This is the second in a series of fictional explorations into an individual’s awakening to the suddenly unfamiliar world around her while still engulfed in the day to day insanity. These short stories in letter form are intended for the more sensitive and inquisitive reader who wants to look more deeply within and explore in depth their beliefs and perceptions and, most importantly, how they can cope in 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 their ongoing trials, tribulations and revelations.

Even though most of us come to Zero Hedge to learn, laugh, share and even rant, ultimately many of us are all alone as we cope with our awakening. While Tyler & Company do an excellent job deconstructing the insanity, rarely is our day to day emotional and psychological battering discussed. Most of us long for someone we can talk to and learn from without being judged or ridiculed. I offer the following occasional series as a small step in that direction.

Chapter One can be found here.

Marie,

I was a bit surprised you wrote back so quickly. Then again, during the initial weeks and months of our awakening (‘first light’ is the term I use to describe this new experience) it’s a wonder we ever sleep at all let alone function. The sometimes disturbing, sometimes wonderful revelations come fast and furious and no sooner do we begin to grasp one, but another one rushes in demanding our attention. Just go with the flow for now and let it happen, because at this point more harm will come of you if you fight the process. There will be plenty of time later to analyze and assimilate everything you are learning. For now, just be a sponge and allow your mind to absorb it all while judging none.

With that said I promise you that I will get to all your questions, particularly the ones you asked about conspiracy and conspiracy theories, in the next few weeks. But for now I wish to pull back a bit to see the bigger picture and try to apply a broader point of view. So often when we are drowning in a sea of information we become so lost following the small darting fish that we never see the hungry shark until it is too late. This happens because we are mentally tied up in judgment of what is real and what is not, rather than simple observing. It doesn’t need to be this way, but it is because we have been trained to think in this manner.

If you are the powers that be and are promoting a narrow point of view, one that is deliberately manipulated and distorted, it is supremely important that you control the information flow during its transmission and upon its reception. You are beginning to understand that the mainstream media (MSM) is heavily influenced by multiple sources, and of course you are well aware of the official and unofficial government and corporate propaganda channels. Since you have near zero influence over them, for the sake of this discussion they are immaterial.

However, the way to control information at the receiving end is to condition the person receiving the information to apply mental and emotional filters that automatically screen out any information that does not ‘fit’ that person’s prevailing worldview. Since this is where you can affect change, this is where we will focus.

Understand as well that the beauty of this control system is that it allows for an endless but narrow variety of worldviews, literally as many as there are people. We are trained like rats in a maze to only see information as ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ just as the rat sees every (information) intersection as ‘left’ or ‘right’ based upon the learned and remembered map in its head. Our worldview is programmed in from birth beginning with our parents and peers, and this is the map we all have in our heads. Only in our case, as opposed to the rat, this map is constantly updated via the ongoing and continuous MSM, governmental, corporate and social re-conditioning.

We sit in judgment of everything we see and hear, though often it happens so subtly that we are rarely aware of the actual process. We can thank our egos for most of this, an ego whose primary job is to avoid cognitive dissonance at all costs, and thus filters or blocks most of the input long before it is ever consciously recognized. The problem is that even if we understand this is happening, awareness alone isn’t enough to counteract it. One doesn’t reverse decades of deep cultural conditioning only with awareness. We must be proactive and retrain ourselves, an exhausting and emotionally difficult task under the best of circumstances, but one that can be accomplished if we wish it to be so.

Sadly this task is nearly impossible if we are just to focus on each tidbit of information as it comes in. The problem is that oftentimes we really don’t know what is true and what is false, only what we have been conditioned to believe. I often use the following example to illustrate the problem. When we are born our minds are similar to a brand new blackboard. As we grow, enter school, make friends and deal with family and social issues etc, the blackboard is slowly filled with large and small calculations. And these calculations represent our life experience and so-called knowledge base from which we make our judgments of what is true and false.

The problem is that the blackboard isn’t filled with lots of small and independent sums and divisions that are individually verified before being imprinted upon our psyche’s blackboard. Rather it is one huge breathing mass of mathematical mayhem with one sum becoming part of the next calculation which leads into the next and so on. So once an error (or errors) is introduced, it rapidly multiplies and corrupts everything around it. These errors then go on to infect other people until they have compounded exponentially within the social structure. This is as intended and it is by design.

Because this corrupting influence is spreading in real time and is a part of the collective, which itself is a living breathing culture we are immersed within and seamlessly integrated into, this data and perception corruption is considered natural and normal. Always remember Marie that ‘normal’ is defined by the majority, not by independently verified facts, figures, logic or reason.

