Day 8: Three toxic assumptions The Circle promotes.
I used to meditate. It was powerful for a while. It's time to do it again. This is an experiment for love. I will meditate every day and write. We'll see what happens. Sometimes, I won't post what I write for reasons you can guess but I promise I will meditate every day.
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I watched The Circle with Tom Hanks and Emma Watson. As a horror movie, it's great. It even has an uncomfortable ending.
If young men and women are watching this though, without a smart parent discussing it with them, it is a toxic influence.
As is the case in most movies, there are mentally ill assumptions that the audience is meant to accept.
The key assumptions I noticed in The Circle are as follows. They appear in many, many movies, especially sci-fi:
We are fundamentally naughty creatures who need to be supervised.
There is no possibility of radically changing without technology.
Corporations always win.
All of these assumptions are false. 100%. Historically, most corporations fail.
Learning about yourself resolves conflict and brings clarity that allows understanding. In that moment of understanding there is transformation. Remove all trauma and sorrow, and what remains is good. Our natural, fundamental life is good. It is insane to argue that people are fundamentally warring, violent, and bad. When was the last time you saw a baby stab someone out of angst or purely for profit?
If we believe that we are basically violent, and that nobody really changes, then why not use technology to evolve?
Using technology to "improve" mental health is like if a new driver learns to drive in a NASCAR car. You're just going to fuck things up and crash.
It's worse than this though. People aren't even aware of the extent of their mental capacity. The degree of change possible within the brain is extraordinary.
If meditation becomes visceral, tearing apart the fabric of your illusions, it allows for the channelling of infinite potential. Violence is seen as it begins in the mind and the understanding of it ends it, for good. No technology is needed and it is a hinderance if built with an Apple mindset.
The body is this incredible, infinitely intelligent thing. What if our capabilities haven't even been fully discovered? Now we want to "improve" upon our sickness with technology. Like how improved support in shoes leads to back and knee problems, any technological support will lead to dependance and more problems. Then new tech will address those new problems and on and on we tumble into disease . . .
But if you start with the thought that no one truly changes, then change really isn't possible. You'll never find out what's possible.
Have you noticed how there are very few good people in movies anymore. The protagonists are often psychopaths that we are supposed to root for.
The good guys and gals are alcoholics, addicts, violent and therefore mentally ill. We are sold attitudes and lifestyles that are dressed up in great clothes and perfectly proportioned faces but are literally mentally ill.
A teen watching a buff guy get all the ladies on screen and the scrawny guy being picked on, never forgets this. The brain records and emulates. In reality, physical appearance has no bearing on the quality of relationship or the level of contentment attainable. This is a fact but if you believe that appearance does have an effect, then people will treat you accordingly and you will attract who is like-minded.
Perhaps this is why there is nostalgia for the 80s. Older stories introduced a moral dilemma and brought the audience to clarity through the eyes of the protagonist.
There is no moral clarity anymore in the big box office hits. Movies, coupled with "news," create more confusion and controversy.
If all of this is by design or not, it's not important. Just look at what you can see and that is enough to make the heart scream for revolution. If the conspiracy theorists are completely right or totally wrong, the solution lies within.
There is no love on TV. There is no love in movies, news, or politics. There is very little love on social media. If there is no love, then there is self-interest, toxicity, and deficiency.
The solution? Develop mental health. Meditation can provide absolute immunity to influence but can't be undertaken casually as an extra-curricular activity. There has to be burning urgency to find out what is truly going on in your world.
If people spent half the time they spend watching movies enquiring deeply into the source of their sorrow, the world would radically change.
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by @skypal
Spot on!!
Today's media is really promoting the things, that which above you mentioned, the intrinsic value of a person is totally neglected. We become what we feed to our mind and we are constantly feeding it with the sources from the internet,memes,movies n all. Info dumb with the lies
Only way is to become aware and awareness become more strong with the Meditation.
Too true @vishal09, too true. Thanks for the comment.
done sir
These anti-life narratives are so pervasive. One beautiful eye-opener for me was reading Dr. Kirill Yeskov's The Last Ringbearer, which, IMHO, brilliantly reframes The Lord of the Rings, exposing it to be yet another fake narrative, peddling values that do not serve the reader.
So - last year? - watching The Hobbit, I was not surprised by its perverted violence. A shockingly bad movie.
