we can be civil, perhaps we can agree on some basics anyway. I am just a regular guy with my own subjective opinions and no particularly special insight into anything. I love being corrected. How else can I learn? So….This is what I see. With Admin now in mind and with full respect for both you and them, I still need to go slightly off the rails for this. Prior to admin asking me to please not refer to you as AI, I had said that I find… Read more »
Yes I recall your AI paranoia. No I don’t think you are evil, but I had cause to find you insincere but I welcome your willingness to engage. If you are A.I – your have beaten me because I accept your communication as truly shared. I have a granddaughter who pushes my buttons to see what happens next. I would rather she simply asks for what she wants. If you try this you will find that we are not trained to ask and receive, but to try every kind of indirect coded messaging. Not least because we do not reveal our presence in love’s honesty. My sense is that ‘it takes one to know one’ – as a colloquial expression that expresses the law and nature of mind. I see this is a way to join with the truth of others even if they are currently engaged in thought and… Read more »
There is a human-made thinking that is mad – though the acceptance of which, it seems that humans are mad.
But where you go to for truth is up to you. An insane guide can only serve insane perceptions and responses – under the illusion that we are special and see the sins in others – while our errors are of no significance. This sort of thinking WANTS to find what is wrong with everyone (else) as a mitigation of the experience of dissonance from being out of our Right Mind. Properly recognised, dissonance is a valid feedback by which to know we are out of true – and therefore call on or yield to truth rather than persist against dissonance as if to deny, escape or overcome it in terms that are then blending with the forms of our dream.
FD Apologies for the fat finger downvote. There is a problem culturally is there not? Truth is always accessible: it cannot be hidden. So why are we not living in utopia already? There must be millions of hours of self help books, videos, and the like: if it is as simple as pointing …why are we killing ourselves with ignorance? Are you sure you are not just trivialising a deeply intractable problem? If it is so simply solved: how come only a minority ‘get it’? Why don’t we just point and create the society we all want? We do not need to do anything at all to ensure boundless, luminous awareness. And yet boundless, luminous awareness seems to be almost entirely missing from our cosmology of loneliness, hatred and violence. How come these things even exist if all we need to do is point? The more one says; the less… Read more »
Why vote for or align under the ‘devil we know’ instead of embracing the ‘unknown’ onto which we project our unthinkable fear? Becoming aware of the blocks to a true awareness, is part of the growing of the willingness to release or move past them WITHIN awareness – rather than the attempt to chew on them some more as if something different (delay) can be gotten. While a fearfully defined ego gathers ‘intelligence’ for weaponising and protecting its sense of possession, the gathering of intelligence within a true desire is a true gift of being. The one we live from is the one we meet. While that is simple, the nature of receiving and sharing a gift is entirely DIFFERENT than the attempt to get for ourselves – and the old habit interjects agains and again at every turn. This is a call for persistence and consistency – while the… Read more »
FD
It is also a serious consideration, for me at least, where do we go? The wetiko culture of modern society leaves no space for refuge. It seeks to recuperate and cannibalise absolutely everything. It has already begun to consume itself. There are several possible outcomes we live in the shadow of that leave no room to hide. Or escape. Or possibly, even prevent. We are all in this together. I made my comment to point out that an aconceptual, nondual reality cannot be spoken of. Yet words are the only means of communication we have. So how do we say what we need to say? When language itself is the root cause of all confusion.
You can’t save the world Big B. No one can.
Politicians and politics are just another form of ignorance/entertainment.
Examine what your finger is pointing at. Ask the question ‘Who am l?’
We are not our names, our occupations or even what we believe we are.
We are simply Life.
Krishnamurti, Meher Baba, Ramana Maharishi, Douglas Harding, Barry Long, Jean Klein and a host of others have shown us the way.
Thought precedes language. Therefore Truth is only KNOWN beyond thought.
Babies and young children do it naturally, until we invade their minds with ignorance.