The more we surrender to the collective view of normal, the more we become dependent upon the collective to define for us what is normal, creating the near perfect positive feedback loop that can more easily be controlled or at least heavily influenced. The collective begins to self censor to remain within the narrow confines of the collective mind’s maze, removing the need for constant fine tuning by the hidden hand. An occasional poke or prod is all that is needed to keep the collective from wandering too far unless doing so suits the powers that be.

Obviously as we begin to awaken and see our (and thus the collective’s) blackboard for the first time with our first light eyes, we are astonished by the sheer number and depth of errors that we find. Because it is all interconnected we quickly realize that to pick a place to start unraveling is for all practical purposes impossible. How do you untangle a huge ball of yarn when you can’t even find a beginning or end point to work off of, where individual pieces are tied to themselves as well as to each other in random places using arbitrary rules and processes?

And with errors multiplied into more sums, which are then divided by the product of even more equations, to change one changes all, though it’s never completely obvious what you have accomplished because it is quickly swallowed by the huge mass. Either you must know the ultimate truth by which to measure everything else or it is hopeless that you will ever find your way out of the insanity, that you will ever know ‘truth’. Clearly we cannot find our way out of this mess without some external assistance. This is the one certain truth we all know.

Or maybe not! Maybe this assumption is itself flawed just like so much else we think we ‘know’ to be true and irrefutable. For this ‘either/or’ supposition is itself a duality, a right or wrong, a left or right outcome and a product of our own convoluted and corrupted thinking and training. As I have said before, one cannot see outside the box with the tools provided by the box. Our collective insanity will only provide us with answers that sustain and validate our insanity. To assume that we can apply the same thinking processes and so-called logical train of thought to unravel the insanity is to believe that the insanity itself has the capability to be sane, an obviously insane conclusion. So what do we do?

Our social, governmental, religious and cultural beliefs all point to one truth, that actual or real ‘truth’ can only be ascertained from an external source, usually only from the so called ‘authority’ informing us of this truth. In other words, we are told that we are an empty vessel with no capability of discerning true from false or any capacity to ‘know’ anything other than what we are originally told and anything we then derive from those original truths. Our capacity to ‘know’ is based upon smaller bits of knowledge or ‘truth’ given to us from outside our consciousness and not any truth or understanding already held or known within. This of course makes us all innocents and/or victims of our own inadequacy and/or inability to function without outside order and control imposed upon us……for our own good of course.

This is a fundamental lie, the fundamental lie, that has served to enslave and control, us and one we believe so thoroughly and completely, a ‘truth’ that is so engrained within us, that to seriously question ‘it’ and all that springs from this central lie is considered the act of a madman and sure to brand us as unstable or even dangerous.

This isn’t hyperbole, but rather simple fact. Over thousands of years every person who has attempted to show the general public that each of us carries within us the ability to know and understand is obviously dangerous to the powers that be and is quickly silenced or co-opted. Every effort is made to discredit, demean and marginalize anyone who speaks in this manner, including the use of brain freezing terms such as ‘religious zealot’, ‘anarchist’, ‘antisocial’, ‘mentally ill’, and even ‘conspiracy theorist’. The truth can always withstand penetrating questions whereas a lie must be upheld with force, group think and derision.

To break free requires us to take the first steps out of the box. Since we have already established that using old tools and methods will only lead us back into the insanity, breaking free requires an entirely different perspective. Many would say that it is impossible to remove ourselves from the programming while still functioning as a part of society. Here again we see the either/or false reality that is the basis for the insanity. We don’t need to ‘believe’ or ‘disbelieve’ anything in order to interact with it. At this point in our breakout the only thing we must believe in is our need to reject our judgmental attitude and black & white perception and instead adopt a truly open mind.

We don't need to agree or disagree with all, or even some, of the present reality in order to possess an open mind. It is the shutting off or blocking of information that is the sign of our conditioning. When information is treated as if it is a threat, it is a threat....to the closed mind. The key is to allow the aberrant or non conforming information to possess the right to exist, to be 'real', in much the same way as information we already believe is correct is considered ‘real’. This approach can be very frightening to people who have very rigid points of view.

Think about the words we use to describe ‘real’ and ‘correct’ and how they are often used interchangeably. I’ve seen and heard the following sentences used in casual conversations as well as in magazines and blogs. “Oh, those aren’t real economic statistics.” “That’s all a bunch of bull. Give me the real scoop.” “There are two sets of books. Where are the real numbers?” We do not consider information that we perceive as incorrect or wrong to be ‘real’ and thus it is not considered to be a ‘real’ part of our reality. On the other hand, something that we believe is correct is also believed to be ‘real’, almost as if it had a physical presence. It is no coincidence that ‘correct’ and ‘real’ have been merged to mean essentially the same thing. I’ve talked with you before about how our language is manipulated to control us at the subliminal level. This is a perfect example.

