Your beliefs are just thoughts that you keep thinking. Yet, they are so entrenched in most of our psyches, that we take them to be literal descriptors of who we come to think we are. This is how we are conditioned to be the people we think we are. Wherever you are born and the family and culture you are born into will dictate what kind of conditioning you see and expect to see more of in your life. All the different aspects of your culture are merely derivatives of expectations from your conditioning that become your constant thoughts, and hence beliefs and worldview. This is a central theme of much of my writing about sustainability.
Most people think unconsciously, meaning that they do not try to look at their thoughts as they arise in the constant chatter that we all live inside our minds from the moment we wake up to the time we go to sleep. Waking up isn’t just consciously becoming aware of things going on in your life, but becoming the conscious observer of every thought you think and what those thoughts are making you do on an emotional level. Waking up means to think independently without the need to have anyone have to agree with you. When you become a conscious thinker, you can create whole new realities that lead to you becoming your authentic self. Now that is true freedom. In my role as a spiritual life guide, a question I often ask is that people write down a full description of who they would be if they had that option. When you start to control your thoughts instead of being enslaved by them you can begin acting in a way that moves you towards, not only an authentic you, but also to a future that you prefer to see. Your empowering actions create the future you want and not the disempowering one you simply accept.
The internet and social media can be great tools if used consciously. Alas, most people use them unconsciously as tools to justify themselves and their beliefs – one of the reasons that polarization so readily occurs today. Before the internet, you would get reinforcement of your worldview through the people with whom you physically interacted. People who travelled a lot, and especially those that immersed themselves in other cultures, would inevitably find their worldviews altered as they came to understand different cultures that had different perspectives that shook their original conditioning. But now, the internet traps us, because of the algorithms used by the platforms (see last Post), into a whole set of viewing sites that merely match your interests. Not that is bad in itself, but unless you consciously seek out other sites you will not be exposed to alternate perspectives that are crucial in widening your perspectives. Then couple that with the insane amount of censorship and mainstream dogmatism and you should see that the mass of people that are being narrowed into a world of propaganda in which only an authoritarian viewpoint is given to you. You may be free to think inside your own little box, but the world outside your box is closed to you.
I’m a baby boomer and grew up in a Monty Python’s Flying Circus world. What made Monty Python unique was how it satirized everyday living and showed the ridiculousness of things we seem to accept without question. Once you can open your mind to accept that reality as you think it exists may not be the way it actually exists then you begin to envision a different world from the one you seem to be living within. As I stated at the start of this post, the internet can be used to free your mind or enslave it further. And you make that choice. To just go with the flow of options given by the platforms is to remain enslaved. But, to start consciously looking outside your narrow perspectives and consciously make an effort to immerse your mind in alternate sites is to liberate it.
Now, I’m not saying you should start looking at every conspiracy site and start believing them. The key words here are ‘Wise Discernment.’ The main difference between Wisdom and Discernment is that the wisdom is a deep understanding of or knowledge of a subject and discernment is the act of determining the value and quality of a certain topic. Then a healthy dose of open-minded skepticism (refer to earlier post about Pyrrho of Elis – Skepticism {January 2018}) should awaken you to a different set of realities that can be harmful to your ‘dogma’s.’ Once you understand the dogmas you have, it is quite disconcerting to see the world from a fresh perspective. Unless you are a narcissistic sociopath, and I doubt you would be reading this blog if you were, you have a varying degree of empathy in your psychological makeup.
Social researcher Brené Brown spent years studying vulnerability, courage, authenticity, and shame to understand authenticity and empathy. As she says, “To empathize with someone’s experience you must be willing to believe them as they see it and not how you imagine their experience to be.” That says it nicely. We look at the world and our reality perspective through our own individuated lenses, but we have to learn to see the world differently. It’s more than fine to not agree on everything, but we have to be willing to see beyond our own restrictions.
The internet is a soulless system upon which too many place a humanistic layer. The manipulated internet is one increasingly designed to control your thinking towards a consumer capitalist mindset with a side-effect of polarizing your thinking. It wasn’t started out that way. It was meant to be a liberating tool and still can be, but it takes a liberated mind to understand how to navigate through it without becoming coopted by it. There is so much internet noise that comes in the way of info-commercialism that will take quite readily over your mind. It is a glitzy sideshow to keep you occupied and asleep to what is happening behind the curtain. You can wake up and use the internet as a tool to liberate your mind and see new perspectives. Who runs your life? You or an algorithm? After all, it your authenticity and sovereignty that are being threatened, and it is these aspects that are primary in creating a new world of your choosing.
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