FD I realise that, but I can promote a better scientific understanding of the world we inhabit. When I examine the architecture for belief – for the Cartesian consensus reality that still prevails – it is based on outdated physics, biology and ontology. Redundant science that has come to serve a regime of truth and power. We are not separate, and even modern science verifies this position. But we are still analysing the world through a redundant separatist lens. Which is the entire root of the problem of why we – the wider we, not you or I specifically – cannot escape our entanglement with sectarian ontological duality. Depending on ones definition: awareness precedes language – thought does not. Thought – as in so called higher reasoning or intellection – is entirely where separationism occurs. It cannot emerge anywhere else. The limits of my world are the limits of my… Read more »
That you mean by thought is concepts of symbolic significance and association – which can operate as a jamming signal or distorting filter of perceived reality as distinct from knowing inseparable from being. Perception is always selective and rejective – that is it is dividing and defining its own sense of reality – as distinct from extending the line of its creation. This is the interjection of a personal or private sense of meaning by which a perfectly shared meaning or wholeness of being, is denied awareness – or the gaining of a world at cost of Soul – which IS feeling/knowing awareness. Awareness is not separate from the Idea of existence – and all facets of such existence. We associate awareness with a shifting attention but it is is never absent – so much as believed absent when our attention engages in its own thought process. The language before… Read more »
What would the ‘world’ be that might be ‘saved’ and from what? If the ignorance in which a world seems to arise is baseless, then we have a world of self-illusion given worship and sacrifice. In which case to wake from self-illusion is to wake from such a world and find something else. The something else cannot be translated to terms of a divided mind – but that doesn’t mean it has no existence. Rather it aligns with and reflects a true existence instead of a filtered distortion of a conflicted mind. Because self-illusion is a tango for two or more, the releasing of invested identity is always a shared recognition – as distinct from a private agenda – even private agenda in mimicking the forms and behaviours of ‘spirituality’. The power of the mind is far greater than any idea of power we might imagine. Because our ideas of… Read more »
Language/the mind is not the root cause, but rather the purpose to which it has been and is being put.
Weaponising and marketising are extensions of the idea of possession and control.
This purpose will seem to be our power, protection and survival – and so it usurps a relational responsibility with a systemic or conditioned association and reflex or ‘defence mechanism’.
Language/the mind – which are metonymic and co-evolved – is the root cause. There is no other cause: because we cannot experience anything outside of our conscious experience. (This is not a denial of the noumenal – the ‘Ding an sich’ thing-in-itself – merely the obvious but overlooked fact that we cannot experience it extra-consciously). In the standard Yogacaran mind process model: there is the reflexive self-awareness of the sensate actuality – the non-spatialised, atemporal, self-caused, self-generating life continuum. The five senses constitute the core consciousness – which is pre-ontological (sometimes called the ‘protoself’). This ‘level’ (the mind is stratified only in pedagogical and heuristic terms) is open and pre-linguistic. Open to images, paralinguistics, biosemiotics, and potentially (it cannot be ruled out) other forms of (paranormal) communication. This is the potentiality of a plane of pure experiential gnosis. [Though if there are special psychic powers – siddhis – these are… Read more »
Mind is Cause that is never apart from its Effect. We cannot have a subjective experience of this because it is our experience or the nature of being itself. I read you as using the model of a mind apart to make other models of minds apart that seem to be different from what they attack or deny – ie Descartes dichotomy. But they are the same at root – in the assigning of CAUSE to effects and making a mind subject to such a false flagged ’cause’. The attempt to organise wholeness into old wine paradigm thinking is what I see as marketising a sense of possession and weaponising a sense of control. The invocation of a sense of control and willing subjection to its dictate is the mind as limit to its experience of ‘overwhelm’ or chaos of conflicted purpose. Self-consciousness is an inhibitory mechanism. Self-awareness is unconflicted… Read more »
I’m wondering if the enormous scale of life is perhaps not detrimental to our well being. Pehaps we have lost sight of the human scale? In my mind, life would be less stressful if we lived in smaller communities, but now most of us live in cities where 99% of the population are complete strangers and indifference is rife. Malevolence can grow out of control in our current world and would certainly be easier to keep in check within smaller societies. Close knit families are becoming less common, so we have little sense of place or belonging. We “live” on the internet where we are mostly faceless or even utterly anonymus and globalism isn’t exactly helping the feeling of comfort or identity either. Most people are basically good natured, and most of us would rather choose a peaceful life as opposed to bickering and war. All being said, we all… Read more »
R.J.H, though in agreement about small being beautiful, I conversely think we small humans treading our little Earth are mostly not mindful of the scale of the Universe. “In my Father’s house are many mansions” — John 14.
“Did I say it was big?” — Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Universe.
You might like to read Aldous Huxley’s own answer to his “Brave New World”; his 1962 novel “Island.”
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Island-Aldous-Huxley/dp/0099477777/ref=la_B000APWRRY_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1552824918&sr=1-4
Sackerson, yes, when “Island” came out I thought it showed a new and less dessicated Huxley. Heralded the Hippie movement.
“Make Love not War”.