How many times have we discovered that we were entirely wrong about something? Did this suddenly make the formerly unbelievable information correct and thus ‘real’? No. It was always correct and thus always ‘real’. It was only our perception and treatment of that information that changed. If we are not compelled to shoehorn information into narrowly defined categories or constantly change the status of information from the ‘real’ category to the ‘not real’ category (and vice a versa) to conform to our (or societies) beliefs, we will be much more flexible and less rigid in our thinking in the first place. Life suddenly seems to flow a lot easier and there are less conflicts and surprises.

Once we open the door to other possibilities, then our mind is free to arrange information in ways previously considered impossible or nonsensical, something our mind naturally wants to do using a source of knowing that springs from within. To allow something to exist in our mind without insisting that it be considered ‘real’ or correct does no harm to us unless we know (either consciously or unconsciously) deep down inside of us that we are missing the boat or that we are conflicted and/or biased.

Most of our present day stress and anxiety comes from trying to make sense of a crazy world where we are constantly told that oranges are apples or chairs or bricks, anything other than oranges. Once again Marie, let me use a thought experiment to illustrate how we already sort through this confusion and doubt in other areas of our lives and we don’t even realize we are doing it.

Let’s say you stop by a yard sale next Saturday and they are selling a 500 piece jigsaw puzzle. Only the original box was destroyed and all that is left are a bunch of puzzle pieces in a big plastic bag (looks like a whole lot more than 500 pieces you say to yourself) and a vague recollection from the seller that the box displayed some kind of landscape with a lake, some hills and a farm. Not much to go on, but it’s a start. So you figure why not and you purchase it for a quarter. If nothing else it’s cheap fun for some rainy day. And sure enough, next weekend is a wash out so you pull out the bag and dig in. How are you going to solve the puzzle?

Perhaps it would be better to focus on what you will not do. While you may have a fuzzy ‘belief’ in the view or scene the assembled pieces will represent, you have no idea where each piece fits into the overall worldview. So you most certainly would not discard anything just because it doesn’t fit at that precise moment. Nor would you diminish the validity of any one piece simply because you have no place to put in. From the moment you begin the assembly process each piece is as valid and important as every other piece simply because you are not being judgmental in the most basic sense. There is no right or wrong, correct or incorrect with regard to the puzzle pieces. There just is.

While you might look for trends of color (blue for the sky, darker blue for the water) or shape (pieces with a straight edge probably fit along the perimeter while others fit within these boundaries) experience tells you that even this might be misleading and to assume anything other than that they all somehow fit together would be foolish and self defeating. No one piece will be seen or perceived as any less or more ‘real’ (correct) than any other piece and all have an inherent right to exist, to be real.

However, a quick count confirms your initial judgment that there were more than 500 pieces. In fact you find well over 2,000 and after some quick sorting you discover parts to three, four and possibly even more puzzles. What do you do now? This most certainly calls into question the assumed vague recollection of a landscape with water and a farm. Hell, since we are now talking about multiple puzzles of unknown composition, number of pieces per puzzle and even if there is enough to complete each puzzle, any assumption can be seen as dangerous and misleading.

This is essentially where you and I stand today Marie, where the only thing we know for certain is that we know nothing with any degree of certainty. But this seemingly unsolvable situation is not seen that way to the determined puzzle solver. While the degree of difficulty just escalated, by no means is it impossible unless the mind is cluttered with preconceived limits, rules and ‘truths’. It is the person’s mind and her limits of perception that defines the boundaries of what is and is not possible, of what can and cannot be done.

This in turn is influenced by what is believed to be true or real and thus, before anything has begun, entire areas of thought, process and imagination are walled off as nonsensical and impossible. These are the thought filters I spoke of earlier Marie, where we were the problem, we are the problem and we always will be the problem when it comes to interpreting the world, not they or them or those people over there.

Let’s discuss how you might piece these jigsaw puzzles together and the process that is going on in the background. First off, unless you are an egomaniac and completely dominated by your ego, putting together this puzzle pushes the ego into the background and brings to the forefront a mix of analytical thought, feel or intuition and a deep ‘knowing’ that we tap into with little to no conscious awareness. It is this ‘knowing’ connection that frightens the powers that be to their very core for it is the source of our ultimate power and sovereignty.

At this point, for simplicity of explanation let us assume we are working on one puzzle of 500 pieces. Most people will quickly gather the edge pieces in a separate pile and then begin to assemble the outer perimeter. This provides an orientation of sorts because it defines the edges of our worldview and is comparable to our most basic indoctrination as a young child. Our very first blackboard marks consist of us ‘knowing’ hunger, pain, light and dark, mother and nipple and so on. While everyone has a slightly different approach to solving a jigsaw puzzle, I have found over the years that there are striking similarities between people even of diverse economic background and cultural upbringing.

