By

Cognitive Dissonance

 

This is the third in a series of fictional explorations into an individual’s awakening to the suddenly unfamiliar world around and within her while still engulfed by the day to day insanity. These short stories in letter form are intended for the more sensitive and inquisitive reader who wishes to look more deeply within and explore in depth their beliefs and perceptions as well as how to cope with a world gone frighteningly mad. It is the author’s hope to accomplish this by way of an intimate and revealing first person correspondence between two long time friends as they discuss her ongoing awakening. The first two chapters may be found here.

 

Dear Marie,

It was good to hear you are beginning to settle in after several months of personal turmoil and distress. The shock and awe that results from first light, that initial rush of awareness and revelation as our awakening begins to take hold, is unlike anything we have ever experienced and can at times be very frightening and quite frankly revolting. When I began my awakening I was never quite sure whom I was angrier with, the lies and liars I discovered all around me or the most egregious liar of them all, the formerly complacent and complicit liar I found lurking within.

After the first wave of fear and nausea passes we tend to go numb as a sort of psychological defense mechanism to protect our psyche from an overload that could lead to severe psychosis. Underneath this unnatural calm there remain conflicting urges to flee the insanity, to pull the covers over our head and hide from the beast, and the growing wellspring of rage at the machine and the urge to strike back. This is a very dangerous time for us and it is important for us to seek guidance and balance or we can quite literally go off the deep end. Think of it as suddenly being shaken awake from an extremely frightening dream, only to realize the ‘reality’ you have awaken too is in many respects several orders of magnitude worse than the dream you just left.

This brings me to the thrust of your last few letters and the subject which presently disturbs you so deeply. I promised you I would get back to you on this, so without further delay here I am. You speak about the horrific realization that everything around us appears to be a bald faced lie with a macabre facade painted on the surface for the benefit of our denial. In particular you mention those private, public and governmental institutions you formerly trusted, even if only up to a certain point. Often what we describe as ‘trust’ is in reality a debilitating dependency hidden by deep denial. None the less it still feels terrible when it has been violated, particularly when we enabled the violation.

There is no way to adequately describe the shock one feels when a person first learns they are sleeping with the enemy and could easily become its next victim. In many respects by awakening you disturb the beast that lay beside you, thereby risking the potential to draw unwanted attention to yourself. We learn very early in life to keep our head down and to go about our business. So when we begin our awakening, in many respects we are doing just the opposite. To discover those we have blindly trusted have repeatedly violated us in a most personal and intimate way is so far beyond disturbing that at times it escapes accurate description.

Suddenly we see very clearly how for decades there were dozens of warning signs we deliberately ignored or flat out denied. This ugly realization alone is the primary reason so many abandon their journey before they have even begun and rush headlong back into the warm embrace of blackout living and willful denial. Our personal revelation can bring on wave after wave of self revulsion and depression. However, nothing will be gained by loitering here for long. To pull out of this downward spiral we must make a deliberate conscious decision to abandon this self defeating paralysis and move towards healing and growth.

The emotions you describe in your letter all revolve around the emotions of violation and the fear this realization generates. Or should I say the fear you are programmed to experience. Before I speak of specifics we need to pull back and find the proper perspective if we are to reach a higher understanding. It is one thing to be lied to once and done, another entirely to be lied to continuously and in many cases (in retrospect) obviously. While in the first instance you might rightly be declared a victim, in the second you cannot, at least not in the purest sense of the word because it is much more complicated than black and white, right and wrong, victim and perpetrator.

In no way is what I am about to discuss to be construed as justifying or condoning their lies, cheating and theft. These people violated, and continue to violate, a public trust and their fiduciary duty, a much higher standard of conduct than simply holding up their hands and promising they will protect and serve. They should not, and will not, get a pass from me on this matter.

But (and you knew there was a ‘but’ coming Marie) we are discussing you and your reactions to these revelations and violations. Since you cannot personally make them do anything to reverse or rectify the wrongs they have perpetrated against you, this is all about you reaching a greater understanding of yourself and why you feel the way you do in order to begin the healing. I do not wish to discuss the specifics of who did what, when and where, or of the violations to you and me because as difficult as it may seem to understand, the specifics are immaterial at this point in the awakening process.

