Avoidance or Awareness

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.

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Archaic Revival 2

 Evolving Through the Survivalist Mentality to the Unity Mentality

Keen Awareness

 For the sake of our own collective survival let us all give our full attention to the following questions:  Is it possible to thrive in this survivalist society, where one most become ambitions and competitive, where one is trying to out do the next person all to secure what they fear they cannot do without?  Or can we begin to feel how much more harmonious and productive we could be, how much more peaceful we could be, if we secured the needs of the community first as opposed to securing what we need as individuals?  I am definitely not talking about communism and I am not talking about any type of government intervention either.

When we, as a human society, come to know what trust is to its highest degree, we will no longer need governments dictating the way society operates.  Essentially the concept of property rights, the imaginary lines we place around each other to separate one another, is an example of how we do not trust each other.  But trust is the backbone to the social evolution needed to create harmony on this planet.  If we trust each other we will develop a society from that trust.

The number of people who want to build a more harmonious society with each other and with the Earth is growing.  But only when the majority of people see that humanity is one organism will we move closer to thriving on this planet.

Observe and question the main stream avenues of social influence.  Observe the main stream media, observe government, observe religion, and observe big business.  Do these institutions disseminate views and objectives that support unity and harmony or do they keep the illusion alive that we, above anything else, are different and separate from each other?

Be observant as to what you watch and listen to, your mind is registering everything, even those things which it can not readily discern.  Be careful to see that maybe the major avenues of social dissemination are subliminally telling you that you are an individual who is not good enough, not pretty enough, not strong enough, and not rich enough to be labeled a “success.”  What is a success anyway?  Is something a success when it proves that you are “better” than another person at something?  What was that magazine trying to tell you about beauty and how you relate to it, what is the Hollywood star telling you about how wonderful it is to be rich, popular, and influential?  Are these people really better than you?  Better yet, are these people fundamentally different than you?

There is no such thing as “better” only as far as you believe something or someone can be better.  Do you fear you must be better than someone else in order to secure your piece of the pie?  Is there not something fundamentally wrong with this way of life?

How are we to move from the survivalist mentality that has us competing against each other in a race to the bottom of consuming Earth’s last resources to a more harmonious society that thrives and allows the Earth to function optimally?

I will leave you with one hint…in nomadic tribes there is no mental illness, rape, or hideous activity.  People depend upon each other because they know that even in their individuality they are a part of a greater functioning organism…the clan…Their individual survival is dependent upon the collection intentions of the group.

Yes, we live alone in our apartments and homes.  Yes, we commute alone.  Yes, we eat alone.  But aren’t we just a clan inhabiting this planet?  We are humanity.  And only when we act to bolster and support each other will   Until then our fearful and individualistic nature will have us consuming the remaining resources of the Earth in pursuit of securing this resource for that country or this resource for that person.  What humanity needs now more than ever an a archaic revival.  We will thrive upon this planet when we combine the ingenuity of the technological era with the intuitive knowing of the eras past that had us knowing without question...that we are one.

come to thrive on this planet.

wakingtimes

“WE two boys together clinging,

One the other never leaving,

Up and down the roads going,

 North and South excursions making,

Power enjoying, elbows stretching,

 fingers clutching,

Arm'd and fearless, eating, drinking,

 sleeping, loving.

No law less than ourselves owning,

 sailing, soldiering, thieving, threatening,

Misers, menials, priests alarming,

air breathing, water drinking, on

the turf or the sea-beach dancing,

Cities wrenching, ease scorning,

statutes mocking, feebleness chasing,

Fulfilling our foray.”

― Walt Whitman

Banksters

 The Elite Plan for a New World Social Order

by Richard K Moore

When the Industrial Revolution began in Britain, in the late 1700s, there was lots of money to be made by investing in factories and mills, by opening up new markets, and by gaining control of sources of raw materials. The folks who had the most money to invest, however, were not so much in Britain but more in Holland. Holland had been the leading Western power in the 1600s, and its bankers were the leading capitalists. In pursuit of profit, Dutch capital flowed to the British stock market, and thus the Dutch funded the rise of Britain, who subsequently eclipsed Holland both economically and geopolitically.

In this way British industrialism came to be dominated by wealthy investors, and capitalism became the dominant economic system. This led to a major social transformation. Britain had been essentially an aristocratic society, dominated by landholding families. As capitalism became dominant economically, capitalists became dominant politically. Tax structures and import-export policies were gradually changed to favour investors over landowners.

It was no longer economically viable to simply maintain an estate in the countryside: one needed to develop it, turn it to more productive use. Victorian dramas are filled with stories of aristocratic families who fall on hard times, and are forced to sell off their properties. For dramatic purposes, this decline is typically attributed to a failure in some character, a weak eldest son perhaps. But in fact the decline of aristocracy was part of a larger social transformation brought on by the rise of capitalism.