Initially the going is slow as we take in the scope and magnitude of the task ahead. Seen from a strictly binary on/off computing point of view, solving this puzzle would require massive data crunching as we tried to fit each piece with every other piece until we found a match, then repeated the process again and again until the puzzle was solved. While we may pick up pieces and test fit them with others, our mind’s eye is taking in the bigger picture and absorbing the entire scene. Without really thinking about it we are sorting pieces by color, current location and shape, looking (more accurately ‘feeling’) for tiny clues of consistency and similarity. 

Rather than examine each piece very closely, then moving on to the next, we adopt a more distant stare as our eyes sweep up and down, back and forth, occasionally stopping to try one piece or another. Suddenly we find a match, then another and another and quickly we have 6 or 7 pieces joined together, though we still don’t know where they fit within the bigger picture. Then one or two more pieces are found to fit along one of the edges and there is a rapid fire assembly of 5 or 6 more pieces before the fire goes out and we move on.

If you ask a person what is going on here and push for detailed answers you will find that they really don’t know what’s happening. They assume they are ‘finding’ matches, but really can’t tell you how or why. They are at a particular loss for words to explain why these matches often come in bunches, then peter off until they drift away from that section and move on to something else. I contend that because we see each piece as consisting of equal weight and value, thus ‘real’ and not to be discarded, that we engage our entire capacity to be aware and to know. Rather than creating new capacity to ‘see’, we are lifting the artificial restraints (aka filters and beliefs) we have been conditioned to use at all times when in the ‘real’ world.

As we scan the pieces we are allowing our conscious and unconscious mind, along with our inner knowing, to make connections that might not be readily apparent on the surface. Often when I talk to people about this in depth they will use phrases such as ‘it seemed like it would fit’ or ‘I just felt this piece was the one I needed’ or even ‘something told me to grab that one’. Bear in mind that one must probe to get these answers because they won’t initially be offered. Instead they will try to rationalize what is happening and use more specific (scientific) terms in an effort to explain what is happening to them self at the same time they are explaining it to the questioner.

The more we let go of our learned bias and conditioned beliefs, the more efficient we are at solving the (worldview) puzzle. This is really about our desire, even desperation, to control information to fit our point of view. The world no longer appears to be orderly to us, regardless of whether it really was to begin with, so now we struggle with the impulse to exert control to bring back order.

This is our ego taking charge as it tries to paper over our cognitive dissonance(s) by ratcheting up our fear level and engaging our fight or flight reflexes. Since we have been trained to see only duality, everything appears to be about choice, of right or wrong, of correct or incorrect. The solution is not to once again begin to chase our tails but rather to settle back, do little to nothing and trust in our innate inner ability to make the connections we need to begin to solve the puzzle. Worldview puzzle solving is not about control, but about natural processes.

On a personal note Marie, I now regularly tackle jigsaw puzzles without using the cover art as a guide in an effort to retrain my mind to see beyond the conditioned barriers I have learned to erect during my normal daily routine. In effect I am trying to strengthen the connections to my knowing center. Interestingly modern scientific thinking is beginning to acknowledge the existence of a ‘knowing’, though it is usually marginalized and discredited precisely because it can’t be measured using instruments designed solely to measure what is believed to exist and is real.

If we move back to the multiple puzzles thought experiment we can see that the same methods can be used regardless of the complexity. In essence we abandon rigid thinking and rote recital of facts and knowledge in order to engage and capture that intangible knowing that guides our hand in solving complex problems. We release our need for control and allow our intuition and gut to take over, a process that takes practice, particularly if we are trying to counteract decades of conditioning.

These are subtle powers and they are easily overwhelmed by strong emotion and focused determination. We are trying to soften our focus, not sharpen it. Often when we become stuck while working on difficult or complex problems, we will ‘sleep on it’ only to wake the next morning with answer in hand. No one can tell me it was their sharply focused analytical mind that was the only entity working on the solution, at least not with any believability.

Back in the ‘real’ world, consider that even though we are not building a worldview from scratch, but in essence are starting from an already constructed reality which we call our belief system, the same process can be used. Only instead of disassembling the already completed worldview puzzle, then trying to put it all back together again into a new worldview, a process that would quickly destabilize us and probably cause a nervous breakdown, all we need to do is take each additional piece of information or perception we encounter today, this minute, and treat it as if it is of equal value to any other piece we currently hold, the direct opposite of how we would approach life today.

