Pilgrimage ~ Day 4

Human nature is such that once we have set our sights upon some goal, a vision of an ideal world or that which we interpret as 'the good life', we will look at how others have fared, will give some thought as to what we will need to change or how we must become within ourselves, to begin to reconstruct what is our model of the world (our sense of reality) in order to attain our prize.

There may be many twists and turns in our journey as we endeavor to ascend to the top of our chosen mountain. Our desire for change can motivate us to join a philosophical or religious order, attach ourselves to some guru, renounce any sense of materialism, or join a crusade and become a militant over a piece of land or relic which at some point in history has been ear-marked as holy.

With a plethora of perspectives of reality, of values, ethics and morality, it is possible that in the course of our evolution, our capacity for seeing is being honed so that we are capable of discerning an essential nature of or reality of life and that which is giving rise to all things.

There are going to be times when we feel tempted to 'throw the baby out with the bathwater' and to choose this is to assume that we already know everything that can be known about an experience and so we close ourselves off from our insight. Once we discover that we have tasted salty water and which had been offered to us as wine, the decline of our hopes and expectations can mean that we experience dismay, contempt, denial or ambivalence, prior to acceptance of and even of blessing that such a world has its diversity.

It may be that we are hardwired so that as we journey through the midst of disappointment and contempt, we reject what has been presented before us and try to push it away from our experience, because we are acknowledging a desire to move into a more pleasant state of being. 'Not that, this' is a familiar guide for us, just as if we are following an ancient instinct calling for us to stay away from the poisonous berries and to seek out healthier alternatives.

Humanity is familiar with conflict and aggression being popular outlets of expression for resistance, but in a world whereby political correctness is actively encouraged and dissent is ever more tightly monitored and controlled, dissociation, apathy and distraction are on a steady climb. The current political and economic state of the world, the growing wealth gap and sense of inequality and disenfranchisement being felt by many, may be one of the primary reasons as to why the entertainment industry has been growing at the phenomenal rate it has.

In a conversation with a teenager recently, I asked for her perspective as to why there can be such a massive following for particular YouTube stars and channels. She said that for her, she experienced a sense of sadness about the world and of who she is within it, and so she turned to particular YouTube stars, as well as comedians, because they acted as a distraction for her. She said that many young people cannot afford to purchase some games and so they settle for the next best thing, which is to tune into somebody else playing a game for them. Virtual reality is literally reaching out through its medium to absorb a wider audience.

It could be that we are witnessing the transformation of a particular state of consciousness, one in which resignation signals that resistance and aggressive conflict are losing their power and appeal, so that the new can emerge in their stead.

A couple of insightful quotes to contemplate:

"Science is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge" ~ Carl Sagan

"The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks" 

~ Christopher Hitchens

"The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking" ~ Albert Einstein

 "Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers" ~ Voltaire

"The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled" ~ Plutarch

With the demise of an old world order at stake, it is perhaps of little surprise that a proportion of the population and which has commonly been referred to as a ruling elite, and who have benefited so much in terms of their wealth, are keen to preserve its structure and at the least to position themselves to the greatest advantage.

Information and insight are emerging as potent game changers, and this explains in part why the freedom of the internet has been so hotly debated, why a mainstream media has been muzzled or misappropriated to the extent that it has, why whistle blowers have received such condemnation from political-military-intelligence allies and why some assumptions of the national educational policy and Common Core process has been challenged and met with rebellion.

There has been much debate in recent years about a tipping point and it could be that humanity is experiencing something of a healing crisis as patience wears thin and the scale of manipulation of the populace slowly comes to a head.