With this second installment of the 'Skyception' series, we delve deeper into several potential reasons for, and explanations of, the persistent trails program(s). While editing these chapters I was struck by how convoluted and intertwined the various aspects of these deceptions are. Thankfully Morpheus takes us by the hand and leads us through the maze.
Please keep in mind one guiding principal as you dive deeper down the rabbit hole. There is nothing compelling you to believe anything you read here or anywhere else for that matter. Nothing at all! But you must seriously consider it, especially if you find it disturbing or nonsensical. More often than not, the strong emotions you are feeling are more likely a sign of your Cognitive Dissonance screaming than it is an indication of bad information.
As a full fledged product of 'the system', the concept of being mindful was initially quite confusing to me. Even after I thought I 'got it' the seductive pull of the matrix kept, and still keeps, pulling me back into the polar opposite of mindfulness.
The best description I have found of the process of being engulfed by, and lost within, the system is Lao Tzu's famous "Ten Thousand Things". Those three words, and his Tao Te Ching, so aptly describes the whirling dervish of (modern) insanity and the tearing apart of our 'self' in servitude to the distractions of the master of insanity.
The following essay by Joe Withrow, aka Joe Galt, does an excellent job of describing the art and practice of Mindfulness. At some point over the next few days I urge you to devote ten minutes of your time and fall into Joe's piece.
Many years ago I was walking down the street thinking about something that had been bothering me when a thought suddenly exploded into my headed. It was a turning point in my life, though I still continued to wrestle with my problems and myself for many years afterward. It is one thing to understand something, another entirely to embody it fully and then apply it in a practical manner.
My personal revelation can be summed up in two brief sentences. Fear was the foundational basis of all my dysfunction. And my fear often came disguised as anything, everything, but fear. Simple enough to comprehend when seated in front of the computer reading this, much more difficult when engulfed within fear and all its various permutations and manifestations.
The following essay by Unlawful Justice not only speaks about fear, but how to work through our fear so we may learn and grow from our experienced fear.