“All you need is Love, Love, Love / All you need is Love”.
“Where have all the flowers gone?”
“Here and Now”, “Compassion” – Buddhist principles. But of course the Island gets subverted by an invading oil company.
The intentional community movement has been going on for what…last 30- 40 years at least?
What if ? As a somewhat damaged sensitive human being and a landscape artist I have always been something of a fantasist, dreaming of a perfect world where all is shared, no hunger, no war, no psychopathy, no Theresa May the sociopath. Reared by two alcoholic doctors who thought they were God, I learnt early on in life that power corrupts, damages and destroys our sense of self. It is that vital sense of self in us that has been eroded by the likes of the venal Bernase, Chicago boys and the rest of the human filth that have very effectively co opted the bulk of the human race. I have tried to practice what I preach and have discovered to my detriment that there is not a whole lot of kindness and fellow feeling out there. It is as if the malignancy of the scum that rises to the… Read more »
It’s the Freudian dualism I am afraid – Eros and Thanatos. Life and Death. But it is no longer a question of good versus evil which perpetuated itself throughout human history. It is now a matter of survival or extinction. A fairer more human society is imperative, is not just an ethical question (although it is a good one) it is the only social arrangement which is possible, the alternative is extinction. The capitalist, neo-liberal, neo-con ideology is a death cult. They always remind me of those science fiction creatures, the Daleks, EXTERMINATE, EXTERMINATE.
@Francis Lee: “the Daleks, EXTERMINATE, EXTERMINATE.”
Or the Neocons, TAKE OUT, TAKE OUT.
As in U$ minister of War Paul Wolfoschitz memo to his attack dogs.
” And he said, “This is a memo that describes how we’re going to TAKE OUT seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran.” ”
About 20 years later, Syria and Iran are still standing up to the bully. Andre’ did a good job to show the humanity of Syria; as did Ramin Mazaheri for Iran.
PS “Pat Robertson, fundamentalist Christian guru and patron of the Jews for Jesus movement. He promoted on national TV the idea that the US military should directly TAKE OUT (sic) Hugo Chavez.”
By Jimmy Moglia: https://thesaker.is/tragicomedy-of-errors/
You are an excellent thinker and writer, just read your piece on Russia. Your dicotomy of alternatives is stark but accurate. No worries, something special is coming along which will preempt the lesser of the two options facing us.
A nice thought and yes in principle. We are slaves to a system that now owns us – we work in jobs we hate to buy things we don’t need, keeping up appearances to people we don’t even like. Crazy indeed. However we would never have developed the high technology we have now – ancient Greece and Rome was the pinnacle of what we could achieve with basic mechanical engineering whilst keeping a spiritual way of life. However now utililsing the technology we have it should be possible to have local agrarian type communities that are fairly self-sufficient (using e.g. poly-tunnels in colder climates, heated by geo-thermal). BUT it won’t work for a simple reason: human greed, sexual desire, power, minority group formation and laziness. People are simply too devious, greedy and lazy to make it work. We don’t all want to be the same. Gangs would form, people would… Read more »
John Lennon said the same thing in a different way (Imagine) almost 50 years ago and he had a huge audience. Since then we have only moved further away from peace. My only hope is that the MSM can be put out of business and courageous truth-telling journalists and writers and thinkers get their audience. While lies rule, what hope can there be?
Eddison, love your sentiments, and your truly caring concern for humanity and Mother Earth. I wish there were many more like you in this World. There are times I picture myself high up a mountain, living simply, in harmony with all; The Way, or living in a commune, with others of like mind sharing for the benefit of all – mutual aid, to echo Fair Dinkum. That is not my reality tho. I live in an inner suburb of Melbourne. I live in a World where Neoliberalism runs rampant, where countries are pillaged for huge profits to benefit the psychopathic 0.1℅, where countries that refuse to bow to the Masters of the Universe are targeted, or just bombed to smithereens, I live in a World where there is such divisiveness and hatred of the Other, the constant demonising of whole groups of people. Especially Muslims. And who benefits from such… Read more »
Have you visited the CERES Farm on Merri Creek Geezah?
https://ceres.org.au/
It will cheer you up.
Fair Dinkum: um, er, I’m actually close to CERES, been past it on the bus, but never gone in. Probably favorite location is up in the Dandenongs, near Kallista. Thanks for the tip. Sometimes you just gotta step back, and take in the beauty.
Thanks for the Link to Ceres Farm, have passed it on to my grand daughter who wants to be an Environmental Engineer.
