Avoidance or Awareness – The Emergence of Truth in the Media
By Dylan Charles
Both a blessing and a curse can the information age be.
There is almost no way to live in our modern world without falling into
someone’s stream of ideas, willingly or not. Good, bad, bad, good… there is a
sea of waves to surf on out there, some of us catching more than others.
‘News’ is broadcast
almost everywhere in some format, and information repeating has become a core
feature of the modern homo sapiens. You’re reading an example of this right
now. Someone’s always chatting, gossiping, worrying, speculating, theorizing,
analyzing and considering the events that bind us together. That’s what the
news really is, a conversation we have as a group about what we experience as a
group, a multiple of our personal communications.
Opposing sides have emerged in the media. There is the old
guard, the established corporate crew, known as the ‘mainstream media’ to many.
This is the for profit, big business industry, occupied by the pundits, execs,
billionaires, think-tankers, celebrity hosts, spokespersons, and anchor-robots
who are supported by unlimited monetary resources and vast reach. It is an
industry scientific in nature and overseen by the watchful eye of the
government and the unseen hand of the powers above government.
Rising in opposition to this monopoly is a new kind of media
structure. Lack of corporate and government resources is being overcome by a
self-motivated and self-multiplying movement of independent journalists,
artists and thinkers who are presenting the information and ideas that the
mainstream is working overtime to confuse, obfuscate, bury or simply won’t
touch.
This media, the ‘alternative’ media, however, has at last
achieved significant enough market share in the info war to challenge the
status quo’s scripts. For example, the same script of wmd’s and preemptive
strikes that worked in 2003 to overcome massive global protest and muster
consent for an occupation of Iraq failed for Syria in 2013. This supposedly
imminent threat was scuttled in part by the work of very vocal truth-seekers
and activists, and just a few weeks later there is nary a mention of Syria
coming from big media. We already have new crises to consider.
With such a high volume of info, delivered to so many places
in the world and in so many new formats, our exposure to different narratives
and suggested versions of reality is immense. Yet, amazingly, through the
efforts of millions of people worldwide who are working independently of the
establishment, a new picture of reality is emerging that better explains why
the world is the way it is. There is a critical mass developing of people who
are effectively countering the deceit and propaganda that has for so longed
pimped fear and emergency as a primary component of life on earth today. This
new version is quite compelling because it offers more truth, more value, and
more usefulness than the establishment’s message.
In the face of these diametric agendas, one being a message
of fear and control, the other a message of independence and love, the
individual is offered a choice between two paths: the path of awareness or the
path of avoidance. One is a way of being, and the other a way of coping with
being. When faced with this choice, as we all are when we encounter the
alternative media, we are granted an opportunity to evolve or descend, to
engage or retreat.
Avoidance is a coping technique, a psychological device for
escaping stressors. It involves adopting behaviors that aim at masking and
protecting one’s self from psychological or emotional damage. It is a defense
mechanism which leads to annihilation because it requires submission to
cognitive dissonance and self-delusion.
Awareness is the condition of alertness, of being aware, of
having knowledge or of being conscious. It requires attention and involvement,
and a willingness to pursue connections between ideas and events. It is an
example of personal responsibility and a cultivated skill that reflects
self-control and care.
Coming from contemporary consciousness, the path of
avoidance seems at first to be the easier choice, since it is the path of least
resistance in a society that offers distractions and destructions of every
variety, glorifying stupidity and ignorance at every level, and of every
degree. Our poisons now come in every flavor imaginable, take your pick. To
avoid a confrontation between opposing realities, we keep our heads down, our
voices hushed and our minds closed, consuming ourselves with trivialities and
addictions, just waiting to self-destruct. In fact, unconsciously hoping to do
so before the storm comes.
In avoidance is where we give up our personal power and
collude in our personal and our collective suffering. This is the place where
emptiness demands that we pick a team and play someone else’s game with the
vain hope that we’ve chosen the winning team. Avoidance means accepting an
illusion in place of the real thing, and the disappearance of meaning and
truth.
Choosing the path of awareness most often appears as the
more difficult path to choose, and in some ways it is. It absolutely reveals
our flaws, weaknesses and deficiencies, requiring of us tremendous spirit and
resilience. In return we reclaim our power and develop the fortitude needed to
approach the hefty challenges we all face together.
Ideas and information have the power to liberate and the
power to enslave… or worse. Our choice is in how we adapt to it.
About the Author
Dylan Charles is a student and teacher of Shaolin Kung Fu,
Tai Chi and Qi Gong, a practitioner of Yoga and Taoist esoteric arts, and an
activist and idealist passionately engaged in the struggle for a more
sustainable and just world for future generations. He is the editor of
WakingTimes.com, the proprietor of OffgridOutpost.com, a grateful father and a man
who seeks to enlighten and assist others with the power of inspiring
information and action. He may be contacted at wakingtimes@gmail.com.
- See more at: riseearth.com
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