At first it may feel like a mindless mish mash of useless facts and tidbits of information is clogging our brain and it will most certainly be uncomfortable because some of those bits will directly contradict our existing belief system. To accomplish this we must begin to suspend belief, which is fundamentally different from suspending disbelief, something we do in order to enjoy a movie or TV program. We must begin to move to the side our already conditioned belief that we are correct in our thinking.

This requires that we displace our super sized ego and accept the nearly impossible idea that we might be wrong in our thinking and understanding of how the world works. Difficulty in learning new things is rarely about accepting the new; it almost always is about the pain of rejecting the old, and here is where the ego steps in to protect us from ourselves. If we are sincere in our desire to open our eyes and find peace within, then there is no choice but to accept that everything must change one puzzle piece at a time.

The longer we withhold our artificial judgment as to the validity or truthfulness of every information piece, including our existing programming, and simply allow it all to be ‘real’, if only for now, the sooner new connections begin to form. And gradually some of these new connections will displace old conditioned connections and beliefs. We will in essence begin to rebuild while still operating at full speed. This, incidentally, is exactly how the body heals and regenerates while we go about our daily activities, and for me this confirms that the process I am describing is natural and normal and that our present state of confusion and disorder is an affront to our natural state of being.

In a crushing blow to our egos, this process will be as easy or as hard as we wish to make it. If we love the comfort and warmth our beliefs provide for us, the natural high we get when we stroke our confirmation bias and surrender to our ego, it will be nearly impossible to move to the next level. Then again Marie, you have already signaled your desire to move ahead, so most of the pain you feel will be from the disorientation that comes from reconstruction. This is understandable and normal and it will pass quickly as long as you begin to release your long held and cherished comforting lies and self deceptions.

Let me try to pull it all together with some final thoughts. I used the bag of puzzle pieces that belong to several different puzzles to begin this thought experiment. In real life there are hundreds if not thousands of puzzles, not just 3 or 4. While the thought of this level of complexity might drive most people screaming in terror from the room, I see it from a different perspective. Even though each puzzle might show a different scene, they are all just snap shots of the same reality.

Even if the puzzle depicts children playing in a school yard or a lake at the foot of a mountain or even a busy city street corner, they all show people, places or things in our world, in our universe or from our mind’s imagination. Thus every single puzzle piece has a place and a purpose and it is only we who are ignorant to its placement. This means that every piece should and must command in us equal respect and be considered real and valid and thus not something to be denied or disposed of.

To grasp this concept I try to think about those neat videos we have all seen of hundreds of CAT scans all assembled in order, which when viewed in rapid sequence take us on a trip through the human body starting from the very top of the head and progressing all the way down until we reach the bottom of the feet. If we were to take those hundreds of snap shots and scatter them on the floor and not realize that they are just sectional views of the same three dimensional entity we might see the task of assembly as impossible.

But just knowing that they all belong together is a tactical advantage because now each snap shot, and each piece of each snap shot, is equally important and must be used somewhere in order to create the whole. Our limited and biased perception is the roadblock here, not the hundreds of slices on the floor. It is only our present ignorance that prevents us from seeing that everything we see, hear, touch and perceive minute to minute is connected somehow, somewhere.

This little tidbit of deliberate disinformation, which we believe to be true, is actually connected to that true fact over there that we have discarded because it didn’t fit our worldview. That political party is saying this which doesn’t fit there because my uncle told me when I was young that they are just a bunch of control freaks and commies. As we begin to break these artificial and false connections and slowly allow things to float free of constraint, a clearer more cohesive picture slowly begins to emerge. This in turn builds momentum and confidence and quickly 6 or 7 pieces come together in rapid building. Then we pause and wait for more old connections to dissolve so that new ones may re-form.

This is the only way I know of to rebuild while still operating in real time. And this all presupposes that we have the desire, will and courage to challenge everything we think we know and that we are tolerant of being in a near constant state of growth and metamorphosis. That doesn’t mean pain, but it does mean living a more engaged life. We have been conditioned to be mindless zombies, beginning in school where we are force fed historical propaganda and a filtered point of view, right through to present day where we spend most of our leisure time propped up in front of the boob tube downloading an endless stream of mindless junk thought and manufactured experience as part of our endless re-programming process.  

Finally (yes Marie, I really mean it this time) I suggest that the best way to start this process is to banish the words ‘believe’ and ‘belief’ along with the phrase ‘I believe’ (and all its derivations) from your mental and verbal vocabulary. The words and phrase imply ownership and reflect our conditioning even when they are being used honestly and without conditions. Contrary to popular ‘belief’, when we believe something it now controls us and not the other way around. Using these words contradicts our desire to embody every single tidbit of information with equal weighting simply because to believe one thing is to disbelieve another. We are suspending judgment, which means we are suspending belief.