Because we have been conditioned to do so, when we first discover the massive lies and conspiracies which are part and parcel of the world of the elite, the corporate and banking world and of course all levels of government, our first tendency is to dive into the minutia and details of the actual wrongdoing, along with the various cover stories and smoke screens. We want to believe if only the information about their heinous crimes were more widely known and disseminated the public would react in righteous indignation and throw the bums out, then burn them at the stake.

This is a mistaken belief that is tragically and endlessly repeated over and over by every newcomer and sadly perpetuated by many veterans as well. It is just another hamster wheel created to distract and exhaust us, a part of the social control system to keep us endlessly chasing phantoms rather than health and healing. Logic dictates if these people are able to pull off the level of crime, corruption and traitorous actions they clearly are capable of, they are obviously receiving protection from each other as well as from higher, more powerful people and entities. In other words, the system at this level protects its own so it can protect itself.

That is not to say you should abandon your research into the who, what, when, where and why of these events, as well as the overall corrupt business dealings they are engaged in and which are shrouded under the cloak of misdirection and layers of deceit. No real harm can come from a greater understanding of how the sociopaths and their enablers ply their craft and why we always fall for the same stupid misdirection dog tricks. Knowing ourselves and those around us is never a waste of time if our intentions and motives are squarely aligned with our actions.

And it is here, while searching for our real motives, that we find many of our own lies clouding our intentions and distorting our thinking. After overcoming the initial fear that comes from discovering our protector is in fact our tormentor and potentially our killer, a fear we must examine more closely, we then move on to the next stage, that of sounding the alarm. But first let us explore the fear, because as we awaken we will discover our fear, in all its forms and permutations, is behind nearly everything we do, and react to, on a daily basis.

Of utmost importance here Marie is for you to recognize, and then accept, that the dangers you speak of and write about have always been there. It is you who have changed, not your surroundings and most certainly not the machine. The government has always been your enemy and not your friend; those multinational corporations have always pursued power and profit first at yours and my expense; the education system is designed to condition and indoctrinate, not liberate your mind, and your family is just as asleep as you were and maybe even more so. This was always the case with the danger partially hidden behind an obscuring lace veil. The only difference now is you have looked into the abyss and are shocked by what you have found.

What is the central difference in our mind between walking down the center aisle of our local supermarket and walking down a dark downtown street at 2 AM? I would argue that seen from the point of view of personal danger there isn’t much difference from moment to moment, though over longer periods of time there most certainly is. Yet in practice these two worlds are far removed from each other, with the supermarket perceived to be much safer than the darkened late night street.

It stands to reason you will act more openly and freely in the supermarket then on the street, particularly if you always shop at the market and rarely if ever walk the late night street. So the level of danger you feel is more perceptional than actual with the familiarity of the market, along with many other people present who are just like you, greatly reducing one’s perception of danger. It is not the actual danger that is alarming to us as it is our perceived proximity to danger that gets our blood racing. We use rationalization and subtle denial, in all its petty forms and functions, to distort our perception of many the dangers which in practice are always present and all around us.

Thus while shopping in the supermarket you aren’t overly concerned with who is behind you or walking past, who is standing next to you while you select a steak or reach for the frozen peas. Nor who is waiting in the checkout line directly behind you and within two feet of your purse. While this might all seem obvious, the point is you are not concerned to any great extent with your personal safety while in the supermarket, yet you would be on the late night street, even if statistically from moment to moment you might be equally as safe. People are robbed or assaulted in the supermarket and have their wallets and purses stolen while in the mall, retail store or parking lot.

On a day to day basis we go about our business giving very little thought to our personal safety or even to those around us. While we know crime does exist and we may even know a friend or family member who has been ‘victimized’, it all takes place at a distance from us physically, mentally and emotionally. We take for granted, barring extraordinary circumstances, that we are not presently in danger. In many ways this is a naïve approach to life and it certainly sets us up for a real shock to the system when the inevitable violation occurs.

But since we are not trained or conditioned to view the world much beyond the next few hours, maybe days at the most, we simply assume what happened last minute will happen this minute and again during the next. And make no mistake about it Marie, how we are trained to see and perceive reality makes all the difference when creating and interacting with reality.

The odds are very high nothing will happen to us from moment to moment, which simply acts as real time confirmation of our conditioned bias. But it also breeds complacency within us and the emotional perception of safety we so desperately desire when we do not wish to assume responsibility for our own personal safety or sovereignty.