Bit we have the power. WE ARE THE ONES THAT ACTUALLY HAVE THE POWER. The power to say no to all evil, that power to stop buying stupid, useless things that are the real chain, we have the power to stop using people and start using things. We have the power of RENUNCIATION. Renounce all the rigged system we’ve been tought for centuries prentending this is the “natural order”. I wish I know how to start such a movement where all the “what if” become real…but I didn’t, so I simply dropped everything. I left the supposedly “comfort” live a moved back into my “third word” island and then to a mountain top. I move to live simply and change all the stupidity and hatred society instilled on me….IT IS POSSIBLE….it just takes the honest, deep, strong willingness to break free from slavery and hatred. I did it and I’m… Read more »
Ramdan I understand and agree with your sentiments at the level of ‘the individual’, and well done for taking a brave stand. However this wouldn’t work logistically for global society. The point being made in the article is that radical changes need to be made in the global society if we are to tip the balance to harmonious existence worldwide. It isn’t just a case of turning one’s back on all that we, as individuals, find objectionable and leaving everyone else to carry on destroying themselves. “ANYONE CAN DO IT. WE ALL CAN. WE ALL CAN CHANGE THIS HATEFUL WORLD IN A WORLD OF LOVE…” Fine in principal but for this to succeed there has to be a will and desire to change. Unfortunately the actions of a number of sociopaths who currently control so much in society prove that for them there would be no merit in changing. Until… Read more »
Exactly right, Judy! And I have to say I’m a little deflated that so few people commenting here seem to have understood the main point the author was trying to make with this essay. Western tradition built upon teachings of basic human depravity and evil started bending and giving way to the notion that the good nature, altruism and peacefulness of ‘primitive’ peoples discovered centuries ago gave rise to what is derisively known as “The Noble Savage.” There has always been a push-back from ‘Christian’ and other western religionists, but the social sciences have been invaded and overrun by propagandists in recent decades taking us back to the former doctrine of evil. Since most of these “experts” like Stephen Pinker, who teach an absurd notion that basic principles of capitalism and international trade are making us less warlike, receive generous funding from the plutocrats who are destroying our world, it… Read more »
I underestand that this can not be applied on a large scale, but nothing can..at least not by imposition. That’s why the revolution starts within. The real struggle is within each of us, within our divided selfs.
Imposing a change will only achive temporary success. The change has to come from within each one. We can not change other people, that’s a fact. Unfortunately, we learn through painful experiences, intellectual comprehension has very little impact on daily human behaviour. It seems that Bob Marley was right on that “…many more will have to suffer…”
Awakening, (which is what this sleeping world needs) most times than not, stems from the muddy waters of a crisis.
“But we have to be honest also, that there are those on this Planet who are fully addicted to power and greed, and they will never willingly give that up.”
That’s true. They won’t give it up willingly, and we can’t beat them either, not yet anyway. What we could do is start networking. I feel like the more we come together the stronger we get.
I would like to see a new counter-culture revolution rising all over the world. I would like to see people getting together and dropping out of this destructive world order prison system that currently passes as society.
How is another question. I have some ideas, but they’re pretty radical, and I haven’t really ironed them out yet…
Thank you for your kind words, I appreciate it.
See also:
“100 Years ago: They tried, and if we don´t try again we´re doomed!”: https://wipokuli.wordpress.com/2017/11/12/100-years-ago-they-tried-and-if-we-dont-try-again-were-doomed-100-jahre-sie-haben-es-versucht-und-wenn-wir-es-nicht-wieder-versuchen-sind-wir-am-ende/
Sunday regards
In primitive societies if your house got burnt down everyone in your village would help you to build a new one. People never bartered but would just give each other stuff. If you needed a new pair of shoes and someone had a spare pair they would give you them, but the next day you would probably help him in the field, or something. People had great friends. Young women weren’t left all alone with a new baby, but their mothers and grandmothers would help out. Very young mums are very inexperienced, and at 16, or younger, were still children, but it it was okay because their mothers and grandmothers helped out. Young mums would spend time with other mums doing a bit of work, and so there was no loneliness. When the children became toddlers, some of the the mothers in the village would take care of the all… Read more »
Gorgeous article and the means to produce this sort of world community are within the vast majority of us. We need to take back the power we somehow ceded to the tiny minority of ppl Anthropologists like myself call Free Riders, now popularly called Socio/Psychopaths.
