About two weeks ago I bumped into an article - a translation, actually, by Moise Guran, a well known local economist, of an article written by Tobias Stone, published in Huffington Post.
If any of you reading this speaks Romanian, here's the link to Guran's blog: http://www.biziday.ro/2016/11/14/istoria-ne-spune-ce-va-urma-dupa-brexit-si-trump/
...and for the rest of you people, here's the link to Stone's article, in English: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tobias-stone/history-tells-us-what-will-brexit-trump_b_11179774.html
I'm not a specialist, however, as a person living on this beautiful planet, I have an opinion and I'm gonna make it known here, for what it's worth.
I'll start with a couple of comments on Stone's article.
"It seems we’re entering another of those stupid seasons humans impose on themselves at fairly regular intervals." - yes, well, life is cyclical. Too bad this is true about humans being stupid, too.
"we humans have a habit of going into phases of mass destruction, generally self-imposed to some extent or another."
I don't believe that we, as humanity, have a self destruct button we need to push every now and then. I believe that we're led to this kind of events, and that this happens in sequences perfectly structured by beings who believe they have a right to control us on a global scale (the so called Elite or Illuminati). I know it's easier to throw the blame on "them", whoever they might be - I am not doing that.
We share the blame because of our lack of lucidity, of social awareness and our lack of unity in our responses. We seem to need atrocities to happen in order to be shaken up from our social indifference (or worse - the sheep like attitude - let yourself be led without questioning where and why).
It takes too much thinking and too much attention to notice that we do indeed live in a Matrix, so to speak. There's an ugly system leading us this or that way, according to an agenda of a few, but powerful and ruthless people.
As soon as one distances oneself - even the tiniest bit - from the system, one begins to see the connections. But it's a tiresome process, one that forces humans to let go of the illusive idea of living a [more or less] comfortable life. So it's easier to ignore it and thus it becomes necessary for those who prefer ignorance [for all the "comfort" it brings (seriously, people?!?)] to blame those who try to spread the truth about the ugly reality of our global social life.
It's this ignorance that allows for such dire circumstances to happen again and again.
If one understands that the old dictum "divide et impera" ("divide and conquer") is active in every aspect of our social life on a global scale, then it's easy to begin to see things clearly. However that's another story."They are only looking immediately around them, not at how events connect globally" - what a sorry truth.
"We should be asking ourselves what our Archduke Ferdinand moment will be" - yes, I'm curious about that, too.
"But based on history we are due another period of destruction, and based on history all the indicators are that we are entering one. It will come in ways we can’t see coming, and will spin out of control so fast people won’t be able to stop it. " I tend to agree with that, except that I can't agree to the idea that "we're due"; nope, we aren't due such a horrible thing, we're led to it. So call me a conspiracy theorist (although I don't construct theories, I merely observe what's going on).
"We need to find a way to bridge from our closed groups to other closed groups, try to cross the ever widening social divides." Yup, that's precisely it.
How much of Stone's article is a warning and how much a justification for events to come? Oh, blame a possible 3rd world war on humanity's periodic need to self distruct. Oh, bother. I'm not buying that. What I agree with is that as long as humanity as whole is socially ignorant, it will be led by this effing "elite" anyway they chose.
...the irony is, some people I know, who live in Sweden, at the idea of a possible world war, have begun to think about moving to Australia. To be safe.
Seriously?!?! I mean, in Romania there's that blasted Deveselu military thing, with the effing missile defence system (defence, my foot!); there's another American military base at Kogalniceanu, near Constanta... we're royally screwed in case of war. Still, I don't see people in my country thinking about emigrating to Australia, despite our rather bleak prospects.
I do believe it would be a lot better if we started to think in terms of helping each other instead of making absurd plans to save our skins. Some can do more, some can do less, but united we are powerful. I'm not talking about big heroic things here, simply about actions that, at times, help save lives. Such as sharing food, giving shelter, giving some sort of comfort. The tiniest good one can do, bound to another good action and another can create a chain of events that will change things for the better.