It's difficult for me to watch the blockbusters now. I just get so upset that people don't even notice or question the "anti-life narratives." I guess people do, but not enough of them! The Last Ringbearer sounds interesting. The Hobbit was definitely worse than LOTR.
I was thinking of resteeming some posts, but damn it I can't get out of the circle jerk :D I love your thinking, it's spot on. I have to say I've passed through most newly added "media" I've watched a lot of movies and for the past 5 years I've almost stopped watching that crap, no plot no point, just gore and violence in one way or another, the art is gone for the most part. Same would go to music and websites, social media just makes you more of a "sheep" so herding becomes easy, what do we watch well what is on the top trending and what is most popular, why well, no reason we have no reason to think anyway might as well make it like we are smart :) call tech smart feel smart go on your merry way.
I did watch like 5 minutes of the circle from behind my father's back, since I can't really watch any more of crap like that, but does it want your interest like any other piece of "movie". But yes, total crap movie, I was wondering what Tom was thinking and what is wrong with those people, why would they be doing something so generally well bad, don't they have some morals, can't they chose what to take part in?
Also how did we get so swamped with bs from everywhere, the quality of everything seems to be going down in the past years, people are just producing content for the lowest common denominator, calling it quality and marketing the crap out of it, while somebody buys that without even thinking. I'm wondering where this rot is coming from and why do we have it :D
Hi j3dy, it's been a while. I always have to remind myself that many, many people think the same as us. So that gives me hope. Your comment is an example of that.
Why/how has it gotten so bad? That will be a question for history, if we make it that far. It's probably many things but advances in advertising research may be a huge factor. Our personalities are different but our basic desires are common among all humans. Creating content that appeals to the most people and offends the least is the most profitable strategy. This results in vapid trash like what we see.
I passionately stand by what I write which is that essentially, each one of us is responsible to deepen understanding of ourselves. When this is done, these kinds of techniques of influence and persuasion that "herd" the masses are no longer effective. In this sense, the external world is literally the result of the internal world. If this is true, then we have all the power.
Thanks for the comment.
Seems so, I just hear some passer by today say something about strategy and that got me to think the same thing, financial "advisors" play with your wants and greed, psychologists play with your mental patterns, psychiatrists, with your social behavior, or is it the other way around. The point is everyone is constantly bombarding you and paying to the best of their ability, we seem to be in a cold invisible war against ourselves, we don't use weapons, but we have weaponized our psychology and try our hardest to succeed. Whatever it would take, you have to sell that car, you have to push him the "service" he needs to have tv, she needs to want that, the kid needs to think about ... it never ends, it reeks of bad "karma" and everybody is covering it up with some form of entertainment.
Great comment, also I'm reminded of "the century of self" something I saw here, it's a good movie, I've been thinking about the recent history and how much has happened in just 100 years, the funny part is that if you try to understand and follow everything humanity has done, well good luck I'd need a few more heads :D
The century of self docu is really great. Your comment reminds me of this quote which I used on my last post, "...Truth, being limitless, unconditioned, unapproachable by any path whatsoever, cannot be organized; nor should any organization be formed to lead or to coerce people along any particular path" -Jiddu Krishnamurti
That's all everyone does is coerce and convince. It's a popularity contest of beliefs rather than a shared enquiry into what is true.
so yes question everything, don't make wrong assumptions or follow others blindly, respect is earned and don't buy that we govern you for your own good crap, they sit on their asses pulling strings, that's not leadership, that's not taking the blame when things go sour, that's not what a responsible and worth of respect human being would do.
Life is pretty simple and pretty good, fuck people trying to sell you their luxury and degraded mindsets. All that glitters is not gold, so live a life worth living and don't just think you do and don't give shit excuses and lie to yourself that the fact that everybody is doing it and well look my life has meaning all those people are grateful, I bet 95% of people in instagram will forget everything.
Basically trust yourself, learn from others (good and bad), question authority (because it seems to be rotting for the most part) and do the best you can with what you have :) we are given enough as it is :) we have a whole planet and a whole world to explore: inner, outer, breadth, depth so much so that we can't seem to grasp it and we forget what we were doing 10 years ago as a species.
Rant on :) :D
Amen! =) Authority is an illusion.