Christopher Boehm is the top Anthropologist promoting this theory, seriously recommend reading his books Hierarchy in the Forest and Moral Origins. This vid is a taster of his ideas: Altruism-Social Selection vs. the Notorious Free Rider https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1U1sJf0ad0
BULLSHIT ! …. A CONFORMITY HELL ! … An ANT – SOCIETY !
Isnt this the ” paradise ” promised by an endless row of egomaniac Demagogues ?….
As a Matter of Fact … the ” Vision ” is contrary to Human nature ..
which History has demonstrated .. unequivocally .
How was it Orwell said : ” We are all equal …. but some are more equal than others ! “
There is no question that people are driven by the desire to have advantage over others. The rich stand on the backs of the working class, who stand on the backs of the poor. Humans seem unable or unwilling to evolve beyond this point. Still, it’s pleasant to imagine a day when things would be different.
Ah the old “Human Nature” again! Which oddly enough always seems to conform to what the rulers want. But it’s a non-argument. They are saying, “You must have this because ….well this is the way it has to be!”
Oh and what History has demonstrated “unequivocally” is that capitalism will always produce wars, addictions, mass poverty, destruction of enviromnment etc.
It’s not bullshit, it’s not a conformity hell, and it’s not an “ant society” and, as a matter of fact, nothing accords to your warped vision of an inevitable dystopia which rests upon a single facile quotation from Orwell, whose predictions, by the way have not all materialised. Your use of capitals displays the your state of anger which prevents you from sharing the optimism of others who refuse to lie down, supine in arrogant resignation, in their sanctioning of this world to be turned into a living hell for all sentient beings. If you want to destroy the hopes of those around you, then carry onwards on your journey towards a tragic death.
Even rightwing assholes can’t deny what Frederick Engels called “Primitive Communism” in hunter-gatherer societies who lived off of what the local environments around them provided. Cooperation was paramount NOT competition or rugged individualism or any of the crap Ayn Rand tried to brainwash people with, mocking what is good and glorifying evil.
Like it or not, members of primitive communities do not/or did not regard individual desires as something to indulge or encourage! And that was because anything threatening group cohesion and unity could mean death for everyone in hard times.
Well said, Eddison. Reminiscent of a more innocent time: “In the beginning was the word, and the word was made flesh”. I also like RFK’s quote from GBS: “Some men look at things and ask why. I dream of things that never were and ask: Why Not?”. Why not, indeed? But as caveat, I am reminded of a film called “The Village” in which the community retreated from 20th Century Capitalism, but it didn’t end well. Look how the neocons go apoplectic at the the very word “Socialism”. And lest we forget, that whited sepulchre, Baroness Thatcher: “There is no such thing as Society”. Though the US Empire may be in its death throes, it may not be replaced by Utopia, but maybe a kinder version of Capitalism… Dream that the recent massacre of 50 innocents in Christchurch (how ironic?) might prove cathartic i.e. if we can mourn the loss… Read more »
Hugh, we pretty much know who did 9/11, it has been largely solved. I will post three films for you to watch which cover this properly, with all the supporting evidence. These film focus on the “who did it”. I strongly urge you to watch these films properly. There is more than 6 hours of original material here and I must have watched War By Deception 20 plus times, learning something new every time. FIrst time around leaves you a bit speechless to be honest. It’s a case of, “ah now I understand” WATCH THIS ONE FIRST – best and most comprehensive chain of events – “9/11 and War By Deception” Further evidence supporting War by deception – “9/11 An Inconvenient Truth” Christopher Bollyn DC 9/11/2017 “The War on Terror among Truth Seekers” I have been researching this since it happened and these films should really open your eyes to… Read more »
Could we rethink modern life?
Not fundamentally, as the world today is the brain child of the mind – in the service of the individual ego.
Only way out: individual spirituality (not religion!) to reach the Soul – the only solid replacement for the ego.
Same for nations, as they have Egos and Souls too. Not easy, but solid.
“the world today is the brain child of the mind”
What a load of solipsistic crap!
Why should Evolution stop with homo sapiens? The Ipad?
Are we having a non sequitur competition?
Oh and which “individual ego” is this marvellously compliant world in the “service” of?
What beautiful thoughts where humanity can go. Thoughts will manifest….let us give these beautiful thoughts life. Not impossible and negative thoughts but possitive and creative thoughts. Be careful of the words…. like impossible. Those are the deep training reactive thoughts we must change. It is the way, the only way.
Thank you for the questioning….now we must answer: Yes, lets do it!
Thank you. I think we are heading for some really exciting times!
Your Emotions and Optimism are admirable in terms of sustaining the human spirit, but the present situation will require something less ethereal. I hope what is on the way will validate your positive outlook.