This is why we often bemoan the lack of police or some other authority figure when the inevitable happens. While intellectually we know the police react to crime, not prevent crime, since we have sub contracted out the responsibility for our personal and emotional safety, clearly it must be the sub contractor’s fault when we are harmed. It does not matter if the sub contractor was incapable of doing the job in the first place or even wanted to do so. Since we have abdicated our own personal responsibility we must now find emotional cover when things go wrong. And they always go wrong, thus proving the lie we can avoid accountability in the first place.

Sitting there while reading this, you might be tempted to intellectualize this discussion and claim you don’t engage in this behavior. And it is so easy to explain it all away because everyone else is doing the same thing at the same time. But Marie we have talked in the past about how in practice many of our decisions are emotional or impulse based and only afterwards do we rationalize them, thus validating our own ‘intelligent’ choices. This in and of itself is the core function of denial, separating the emotional animal from the rational being as if they are two different entities, when in reality they are just two dissimilar faces of the same beast.

Before moving on let me emphasize once again that all of us to some extent or another expect external authorities to protect and serve us. We have been conditioned to believe this is why we pay our taxes instead of those taxes being tribute to the state the payments really are. That is supposedly why we gather as large loosely connected tribes within clearly defined physical and cultural borders, for our collective and individual benefit and self defense.

But this also leaves us particularly vulnerable to the collective as well as to individuals within the collective who do not abide by the rules and who, while doing so, are protected by the collective to further other people’s individual or collective goals. This is the corrosive effect of systemic and wide ranging corruption, to turn nearly all ‘law abiding’ members of the collective into a pool of captive victims waiting to be exploited. For those individuals who depend upon the collective for sustenance, protection and emotional support, thereby becoming dependents of the collective, they are seen as little more than fish in a crowded pond to the predators.

I contend this love/hate relationship is responsible for much of the underlying fear we experience from day to day. While we rarely acknowledge our vulnerability to the collective, on a subconscious level it is blatantly obvious, thus we always live in a state of low level fear and apprehension. But our fear is hidden from view because it has been culturally assimilated by us within us. It is given different, more pleasant sounding names in order to be widely accepted as part of modern life, thus natural, normal and no big deal.

For example, while we are conditioned to believe the local police are there “To Protect and To Serve” in reality they are the local armed enforcement division of the protection scam called government. They are the armed revenue generating agents of the local tax ‘authority’ and the private security force for the financial elite. They protect the property of those who control their salaries while violently subduing peaceful protestors of the elite in response to their agent provocateurs inciting a riot.

When we see flashing lights in our rearview mirror we can safely say our heart does not leap for joy with the prospect of another encounter with those who protect and serve, but rather a rush of fear flashes over us as we quickly assess what the damages will be during this latest bald faced extortion exercise. After the officer has pulled us over and run our plates for wants, warrants and outstanding protection payments, he doesn’t walk to our car with a hand casually draped over his service weapon because he wants to give us a warm welcoming hug.

When the IRS comes calling with a notice of extortion demanding payment, saying we owe more of our ‘voluntary tax’ than we have declared, suddenly we realize the IRS has the legal right to assume we are guilty while the burden of proof of our innocence falls upon us. Worse, if we protest too much we are hauled into a special ‘tax’ court where the rules of evidence and self incrimination are stacked against us. It is then we realize the smart move is just to pay the cost of defense (the penalties) plus the original levy rather than fight the rigged system. Chalk up another personal violation.

But even these examples are obvious when given serious thought and a clear eyed assessment of what is really going on. What is chillingly frightening to you is the realization nearly everything you believed in, the basis by which you lived your life and pursued your interests, vocation and entertainment, is the polar opposite of what you thought was true and correct. Worse, not only is your government not your protector but it might just be your mortal enemy.

Essentially you are discovering you live in a dream world Marie and most of what you believed real is not only false and fake, but deliberately conceived to deceive our perception of reality in order to control and exploit. This strikes to the very heart of what we are conditioned to believe “We the People” are as well as our small part in this promoted reality. Rather than the shining beacon of global truth, justice and the American Way, you are beginning to recognize those who run this country are true psychopaths and ‘our’ country is closer to a banana republic than a representative republic. Worse, it appears we are the biggest rotten banana in the global bunch.