Over time our beliefs become heavy sacks of concrete which we must struggle to carry around wherever we go and which become white elephants that chain us to the belief stake we have driven into the ground. They morph into a terrible burden that controls our every act, though we desperately tell ourselves the opposite in order to deny the suffering they cause us. Our beliefs are our emotional and spiritual straightjackets and they become the very source of our own psychosis.

Instead, if we are to truly begin the process of breaking free from our chains, we must begin to treat all those so-called ‘beliefs’ as if they were tiny, delicate butterflies. One does not ‘hold’ a belief butterfly as much as one is visited by it. We observe it as it flutters from one thought branch to another. If we were to extend our hands to make contact we would exert the lightest touch, that of a gentle breeze that momentarily freshens before moving on. If the butterfly graces us with its presence and alights upon our cupped hands, it remains only as long as both are enriched by the encounter before it moves on, hopefully to be replaced for a moment by another.

This is true freedom and contrary to the fear mongers and oppressors, it is not our beliefs that threaten them, but rather our lack of chains and our freedom of thought that frightens them into their repressive policies. Someone who is truly free is never subservient to any ideology or thought master. Cast off that ultimate self inflicted thought chain and believe in only one thing, your ability to be free of beliefs.

Beside you always,

 

Jonathan

___________

Cognitive Dissonance

07-11-2011

Even though most of us come to Zero Hedge to learn, laugh, share and even rant, ultimately many of us are all alone as we cope with our awakening. While Tyler & Company do an excellent job deconstructing the insanity, rarely is our day to day emotional and psychological battering discussed. Most of us long for someone we can talk to and learn from without being judged or ridiculed. I offer the following occasional series as a small step in that direction.

This is the first 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 and how they can 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 their ongoing trials, tribulations and revelations.

 

Dear Marie,

Please accept my apology for my tardy response to your letter of last week. While normally I’m quite prompt with my response (for I do love our conversations) the intensity of your distress set me back on my heels and I needed to pause and reflect for a bit before answering. Clearly you are experiencing tremendous loss and grief and I felt compelled to address this straight away.

But I also heard desperation in your voice and before I wrote back I needed to take a few days to reflect and remember what that chaotic period of time was like for me. You asked me to respond from the heart so to do anything less would be a disservice to both of us.

While I do have some experience with the road you’re now traveling I’m not sure how much I can help you since it’s no longer that fresh in my mind. On the other hand I do have a propensity to revisit the insanity every now and then, mostly because I tend to cling to that part of me I jettisoned so many years ago. Like a nagging itch or sharp pain emanating from a long ago amputated limb, at times it still feels as real today as it did back then.

Can you ever truly break free from something that was an integral part of you and nearly drove you insane, in fact did drive you insane? I think not, at least not quickly. In cases like this one can only hope that time truly does heal our wounds. But equally important we must also be proactive in purging the dysfunction from our mind and body.

Like you, while at the time I claimed to be willing, I really didn’t want to wake from my denial. Hell, to be perfectly honest I didn’t even know what that meant since I already thought I was wide awake. And near the end, when I could no longer remain asleep, I desperately hoped someone else would step up and absolve me from the moral obligation to walk the talk and take a stand. To this day I’m still a bit frightened by the perceived burden, which seems to never end and only grows bigger with time. Why did it have to come down to this? Why couldn’t ‘they’ be reasonable and not push it so far?

I’ve always wanted to believe people were basically good and honest. Isn’t that what everyone says is true? Sadly it is just another conditioned cultural belief dashed upon the rocky shore of our formerly sheltered life. Even after all these years, deep down inside I still wish that were true. But of course it is not, at least not for the one percent who rule the world and for the most part the next twenty percent who support them.

In fact, the ugly truth is that we all possess some measure of evil within ourselves, and part of breaking through our denial is coming to accept this in order to remove that controlling and manipulative force. We are only as sick as our deepest darkest secrets, and in this case I’m talking about those ugly truths we never want to admit even to ourselves. Especially to ourselves.

God damn it, I still don’t want to let this one go completely because to do so feels like I’m abandoning humanity itself. More likely though to let go means to leave behind what little childish naiveté I still cling to. Even now, years later, this whole thing can still bring me to tears. There are no easy answers, but that’s precisely what we really want, don’t we? The Big Lie of easy, painless, no bother answers to throw away questions, blissful ignorance in all its ugly glory.