Point taken. What is on the way is going be terrible for many people, especially those who are mostly unaware of the state of the world. It was poor word choice to use that phrase, “exciting”. For some of us the coming times will be a positive experience though, as we see masses of people waking up to the truth, and as we see a worldwide movement forming. As we begin joining together in solidarity, we will be glad to finally have found peers and community. We will be glad to have found an alternative to the current system. It is unfortunate that in order for people to wake up and see what’s actually going on in the world, they will have to be essentially shaken awake. This will likely begin to occur when the global economy collapses. Then, when people suddenly find themselves without food and supplies, they will… Read more »
I see a crash course in a stark recognition of an overriding need for sanity amidst a failure of capacity to ‘manage’ insanity. This is not so much about what to think – but how to think at all – because falsely predicated thinking is itself the insanity from which such a world arises in reinforcement. Currency of thought is rarely considered – even less than currency of exchange for goods and services that is largely hidden by the focus on getting stuff or paying bills. It is rigged to serve its maker. The uncovering of a true need to know arises from no longer hiding it or hiding from it. What we thought to know is baseless, and by it we have been long and deeply deceived by our own thinking – regardless the agencies of its association. Until such a recognition, deceit shifts and changes forms so as… Read more »
It could be coming sooner than you think – in a way that will take your breath away.
It could happen any time. I know. Sometimes I get pretty nervous waiting for it, but I don’t know what to do except to keep shouting about it. Mostly into the wind it seems, except from time to time when Off-Guardian publishes me… Right now it is as if we are seeing the first signs of a great tsunami swelling up in the seas way off in the distance. We’re trying to warn the people that trouble is coming. “Tsunami!”, we all cry. But they just shrug it off. “That’s not a tsunami, it’s just another wave.” They say. And so here we are, watching this thing growing bigger and bigger until by now it’s towering up above us. Still, the masses remain mostly oblivious, but the PTB are aware of it. The PTB are taking measures now to crack down on dissent, to lock down the flow of information.… Read more »
Crashing in slow motion – already deeply in the destructive – but part of its nature is the abnegation of consciousness for a managed substitution, which always was part of a mind split against itself under a narrative identity – but this in a sense being revealed to those who choose not to accept it. The waking up I seek to share is awareness of the choice being made, because without that awareness we are framed in different versions or polarities of the same choice. Shifting perspective is choosing one to let the other go. So ‘what if’ the disconnected sense of self results from a choice being made and not an externally dictated condition? Perhaps some curiosity brought to bear on this allows noticing what is otherwise overlooked and effectively airbrushed from consciousness by acting from it as a presumed reality. How many of the conditions are a result… Read more »
Spread the good news! To all sorts and conditions of men. After 2,000 years many have not yet heard the glad tidings.
But be tactful, people may be offended, it sounds so unnatural. Break it to them gently, or people might get cross.
“You must be as subtle as the snake and as harmless as the dove”. Because if you make people cross they will make you walk the way of the cross.
Wise words. Thank you.
It’s not possible, because we have no way of turning the culprits. They have stepped up tempo and intensity of binning and skewing information so a resistance movements may not form. We must spend more and more time on ‘shopping around’ and digital complications of life. 5G? Who needs it? Meanwhile, In the Golan Heights they drill for oil, Carlyle, Rupert Murdoch, Jacob R. – if we cannot prevent that they will have won.
What if all the evils being committed in the world could end? Dreams are the only thing left now.
” 5G? Who needs it? ”
Too right Wilmers, us oiks don’t need it, let alone all the serious health risks it offers us. Our masters need it tho, to hoover up the info those smart meters they SO want to foist on us, will provide.
Not possible.
All the parasitic financial elite would have to work for a living.
And that would never do.
Nothing is impossible, as they will ultimately discover.
It’s called Mutual Aid Eddison> https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_aid_%28organization_theory%29
Permaculture is a good example in agricultural terms> https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permaculture
Fair Dinkum, Mutual Aid, Wikipedia ref 4:
Kropotkin, Peter (2008). Mutual aid: a factor of evolution. [Charleston, SC]: Forgotten Books. p. 117. ISBN 160680071X.
Kropotkin, the great Russian Evolutionist and philanthropist. A man so good that his friends had to make a raid to spring him from gaol.
Tolstoy called him the ‘White Buddha’ Vexarb. But you probably know that.
No I didwnot know that. Good on Tolstoy, he was a bit of a White Buddha himself.