The business of the capitalist is the management of capital, and this management is generally handled through the mediation of banks and brokerage houses. It should not be surprising that investment bankers came to occupy the top of the hierarchy of capitalist wealth and power. And in fact, there are a handful of banking families, including the Rothschilds and the Rockefellers, who have come to dominate economic and political affairs in the Western world.

Unlike aristocrats, capitalists are not tied to a place, or to the maintenance of a place. Capital is disloyal and mobile – it flows to where the most growth can be found, as it flowed from Holland to Britain, then from Britain to the USA, and most recently from everywhere to China. Just as a copper mine might be exploited and then abandoned, so under capitalism a whole nation can be exploited and then abandoned, as we see in the rusting industrial areas of America and Britain.

This detachment from place leads to a different kind of geopolitics under capitalism, as compared to aristocracy. A king goes to war when he sees an advantage to his nation in doing so. Historians can ‘explain’ the wars of pre-capitalist days, in terms of the aggrandisement of monarchs and nations.

A capitalist stirs up a war in order to make profits, and in fact our elite banking families have financed both sides of most military conflicts since at least World War 1. Hence historians have a hard time ‘explaining’ World War 1 in terms of national motivations and objectives.

In pre-capitalist days warfare was like chess, each side trying to win. Under capitalism warfare is more like a casino, where the players battle it out as long as they can get credit for more chips, and the real winner always turns out to be the house – the bankers who finance the war and decide who will be the last man standing. Not only are wars the most profitable of all capitalist ventures, but by choosing the winners, and managing the reconstruction, the elite banking families are able, over time, to tune the geopolitical configuration to suit their own interests.

Nations and populations are but pawns in their games. Millions die in wars, infrastructures are destroyed, and while the world mourns, the bankers are counting their winnings and making plans for their postwar reconstruction investments.

Freedom

Things are definitely beginning to change quickly now. The foundation of the dark ones world is now crumbling from aged decay. Finally the ultimate controller of the darkness is under investigation, the big companies who control and run this country are being called on the carpet for their crimes. While they don’t seem to be going to jail for these crimes, at least they are being recognized. The citizens of this country also seem to be saying enough is enough and challenging the banks for their crimes, thank goodness. It seems as if daily a wee bit more of the dark is exposed or knocked down allowing us to view the truth at last, and this is just the beginning. I think when all is said and done we will be shocked by what is revealed.

If anyone had doubts that things were happening and change was headed our way, I think it will be obvious now that the light is shining brighter. I hope now the masses will take the ultimate challenge and leap off into the unknown with trust in their hearts that the new world is where we are headed and all will be well if they make the journey. Some will remain steadfast to the old ways and will remain behind and I wish them well. For those taking the leap I say have courage and listen to your heart. Your spirit and higher self is showing you the way. Surrender to your higher self and the universe and say “okay, I’ll do it your way, for surely you know best and I trust you will provide for me.”

For so long now we have been separated from ourselves, we have been enticed into letting Government tend to our needs and provide for us, and we have forgotten that we are more than capable of living our lives on our own. We have lost our deep connection to the earth and nature as well and without this connection we are vulnerable and unaware. Our senses have become dull and rusted and we no longer use them to navigate through our lives on a steady basis. We don’t have the time to stay connected, as we are busy trying to survive in our lives, working long hours for a pay check that our Government pulls from our pockets. In the new world this slavery will end and we will be free and have the time to reconnect with life.

Visionkeeper

Don’t Panic

Here we are, going down the path and trusting it is taking us in the right direction. These are trying times indeed. Many question if this path is correct, many question if they are correct, some wonder if anything at all is really happening. The solar flares continue to pound us and throw us off-balance which doesn’t help but the energy they bring is necessary to move us forward. These trying times are like taking the cross town bus and being dropped off in a strange neighborhood. We are unsure of our surroundings, nothing looks familiar and there can even be a slight sense of danger. So how do you resolve those feelings and find your way safely to where you need to go? We must trust ourselves, trust that our decisions are sound and that we can count on ourselves to pull us through. If we don’t trust ourselves we panic in that unfamiliar neighborhood and fear the worst. I’ll get lost, maybe this isn’t a safe neighborhood. If you are thinking clearly you’ll stay put and get on the next bus to where you want to go. Staying in our hearts filled with love, I trust, is the right direction.

Survival 2100

 The Way Forward: Survival 2100

The  Survival 2100 plan calls for the continued pursuit of local resilience and the diversification of local economies.

    "Industrialised world reductions in material throughput, energy use, and environmental degradation of over 90% will be required by 2040 to meet the needs of a growing world population fairly within the planet’s ecological means." — Business Council for Sustainable Development

It’s not as if we’re unaware of the problem. Symptoms were already so persistent two decades ago that a proclamation by many of the world’s top scientists warned that “a great change in our stewardship of the earth and the life on it is required if vast human misery is to be avoided and our global home on this planet is not to be irretrievably mutilated.”2 This assertion was echoed a dozen years later by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment’s no less urgent warning that “human activity is putting such a strain on the natural functions of the earth that the ability of the planet’s ecosystems to sustain future generations can no longer be taken for granted.”