I certainly understand you being worried about your physical safety. Who would not considering the steps you might take down the road and the history of those you will oppose. And I agree that it does appear to be a daunting task you have set for yourself. That’s true for anyone contemplating this path, which explains why so few actually take the first step. But the good news is that you are not alone. I’m here by your side, along with many other veterans, sharing our strength and experience if you need it. No one should be alone during their transition from conditioned victim to independent spirit. Your rebirth will be traumatic for a while, but I promise you ultimately it will be very rewarding.

Please remember that while at times you may feel alone, there’s very little you will think, say or do that hasn’t already been experienced by someone else along the path. I’d be honored if you would accept my helping hand as we stumble down this road together. I suspect I will learn as much from you as you will from me while we both work through this lifelong process.

If I may suggest one personal practice that has served me well, the more you open your mind to the previously unthinkable, the easier it will be for you to absorb the knowledge and understanding you seek. You have the keys to a better life in your hand. All you need do is to accept that they are there and then use them.

In addition, while it is vitally important that you grieve for your loss, please don’t cry for long. Your deep sadness and sense of desperation is completely natural and understandable in the face of what appears on the surface to be a desperate situation. Essentially you are experiencing the death of who you think you are and how you see yourself in your world. The key to regaining your mental and emotional composure is to understand that your reaction isnormal and you can quickly recover if you chose.

Take a moment and imagine yourself no longer feeling compelled to internalize what is strictly an external trauma controlled by others who care nothing about you or your family. This is true freedom, as opposed to the false reality indoctrinated into us from birth. Affirmation of life can now spring from within since you are no longer dependent upon external sources for your beliefs and sense of reality.

Thankfully I discovered my desperation was only as permanent as I wanted it to be. Hands down the toughest part is breaking from the old patterns of self abuse we’ve practiced since childhood. Old bad habits die hard, especially when they are embedded within our social and cultural structures. We believe we should fight this feeling of desperation, as if by experiencing it we will be consumed and never released. But in fact just the opposite is the case. It is our denial and bargaining with our newly discovered reality that makes it so painful and extended.

The awakening process can at times be excruciating and because we are taught early on to avoid anything that is uncomfortable or upsetting we instinctively and fearfully fight it tooth and nail. Unfortunately, by doing so, we make it much more agonizing and drawn out than it need be. The fear and pain is the result of our changing beliefs and perspective and the more we resist the change, the more pain there will be. It’s not so much the new that is so difficult to accept, but rather of accepting that we must let go of the old. At this point a flexible perspective is our best friend and mentor. Embrace the change and the pain will subside.

Please believe me when I tell you the pain you are feeling isn't a death sentence, but rather an affirmation of life. Remember the first Matrix movie we discussed last month, where Neo opens his eyes for the first time after being released from the Matrix cocoon and he feels terrible pain? Morpheus tells Neo his eyes hurt because he’s never actually used them to see until now. Metaphorically speaking this is precisely what is happening to you. The emotional and physical pain you feel is proof of life, not a sign of imminent death as you have been conditioned to believe. For the first time since your physical birth you are alive, no longer desensitized to a slow motion suicide.

The emotional pain and hangover you are feeling comes not only from the realization and understanding of your prior willing participation into your own enslavement, but from the sweeping depth and scope of it all. It’s not a pretty sight and never will be. But understand Marie that it takes real courage to walk this path, courage you have already demonstrated. So please do not sell yourself short simply because of your past mistakes. It’s difficult enough to deal with your own humiliation, let alone talk about it. I have no interest in being judgmental of you and neither should you. I have walked in your shoes and I still walk in your shoes. And I continue to make the same errors. Expect no less or no more from yourself.

We cannot reverse a life time of conditioning over night. And to think that we can is simply setting ourselves up for failure. The path is forward and the work ahead. Learn from your past, but don’t relive your mistakes simply to punish yourself. We must begin to forgive ourselves for our past, an admittedly complex but very doable task. It will be difficult to completely avoid self destructive behavior, particularly this early in your release. But you won’t heal quickly or properly if you continuously rip open your wounds in fits of self hate. The enemy is not within you Marie, it is external to you. Do not destroy your own personal refuge by being self destructive.

While it may not seem possible at this time, you are perfectly capable of simultaneously feeling extreme despair and great joy if only you will allow yourself permission to be the complex multidimensional human being you actually are rather than the emotional pawn of limited range and capacity we are trained to be from birth by our culture. Coming to grips with reality is not the end of the line, but rather a wonderful beginning to a much more rewarding life.

A very important part of you has just died, is still dying. It was something you nurtured and depended upon for a long time. One doesn’t abandon blind faith easily, regardless of how logical doing so might be. Of course you are reluctant to let it go. Who wouldn’t? But even now, through the haze of your pain, you must be able to see that concurrent with the death of your false hope another Marie is rising. Through an immaculate conception you are being reborn as a more powerful and fully formed human being. And this is just the beginning. Think of all the possibilities when your own self imposed artificial limits are removed by your own hand in the ultimate act of self empowerment.