Relatively early in life, say around mid to late teens, we have already created an internal world view which, while flexible enough to be changed slightly to accommodate the movable feast of world events, is still firmly anchored in cement by fundamental ‘beliefs’ indoctrinated into us from birth by well meaning fellow ‘believers’ and/or captive wage slaves dependent upon the machine to create their reality and feed their family.

The propagandized illusion of national wholesomeness and moral certainty, while increasingly under assault by the growing mass awareness that something stinks in the wood pile, basically remains intact precisely because our semi flexible worldview accommodates selective reasoning, denial and narcissistic fantasies. But when viewing the full Monty of the police state and its control apparatus, combined with the clarity of a growing awakening, nearly all of us suffer some sort of breakdown on both a psychic and spiritual level, leaving us isolated and broken and desperate for fellow support and affirmation.

For nearly all of us this is simply too much to bear and we rapidly retreat to the sweet bliss of feigned ignorance. Don’t ask, don’t tell works quite well for most individuals who have previously peaked into the abyss and are desperate to forget not only what they saw, but the social implications it has for them. Obviously an emotional and psychological transition must take place here if we are not only to recover our feet, but to move forward towards recovery and rejuvenation.

And it is here dear Marie that I return to the subject of sounding the alarm. By this I mean any attempt by us to warn and/or rally those around us in order to facilitate systemic change and reform as well as to develop allies for personal protection and empowerment. Our instinct when leaving one tribe is to either join or create another one if for no other reason than to replace the collective affirmation we no longer receive from the tribe we abandoned.

As in all things in life our intent is often more important that our actions. If we are sounding the alarm out of personal fear, then fear is precisely what we will project, consciously and subconsciously, when talking to others. Since the people we talk to also harbor an internal discomfort and disconnect which they do not acknowledge, thus they are on edge if only on a subconscious level, they will sense our projected fear and react with revulsion and rejection. Nobody wants to get too close to the crazy person, especially when that person is proclaiming ‘truths’ contrary to their consensus belief.

Because of this projected fear, along with the prevailing denial of those being ‘warned’, many newly awakened make almost no headway when sounding the alarm which in turn increases their sense of isolation and desperation and thereby their fear. It is a vicious positive feedback loop which usually ends in emotional exhaustion and possibly even a mental breakdown. At the very least many become depressed and despondent which, when combined with their inevitable social withdrawal, further encourages others to label them as malcontents or even mentally ill.

Marie……this is why we must suppress the instinct to fight or flight and immediately begin the work within. Only after we have come to grips with this terrible emotional trauma and are settled not only with our prior participation, but also the inevitable personal changes we must enact if we are to embody what must be done in order to facilitate our partial or full withdrawal from the insanity, can we move forward with our life. How much and to what extent only you can determine, but certainly no settled decision can be made until and unless you have begun the personal soul searching work of self discovery.

Many of the newly awakened, as well as countless veterans, spend nearly all their time bargaining with their awakening instead of focusing on their healing. For far too many the awakening itself is the nightmare rather than what they are awakening to. While some will claim otherwise, often those who are awakening just want the system to be ‘fixed’ so they can go back to sleep. I know many who feel it is an injustice they must be the ones who are awakening, thus the carrier of the burden of contrary information and knowledge, rather than recognizing the wonderful gift they have been bestowed.

Once you arrive at a fork in the road you must make a decision. Make a choice, be settled with it and move on. If need be Marie you can always revisit that decision, though oftentimes if you attempt to do so you will find yourself so fundamentally changed from the journey itself, either you won’t need to revisit or once back there the same choices will no longer be there. It is only when we continue to bargain with our ‘self’, either before, during or after our (in) decision, that the damage is done and reinforced. It is this constant state of tension, this unwillingness to seek centering and to be settled in our new role in life, that exaggerates and inflames our fear and isolation.

Obviously this is easier said than done and ultimately no matter how much encouragement and support you receive along the way, your journey is a solo affair. As difficult as it may seem for you now, please recognize you have entered the beginning of the end of your mindless dependency upon the collective machine and external authority. From this point forward how well you handle yourself and your recovery depends entirely upon how willing you are to step away from the herd and explore the space within. I promise you this much; once you recognize the only thing you have to fear is fear itself the emotional release you experience will be life altering.

Go ahead and take that first step. If you are committed and have faith that the process will be life changing and healing, it will be all that and so much more.

Beside you always,

Jonathan

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Cognitive Dissonance

08-25-2014