The inescapable inevitability of the truth cannot be avoided forever. The true power of the truth comes from the simple fact that it is what it is. What is true remains forever true and no amount of obfuscation or avoidance or other sort of manipulation of it will ever undo it. The truth is reality and anything other than it exists only in our minds as a mental fabrication, a hallucination via which we divorce ourselves from the real.
When we as individuals or as a society embrace truth, no matter how hard doing so might be, we come closer together. By speaking the truth we cast back the shadows of doubt and deception that cloud our comprehensions of what is really going on with our lives. There is no greater strength than the complete surrender to and acceptance of the truth as we know it, and as we bring it to others so that they too may know. As human beings we are all inherently linked to each other, we are all tied together in the struggle of life... the struggle of survival. As human beings we are all given the perception of just a miniscule slice of the entire experience of reality. We are gifted with the ability to communicate and to inform, to share and to enlighten each other with our perceptions of our shared reality. In my opinion we are obligated to each other to be honest and open with our thoughts, because the inescapable truth of the matter is that the thoughts we have are not OUR thoughts. Our ego simply believes they are. The thoughts we have are the manifest perception of the mechanism of life and that mechanism is shared and experienced by everyone.
I am honestly coming to believe that no matter what, the truth is absolute and in order for society to be whole and healthy, it must be told. So often we get caught up in our lives like they are scripts to a movie that we are writing. We get caught up in our desires and wants and our little games that we play to make those things happen. With withhold our thoughts from each other. We fail to fully inform or to freely speak our minds out of fear that doing so will some how jeopordize what we are working toward. By doing so, by focusing so fully on ourselves and failing to share ourselves fully, openly and honestly, we move further away from the root of existance. A healthy person believes that things will be alright. A healthy person embraces reality for what it is and takes what comes.
Some people talk about getting closer to God. Others talk about letting the light shine. If God truly is all around us and part of each of us, then the truth is that we are one with God when we talk about it. If letting light shine clears the mind, then the truth is the light which dispells all of the darkness and clouds that obscures our perception of reality. The most active battleground in the fight for truth exists within each of us. The battleground is within our minds. Every second of every day we are faced with what is right in front of it. We are confronted with our perceptions of it. Do we accept it as it is, or do we allow our mind to attempt to make sense of it, to mold it and put it in the context of something else? The mechanism of life and death exists right there, balanced upon the pintip of perception. Do you accept, or do you ponder? Acceptance is freedom. The truth is liberating.
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Monday, April 14, 2008
The addiction of Consumerism
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0804/S00184.htm
The above linked article has me thinking about Consumerism as a form of addiction in our society. In our society we are told to consume; food, drink, drugs... to spend; our money that we've earned, money that we've yet to earn with credit cards... to acquire; material things like cars, clothing, homes, electronics and others on a list of endless wishes upon which new things are added by the dozen every season, always better than the previous model they are replacing. The need to consume is an addiction that is socially okay, in fact it consists as the bedrock of our economy.
I decided to blog on this because it is an important issue for me. As I have begun my own spiritual journey, I realize how lonely the path that I walk is. Although I find that during my discussions with others many people inherently understand where I am coming from, I have yet to find less than the number I could count with one hand who seriously persue it. By "it" I mean the embracing of the core of our being, our spirit. By it I mean the understanding that the mind and body are connected inseperably. I have yet to find many who remain consciously aware of the effect of the consumer context on our society. It is just so invisible to so many people that they never really question it, or ponder it. At this point in my life I am seeking to offer up alternatives, and manifest a freedom from it in my own way of being. I find a lot who are half way there... they understand that friends and family are a key component of happiness, yet their interactions with those groups are limited to the context of consumerism... clubs, sporting events, movies, shared interest in television programs. Very rarely are the bonds formed based on spirituality or service to the community.
Like many of my blogs, this is going to seem like a disjointed rant because well, that's what it is. This is how my mind works. It picks up in the middle and leaves off somewhere short of the end. I'm always becoming aware of these cyclical trends that are constantly recycling themselves through life.
The article states that, "Most professionals will agree that the purpose or function of an addiction is to put a buffer between ourselves and the experience or awareness of our emotions. An addiction serves to numb us so that we are out of touch with what we know and what we feel."
