There is no shortage of great thinkers and researchers who have illuminated the risks being imposed up on us with consumerist worldview. Michael Pollan has clearly expressed the problems with our industrial food systems (see earlier post Relocalization and Community {Jan 2018}). Avoiding processed food and non-organic produce is a first step to reducing our health risks, and improving our health well into old age. And there are endless books emphasizing the sins of industrial Agriculture and benefits of Organic/Permaculture styles of farming. If you are waiting for the big money to suddenly get a social conscience and start giving us healthy food and agricultural systems, you are letting yourself become disempowered and being led by the nose. Your food choices are crucial in promoting your own health and in promoting agricultural systems that heal everything on the planet as well as drastically decrease the use of fossil fuels, which is yet another source of high risk imposed upon us all.
Talking about risk: Update on the Pfizer mRNA vaccine risk. According to the CDC’s own site (https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/acip/meetings/downloads/slides-2020-12/slides-12-19/05-COVID-CLARK.pdf), the problems with the first jab has caused 2.79% ‘Health Impact Events,’ which translates to debilitating physical problems and anaphylaxis. And that is just the immediate short-term impacts. The counter message from mainstream and social media is that there are just a few initial allergic reactions. Take your pick when you choose.
We are living through one of the most chaotic periods of recent history, characterized by polarization of in religion, politics, worldviews and this past year, healthcare. These polarizations are so toxic at this time it is harming everything on the planet – our adherence to a consumer paradigm is increasing the risk for harm. Much of what is creating these polarizations are people becoming dogmatic and entrenched in their beliefs because the chaos makes them afraid of what is on the other side of the changes that are obviously coming. People in fear do not reason and react from unconscious conditioning rather than respond from a more thoughtful place. People in fear react with anger, frustration, blame, guilt, and desire for perceived stability of the old way even if it were not desirable. The mass media and polarizing nature of social media do a great job of promoting and maintaining this polarization.
Are you empowered to change? Ask yourself this question, Am I choosing or simply following? Is what I am hearing resonant with my truth or is it the truth being given to me? – this is a point you need to take a deep look at your beliefs. Are you leading yourself or are you following the herd? What kind of world do you want to live in? Are you trying to create that kind of world or just numbing yourself into acceptance of what is being thrust at you? Anything that occurs from a selfish or controlling perspective with competition as the outcome is part of the old paradigm. I’ve talked often enough about a vision for a new more caring world (see VISION – How we focus on what we really Want 1-4 {May 2018}). Let me refocus yet again on how our current beliefs create the problem.
So many who are ardent environmentalists and proponents of sustainability still toe the line when it comes to our authoritarian hierarchy. We have these unyielding beliefs that the ‘system’ is inherently good. I like the term Egregore in describing how many people remain locked into their belief’s wit thoughtforms that seem to take on a life of their own. While historically, the term is used in metaphysical and occult circles, it is a wonderful description of how we ‘buy into’ culture of a place or system such as corporations and governments. Psychologically speaking, an Egregore is a kind of group mind that actually becomes entrenched over time as a pattern of thinking where people come together for a common purpose. It is often sensed as an atmosphere or cultural personality independent of any of the people that drives the interactions of a group – e.g., think any Stock Exchange or any large Legal Firm. While there may be sociopaths and psychopaths who have taken charge of many systems the majority of people that work in these systems are inherently decent people that in any other system could exhibit kindness instead of a corporate dog-eat-dog kind of competition.
Originally corporations were temporarily created to allow investors to achieve large scale social projects that were unattainable individually (see Changing Business 2 – Getting back to Basics – Origins of Corporations {Oct 2018}). Corporations now exist as Egregore entities in their own right with building money and social control as their dominant characteristics. Sometimes it’s as simple as a focus on the ‘Shareholder’ versus the ‘Stakeholder (see Changing Business 1- Understanding how businesses can change the world for the better! – New Social Contracts {Oct 2018}).
I digress – Back to risk. Remember this corporate egregore focus is to create more money and control the system so that everyone has to buy into the system. The industrial agricultural systems that produce the food use all manner of chemicals and GMO’s to force the yields needed to supply the consumer. If that means using poisons to remove unwanted biological competitors or raising animals in the most horrific conditions needing drugs and medications to keep them alive long enough to go to slaughter, then that is OK. The problem of all these external chemicals on our long-term health is not allowed to be questioned.
Now look at the food systems. Our food serves the egregore by ‘satisfying’ the consumer by providing economically processed food that are addictive and have long storage (shelf) lives to maximize profits and reduce lost profit (spoilage). If that means adding all manner of artificial or unhealthy chemicals that affect long term health, then that is OK. Individuals working for these systems would not individually confer such risk on the consumer, but the egregore will. We have been ‘brainwashed’ to accept these risks as a consequence of accepting a meme of ‘a consumer life.’
We all value our health. While many of us might choose to engage in higher risk activities (e.g., climbing or skiing) we make those decisions consciously. Yet, we allow ourselves to be blindsided when it comes to everything else in our consumer lifestyles. What we think we know and what we accept drives our unconscious choices and actions. To illustrate this, I once worked in a biochemical teaching lab at a large university. In the stockroom where I worked, we had shelves of chemicals that the students could book out for their various teaching practical experiments. We had a wonderful cleaning lady who made it a point each week to keep the shelves and bottles free of dust and encrustations of chemical around the edges of the lids. I noted that she never wore gloves except when she came to the bottles labelled Arsenic (Arsenide’s) and Cyanide (cyanates) because she knew those as poisons. When I pointed out a whole range of other bottles on the shelves that were also as toxic and poisonous and then the biochemicals she handled that were toxic, she was profoundly disturbed. I need you to be as aware of the whole range of chemicals imposed on you that are toxic in both the short term and long term. Add to all of that the myriad problems of air and water pollution from energy generation and manufacturing, and I hope you start to see where risks occur in your life that you would not naturally accept if you had to make a conscious choice based on full information.
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