(Plato had much to say about modern day ideological blindness.)
Nearly everyone thinks of the United States of America as a place, a physical location, some place you can live, visit, touch and see. And nearly everyone is wrong.
The United States of America is an ideology, a thought meme, a belief, a political religion, a concept and an idea. I am reminded of this every time Mrs. Cog and I head southeast down the mountain and cross over from Virginia into North Carolina. Other than a few road signs and a change in the pavement (clearly two different companies at two different times from two different directions paved right up to the border and no further) there is no discernible difference. Continue reading Shadows on the Cave Wall→
Like so many others who have followed a slow and rocky path towards a greater awakening and understanding, certain key events tend to be remembered more vividly than others. However, this doesn’t mean a particular event or awareness was our first or initial exposure. On the contrary, similar to Chinese water torture, it’s not the first drop that drives your awakening, but often the hundredth, the thousandth or ten thousandth.
It was 17 years ago that this particular noggin’ knock shook me to the core, mostly because it showed me how blind I was to the world around me. When deeply and seamlessly immersed within the altered realty we believe is normal everyday life, so much is readily apparent only to those who are actively looking or genuinely receptive. Continue reading For Domestic Consumption: Divide and Control Is Working Brilliantly Once Again→
The other evening I amused myself by watching, for the fourth time at least, “No Country for Old Men”, a movie adapted from a novel by the same name and produced by the Cohen brothers. Though I’m not certain ‘amused’ is the proper term for what I actually experience when viewing the carnage from all corners of the universe as depicted in this movie. Each time I enter the realm of this ‘fiction’ something different within me is deeply disturbed.
When I was a young man I knew someone quite similar to the character Anton Chigurh, an emotionless, compassionless killing machine. The person I knew frightened the piss out of me every time I interacted with him simply because I never knew what the hell he would do next, though I always knew what he was perfectly capable of doing next if his deranged spirit so moved him.