This has happened too, and my hope is it will happen again.
(image credit: heatherrovder.wordpress.com)
I really enjoyed your post...some interesting perspectives, most of which I share!
Thank you. :)
wait. are you romanian?
Yes.
tare! nu aveam nici o idee :)
:) Acum ai.
I have a more fatalistic view of humanity and war.
It's great that such a huge number of people value peace. But humans are emotional beings. Some of those emotions elicit violence.
So combat on a local level (one on one fist fight) and a global level seem inevitable.
Even "peaceful" times are dotted with skirmishes big and small globally.
I wrote The Allegory of the Trees some time ago. I'd like to hear what you think of it.
Okay, I'll try to read it today or in the next couple of days and make a comment.
Very generous of you. Thank you.
I've read it. Allegory aside - pretty obvious, right? - trees send a different message, in real life. Othen than that, you described a society where the common level of consciousness is Muladhara chakra, or the root chakra - with all its specifics, harmonious (less of that, in your text) and perverted (an abundance of that, in your text). I feel neutral towards your post - while I appreciate your descriptive power, the message gives me the creeps. :D
I appreciate you took the time. Giving the creeps is provocative so I'll accept that :)
I heard in interviews that when Neil Peart wrote the lyrics for "The Trees" he thought it would be humorous to envision trees acting with all the absurdity of human beings. Therefore the trees are meant to be people. The tree analogies sugar coat a hard pill to swallow.
My goal was to expand what he already started.
"Therefore the trees are meant to be people." - yes, I got that.
"My goal was to expand what he already started" - you did it - good writing, like I said, I appreciated the skill. I still maintain it gave me the creeps :)))
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Um, thanks. I appreciate your having a look at my post :)
Whether we're led to it (destruction) or innately drawn to it is a philosophy topic, as I see it, as I'm quite certain that our current understanding of psychology falls short of proving one way or the other.
There are so many questions that this brings up for me. First and foremost, do humans really have freewill?
You pointed out how life operates in cycles, and alluded to how it behaves like a fractal, similar types of cycles playing out at similar relative periods between short and long time-frames, for individuals and the collective of humanity. Well, perhaps everything is controlled by those "cyclical forces", call it "nature", if you prefer.
Perhaps we have a small amount of freedom to choose, but are more or less like a short-lived bubble resting on the surface of a gigantic ocean wave, our small part of the collective human consciousness causing the smallest of ripples on the sea, and the aforementioned cyclical force being the main driving force of the collective direction of humanity.
I tend to lean towards the idea that humanity is at the mercy of "hive mind", wherein we're unconsciously connected within "global mind", which dictates most, or all, of our actions in order to achieve the desired outcome for the collective of humanity. If this is true, then each individual is essentially a mindless cog to a machine, with a conscious experience of having freewill but an unconscious reality of having absolutely no choice whatsoever (it's more like we're running on an elaborate program), or such a small influence on the collective choice of now nearly 8 billion separate minds that it has virtually zero impact on the collective.
So, you could say, that we unconsciously elect those whom lead us to destruction, which is another way of saying that it was their fate to take on that appearance, as no freewill means that it was destined to happen that way, regardless of any individual illusions of having control over the apparent causes.
Well, as I see it, your reply is interesting, yet full of intellectual speculation. I don't know you so I have no idea whether you have an authentic understanding of the nature of the human mind. Reading your reply, I am inclined to think you don't, but I don't know for sure, so I will not form an opinion about that.