One might think that humanity’s best science would be enough to stimulate a decisive policy response, but the feeble effort so far has done little to stem the cumulative cascade of dismal data. No national government, no prominent international agency, no corporate leader anywhere has begun to advocate in public, let alone implement, the kind of evidence-based, visionary, morally coherent policy responses that are called forth by the best science available today.

On the climate front, the first six months of 2010 were the warmest ever recorded, and 2010 tied with 2005 and 2008 for hottest year in the instrumental record. (This while we should have been experiencing modest cooling—the world is just emerging from the longest solar minimum in decades.) Earth and paleoclimate scientist Andrew Glikson posits that the world may be experiencing the fastest climate change in 34 million years.

Some climate scientists are now stepping into the policy arena. Kevin Anderson and Alice Bows argue that the world will be hard-pressed to stabilize greenhouse gases at 650 ppmv CO2e, which implies a 50 percent chance of a catastrophic 4°C increase in mean global temperature, the desertification of much of the world’s habitable land mass, dramatically rising sea levels, and hundreds of millions of climate refugees by the end of the century. Indeed, unless we can reconcile economic growth with unprecedented rates of decarbonization (in excess of 6 percent per year), avoiding this increase will require a “planned economic recession.”

Of course, climate change is just one symptom of generalized human ecological dysfunction. A virtual tsunami of evidence suggests that the global community is living beyond its ecological means. By one measure, the human “ecological footprint” is about 2.7 global average hectares per person (gha/capita), yet there are only 1.8 gha/capita on earth. The human enterprise has already overshot global carrying capacity by about 50 percent and is living, in part, by depleting natural capital and overfilling waste sinks.

In theory, Homo sapiens is uniquely equipped to confront this self-made crisis. Four critical intellectual and emotional qualities distinguish people from other advanced vertebrates. Humans have

•     an unequaled capacity for evidence-based reasoning and logical analysis;
•     the unique ability to engage in long-term forward planning;
•     the capacity to exercise moral judgment; and
•     an ability to feel compassion for other individuals and other species.

As noted above, despite decades of hardening evidence, mainstream global society nevertheless remains in policy paralysis, stymied by cognitive and behavioral barriers to change that have deep roots in both human nature and global society’s culturally constructed economic growth fetish.

But what if mounting public pressure (think Occupy Wall Street) or a series of miniclimate catastrophes finally overwhelms these barriers? Assume the world community becomes fully motivated to deal effectively with biophysical reality. Now the question becomes, What would truly intelligent, forward-thinking, morally compassionate individuals do in response to available data, the historical record, and ongoing trends?

postcarbon.org

Transition Initiative

If the Transition Initiative were a person, you’d say he or she was charismatic, wise, practical, positive, resourceful, and very, very popular. Starting with the town of Totnes in Devon, England, in September 2006, the movement has spread like wildfire across the U.K. (delightfully wriggling its way into The Archers, Britain’s longest-running and most popular radio soap opera), and on to the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan. The core purpose of the Transition Initiative is to address, at the community level, the twin issues of climate change and peak oil—the declining availability of “ancient sunlight,” as fossil fuels have been called. The initiative is set up to enable towns or neighborhoods to plan for, and move toward, a post-oil and low-carbon future: what Rob Hopkins, founder of the Transition Initiative, has termed “the great transition of our time, away from fossil fuels.”

Part of the genius of the movement rests in its acute and kind psychology. It acknowledges the emotional effect of these issues, from common feelings of anger, impotence, and denial, and it uses insights from the psychology of addiction to address some reasons why it is hard for people to detoxify themselves from an addiction to (or dependence on) oil. It acknowledges that healthy psychological functioning depends on a belief that one’s needs will be met in the future; for an entire generation, that belief is now corroded by anxiety over climate change.

Many people feel that individual action on climate change is too trivial to be effective but that they are unable to influence anything at a national, governmental level. They find themselves paralyzed between the apparent futility of the small-scale and impotence in the large-scale. The Transition Initiative works right in the middle, at the scale of the community, where actions are significant, visible, and effective. “What it takes is a scale at which one can feel a degree of control over the processes of life, at which individuals become neighbors and lovers instead of just acquaintances and ciphers. . . participants and protagonists instead of just voters and taxpayers. That scale is the human scale,” wrote author and secessionist Kirkpatrick Sale in his 1980 book, Human Scale.

How big am I? As an individual, five foot two and whistling. At a government level, I find I’ve shrunk, smaller than the X on my ballot paper. But at a community level, I can breathe in five river-sources and breathe out three miles of green valleys.