I can't help but think that we numb ourselves to the reality of the unsustainability of our culture. We know that as a society we can't continue to consume more than our fair share of resources. As conscience human beings we just can't face the fact that a good portion of the world is starving to death while we live in excess. So rather than deal with it, we exhalt our lifestyle... we hold it up as the pinnacle of human success. As our souls wither away, as we enslave ourselves to the system through debt, we none the less keep the television on with its images of life at the extremes. We watch it continually morphing, the same old cycle of what was cool last year being pushed out of the way by what is cool now. That what is cool now was cool thirty years ago and is simply being recycled never really enters into our minds. That what is cool now is simply the continuation of spending as much as possible on whatever is new, while always going to the new spots, having the new things, meeting new people and coming up with new ideas never gets old. The underlying mechanism stays the same, the content just changes... iPods become iPhones, minivans become SUVs, vodka martinis become mojitos while the discos become house clubs and whiney Emo bands replace angst ridden punks on the radio.
Because consumerism has become the context in which we live our lives, it has become invisible. We don't mind the chains that we put ourselves in because we are conditioned to believe that we really want them. Even so far back as elementry school I can remember lunch boxes, Trapper Keepers and backpacks, each with their own associated status depending on the cartoon, design or maker of the product. We become conditioned to focus less on what the actual object is, but specifically what KIND of object it is. It isn't enough to have a television, it needs to a high definition, 1080p TV with the associated entertainment center. It can't just be a computer, it needs to be an Apple Macintosh. You can't just have a cellphone that dials numbers, it needs to be an MP3 playing iPhone with integrated touch screen. The objects themselves become the material for conversation. The ability to acquire the objects becomes a built in definer of class, of social status and position in the hierarchy.
The above linked article has me thinking about Consumerism as a form of addiction in our society. In our society we are told to consume; food, drink, drugs... to spend; our money that we've earned, money that we've yet to earn with credit cards... to acquire; material things like cars, clothing, homes, electronics and others on a list of endless wishes upon which new things are added by the dozen every season, always better than the previous model they are replacing. The need to consume is an addiction that is socially okay, in fact it consists as the bedrock of our economy.
I decided to blog on this because it is an important issue for me. As I have begun my own spiritual journey, I realize how lonely the path that I walk is. Although I find that during my discussions with others many people inherently understand where I am coming from, I have yet to find less than the number I could count with one hand who seriously persue it. By "it" I mean the embracing of the core of our being, our spirit. By it I mean the understanding that the mind and body are connected inseperably. I have yet to find many who remain consciously aware of the effect of the consumer context on our society. It is just so invisible to so many people that they never really question it, or ponder it. At this point in my life I am seeking to offer up alternatives, and manifest a freedom from it in my own way of being. I find a lot who are half way there... they understand that friends and family are a key component of happiness, yet their interactions with those groups are limited to the context of consumerism... clubs, sporting events, movies, shared interest in television programs. Very rarely are the bonds formed based on spirituality or service to the community.
Like many of my blogs, this is going to seem like a disjointed rant because well, that's what it is. This is how my mind works. It picks up in the middle and leaves off somewhere short of the end. I'm always becoming aware of these cyclical trends that are constantly recycling themselves through life.
The article states that, "Most professionals will agree that the purpose or function of an addiction is to put a buffer between ourselves and the experience or awareness of our emotions. An addiction serves to numb us so that we are out of touch with what we know and what we feel."
I can't help but think that we numb ourselves to the reality of the unsustainability of our culture. We know that as a society we can't continue to consume more than our fair share of resources. As conscience human beings we just can't face the fact that a good portion of the world is starving to death while we live in excess. So rather than deal with it, we exhalt our lifestyle... we hold it up as the pinnacle of human success. As our souls wither away, as we enslave ourselves to the system through debt, we none the less keep the television on with its images of life at the extremes. We watch it continually morphing, the same old cycle of what was cool last year being pushed out of the way by what is cool now. That what is cool now was cool thirty years ago and is simply being recycled never really enters into our minds. That what is cool now is simply the continuation of spending as much as possible on whatever is new, while always going to the new spots, having the new things, meeting new people and coming up with new ideas never gets old. The underlying mechanism stays the same, the content just changes... iPods become iPhones, minivans become SUVs, vodka martinis become mojitos while the discos become house clubs and whiney Emo bands replace angst ridden punks on the radio.
Because consumerism has become the context in which we live our lives, it has become invisible. We don't mind the chains that we put ourselves in because we are conditioned to believe that we really want them. Even so far back as elementry school I can remember lunch boxes, Trapper Keepers and backpacks, each with their own associated status depending on the cartoon, design or maker of the product. We become conditioned to focus less on what the actual object is, but specifically what KIND of object it is. It isn't enough to have a television, it needs to a high definition, 1080p TV with the associated entertainment center. It can't just be a computer, it needs to be an Apple Macintosh. You can't just have a cellphone that dials numbers, it needs to be an MP3 playing iPhone with integrated touch screen. The objects themselves become the material for conversation. The ability to acquire the objects becomes a built in definer of class, of social status and position in the hierarchy.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)