"do humans really have freewill?" - you know, one could answer yes and no simultaneously and still not tell a lie. It all depends on your perspective. I for one choose to believe we do have free will. Had I been educated in the Zen philosophy, I would probably have answered "Who is there to have free will?" or something like that, since the same philosophy states "there is no spoon" :D
Still, our culture states humans have free will; it's an empowering concept (and real, within the Creation, but the subject is too wide to be dealt with here). It allows you to realize you can change, transform, adapt, grow, evolve. Knowing that at all times, in all circumstances (there are absolutely no exceptions), you can choose your reaction to the events you're facing, gives you access to all kinds of inner ressources, such as depths of intelligence you wouldn't have thought you had in you, or extraordinary courage, or sacrifice - you get my point, I hope. Otherwise, you fall prey to the victim mentality - and then you're just as much to blame as your abuser.
"You pointed out how life operates in cycles" - yes, I did; "perhaps everything is controlled by those "cyclical forces"" - only up to a point. I believe that the only thing holding some power (okay, a lot of power) over the human conscience is ignorance; once you begin to become aware of your spiritual nature, once you begin to understand the structure of the human being, you become empowered. You are no longer a mere puppet at the whim of fate, you can take hold of your life and destiny and make what you want of them. It takes a huge amount of work, but it's doable. The irony is, most of your energy will be spent not learning new things, but un-learning a lot of stuff that is set in patterns deeply embedded in your subconscious.
"humanity is at the mercy of "hive mind"" - it all depends on the level of consciousness. Generalizing is a very bad habit. What is true for 3 billion people may prove an illusion for 23.000 different people.
I agree there's a collective subconscious that influences us all, but that power of influence is not absolute; understand how the mind works, get acces to your supermind and then you will find it's possible to break all set patterns. Again, this takes a lot of work (but it's worth it, in my opinion, and besides, it's a cool sort of pastime :D lol)
"then each individual is essentially a mindless cog to a machine" - umm, nope. The humans are differently constructed than bees. A human being has at his/her core a Spiritual Self, a soul, a sense of identity (ego) and a mind of his/her own. We are plenty of things, but mindless cogs isn't one of them.
"So, you could say, that we unconsciously elect those whom lead us to destruction," - sure, as far as speculation goes, one can always come up with such an idea. What I will say is that we're responsible for our actions and even for our lack of action. Karma translates like this: for every action, there is a correspondent reaction. This explains a lot of things in everyday life, there's no place for fruitless speculation there.
An ignorant humanity will always attract those who can and will manipulate them for their own purposes. The fact that we're ignorant doesn't absolve us from the consequences of our ignorance. Nobody stops us from awakening, from taking action. Information is always out there. We have the power to choose - whether to keep being ignorant, or to learn and act accordingly.
First of all, thank you for your well thought out response. I do appreciate it and I find value in a lot of what you say.
However, I'm not sure how one could have, as you said, " an authentic understanding of the nature of the human mind.", when all of our (scientifically based) efforts to understand consciousness have fallen far short of proving anything substantial.
As far as I can tell, what exactly consciousness is, and everything that it entails (the where, what, when, why, and hows?), is a big unknown for now and the foreseeable future. In other words, psychology is mostly speculation at this point, with a few seemingly useful theories when it comes to "dealing with" various types/ degrees of neurosis.
I fear that our current model of human psychology is akin to the pre-Galileo model of our solar system. It might seem to work, based on the limited ways that we can test it, but it's not outside of reason to expect that our very limited amount of tools and ways to test our hypothesis would render a model that falls short of capturing what it really is.
And, if we can admit this, then I'm not convinced that it can be proven one way or the other whether we all aren't just mindless drones, running on complex mind programs. Most, in the Western world, at least, seem to have this idea that the subconscious mind makes most of the decisions (something like 95%, IIRC) and that the conscious mind has control insofar as it has the power to "will" new programs into the subconscious, making it possible to will change.
But I'm not convinced that the evidence has been too substantiative on that model (the conscious programs the subconscious model, that is). It could just as easily be that the subconscious mind gives the illusion of having this separate "conscious mind", with it's apparent ability to will change (in the subconscious programming), or to make decisions in the moment. Any "progress" that appears to happen (let's say that a "self-hypnosis" therapy seems to render a positive transformation) might have already been planned out in the unconscious mind years ago. The problem and the urge to break free and all the suffering and struggling to make progress and the eventual transformation; all of it could very well be stored in the unconscious as a series of events to play out in a specific order, like a movie playing within the conscious portion of awareness, without the least chance that any little part of that story plays out of order.