All the false hopes, empty promises and other assorted insane baggage that you carried for decades tightly bound you to an unlivable and impossible situation. Living a life of quiet desperation, feeling powerless over conditions and events you did not create, but felt dependent upon and somehow responsible for, is no way to live, let alone exist. By freeing yourself of those false hopes you are now released from the emotional and psychological manipulations by the powers that be. Now that you have cut yourself loose from the puppet strings that tied you to the insanity, you can and will live a life free from artificially and externally induced fear and anxiety. Of this I can assure you.

Try to remind yourself on a daily basis that the only way ‘they’ can exercise control over you is to convince you that you are helpless, a powerless victim with nowhere to hide. They need you to willingly and voluntarily disarm, to not even attempt to resist or to stop doing so if you currently are. Which means in your hands and mind there resides all the power you will ever need to remain free.

Their psychological operations (psyops) have failed and now you are freeing yourself from their influence, forever if you so wish. Sure they will try to pull you back in. The entire concept behind psyops is to covertly employ multiple tentacles and pathways to subvert you, all at the same time. But all you need do to remain free is to choose not to submit and to continue unbound. Each time that you do so it becomes easier the next time you are challenged.

Now that you are releasing the false hopes that froze you like a jack lighted deer, your wounds, while severe and painful, will heal quickly. But only if you don’t tear at them in fits of rage and self disgust. Marie, you just underwent major surgery by your own hand without anesthesia. Be kind to yourself and rest from your ordeal. Give yourself permission to forgive yourself and allow the healing to take place. You would not emotionally batter a friend who was just involved in a terrible car accident, even if it was her own fault. Why then would you do so to yourself? You’re now free of that insanity. Let it go. It’s OK. You have permission to let it go.

We are engaged in a battle for our minds and our spiritual essence. They don’t have the capability to physically enslave all of us, so instead they must enslave our minds and convince us that submission is the only answer. There are so many other ways in which you are able to cope and prosper which you are currently unaware of and cannot see. But first you must let go of the only way you have ever tried; their way.

I ask you to have faith that soon enough you will see much more than you are blind to at the moment. Having faith has nothing to do with religion and everything to do with trust in yourself and in others. Be that fearless little toddler again, unsteady on her feet as her parents urged her forward. Let go and take those first few steps. Trust that others will be there when you fall and that falling is both natural and normal.

You are no longer an emotional hostage to be manipulated by others who care nothing of you. They have lost their power over you now that you have rejected their false promises and lies. You no longer need to take responsibility for actions you don’t support nor agree to. No longer must you internalize what is completely external in nature. You are now free to explore anywhere and everywhere because fear no longer keeps you paralyzed in the middle of the road, waiting for cars to repeatedly and endlessly run you down. 

I won’t build false hopes or grand expectations for you Marie. This awareness won't come all at once, but rather over time. And there will be residual sadness for months and possibly years to come. In fact you must be prepared to feel an occasional sense of deep loss for the false hope you carried for years. Call it nostalgia for the insanity that was once you. This is a lifelong process, not a onetime event. Manage your expectations and allow it to just happen. You can’t possibly expect yourself to run a seven minute mile after you have been confined to a wheelchair all your life. Patience practiced here will go a long way towards a healthy future you.

It’s difficult to recognize, let alone comprehend, the extent to which you've been emotionally, psychologically and physically trapped since birth in an abusive and domineering relationship with this culture, its government and various authority figures and institutions. It is nearly impossible to see what you don’t know even exists and which is still mostly invisible to your newly opened eyes. Don’t place unwarranted pressure upon yourself by expecting a rapid recovery because it just won’t happen.

You will have days when it’s one step forward, two steps back and that is OK. And there are bound to be difficulties and unexpected emotional setbacks and that too is also OK. Perfection does not exist in the real world Marie yet we have been conditioned to believe it does, but only within the endless cultural insanity you are now leaving behind. You will recover from the shock and awe assaults you were subjected to for the last 47 years, but your recovery depends upon you making a daily conscious decision to get better. This means you must take personal responsibility for your own life from this moment forward and it begins with healing yourself rather than depending upon others to heal you.

Have no doubt, your awakening process has begun and with it the ability to take back your life. You are no longer dependent upon others for your emotional, spiritual and intellectual freedom. I am delighted you reached out and told me you are coming. Now that you are here I can’t wait to explore your world with you as you grow and blossom. Welcome to the spring of your awakening.

Beside you always,

 

Jonathan

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07-04-2011

Cognitive Dissonance