Who am I to say whether or not that is the case? Who is anybody to stand up for, or against, such a claim? Who knows what's really going on with life, here?
Like I said to start off my first comment, this is a matter for philosophical debate. There's no "Truth" to be found here, only speculation.
"all of our (scientifically based) efforts to understand consciousness have fallen far short of proving anything substantial" - yes, true. However, my experience is not based on Western science - which has an extremely narrow-minded perspective on all things spiritual. My experience comes from putting in practice theory that comes from ancient Oriental cultures (yoga, Kashmirian Shaivism and such).
I'm not a ''believer'' - I question everything and accept what can be experienced. I don't care for speculation - it leads you nowhere; it merely wastes your time while allowing the mind to drown in an ocean of self-satisfaction (lol) - "Look at me construing theories all day long!"
I understand your point of view - naturally, I respect it.
It's just that, for me, it's like somebody telling me I can't fly, because they haven't seen any planes, while I already know it's possible, because I have flown quite a lot.
It's simply a matter of experience.
I have spent countless hours in meditation (questioning everything), countless more hours listening to Jiddu Krishnamurti, and many more hours reading over the words of R. Maharshi and Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, so I'm more than familiar with the "mode" of knowledge/ understanding that you speak of, and I do respect this approach....
....and I might be wrong here, maybe I'm just not as "advanced" as you are in the "self-knowledge" approach to know enough to speak at your level of confidence...
...but, I've come to the conclusion that it's all just an ego game in the end, both the knowledge by external observation method and self-knowledge approach, and, because the latter is so "close" to the senses (the "center", or "self"), I feel that it can lead to an over-confident perspective on matters, regarding this question of what is true and what is not.
In meditation I can get very "close" to the "root of my intuition" and become very sensitive to what I can only refer to as the experience of discovering seemingly self-evident facts about the nature of my consciousness, many of which come to me as surprises - I guess most people would call them "insights". All this is good and well, but I still see no proof there. My mind could still be tricking me.
I may go very "deep" and have many insights, but there's no way for me to know how far I've gone compared to how much is there. I'd like to think that I've "reached into my unconscious mind and exposed the full reality of my consciousness", but, for all I know, I might have never even left the relatively small bubble of conscious awareness and still have infinitely further to go to reach the unconscious limits, if they even exist.
There's no sign posts there, no ways to gauge if what's unveiled is a look into my true nature or an elaborate story that's made on the spot (presumably from the creative depths of my own unconscious) which only satisfy my senses in that moment as being true. How to tell?
As I see it, either approach (Western Science or Eastern "Self-Enquiry") requires some level of faith. Science works on the basis that matter is "real", and Self-Enquiry can only operate on the basis that intuition is accurate at discerning the real from the imagined.
Where does an honest "truth-seeker" begin? I suppose it requires faith.
"An honest truth- seeker" begins with questions and doubts - like you, me, and the rest of the bunch :))) I think we all go through a process of trial and error until we find something that works for us and it's also objective.
And again, your description shows you haven't gone too far with your introspection. Had I been you, I would have stuck to tangible proofs as well. (Besides, what works for me doesn't have to work for you - who knows in which way you'll find the answers you seek. Good luck with that!)
Our experiences don't contradict each other, they happen on different levels and are necessary steps in our evolution.
I am truly enjoying our mind encounter, I hope this will happen again sometime :)
I really appreciate existential posts like this and I look forward to seeing more of your content in the future. Hoping you’ll follow so we can connect and continue to evolve in our ongoing WTF! Remember, be yourself, because nobody else does it better -- Full #Steem ahead @kateblack :)
Much ❤
@Tayken