Eliminate
Violence and Fear from your life.
Take
control of your reality.
An Essay
Over the past few decades, many of us have had the opportunity to make the acquaintance of drug addicts. By and large they were nice people, not the stereotypes depicted on television, but relatively normal middle-class kids, yuppie ladder climbers, or just the guy next door, who simply fell into the trap of addiction. Some were alcohol addicts, good people who found themselves consumed by a drug that dominated their lives. Many were tobacco addicts who are the salt of the earth and who truly believe that they can just kick the habit yet when they attempt to stop find it unbelievably difficult. We have a friend or a co-worker who just can’t function effectively in the morning until after she has her first cup of coffee.
One thing that stands out about all these drug addicts though is that keeping the supply of the drug flowing into them is the most important thing in their lives. It is the core of their existence. They wake up in the morning and their first thought is filled with that day’s supply of their particular drug. They will go to extraordinary effort to secure the drug. The day is drenched in the drug and finally they go to sleep with the drug streaming through their veins.
Another thing you will notice about drug addicts is that they will sacrifice things that they might otherwise consider important in favor of their drug. They may have great aspirations for their education, career or personal relationships, but somehow those things end up subordinated to the “enjoyment” of their drug. Even after the drug has stopped producing a “high”, but is now just keeping them from the grips of painful withdrawal, they will spend hours every day immersed in the drug. In fact if you listen closely you will hear the slave vehemently defending his chains.
From the point of view of those running our culture, this is not necessarily considered a bad thing. In fact there is evidence that people in power have regarded it as desirable to get people addicted. Why else would the US and Canadian governments continue to give millions of dollars in subsidies to tobacco producers. In the more distant past the British fought a war with China to protect their right to sell opium to the millions of opium addicts in china. They won the war and made millions in opium trade and taxes. In Canada liquor is not only heavily taxed but actually sold exclusively through government owned stores.
All too often the primary objective of a culture, instituted by governments and religious organizations, is to render the citizenry non-resistant. As every heroin dealer, tobacco salesman or liquor store clerk knows, if you have what people need for their daily sense of well being, they will be nice to you. They may cause trouble for others but they will fight to protect their supply.
One measure of a drug’s addictive potential is how easy it is to put it down at will and with ease. Lets call the behavior of sometimes using a drug but then being able to remove yourself from its influence for months or years, “sampling” the drug. Research has shown that while large percentages of people could “sample” marijuana, and a somewhat smaller but still significant percentage could “sample” alcohol, cocaine and even heroin, less than 5% could “sample” tobacco. Now imagine a drug that fewer than 5% of the population can walk away from for a month at a time without the agony of withdrawal. This drug’s addictive powers would be the most powerful ever developed.
To be so effective this drug would not only have to be able to actively discourage “sampling” behavior, but would also have to regulate people’s moods by inducing a mental state that would let the users leave behind the boredom or painful struggles of every day life. It would have to alter their brainwaves, alter their neurochemistry, and induce a state of confidence that in fact the users were not suffering from some addiction but were just exercising their free will of preference.
Like a social drinker the addict would not ever consider living without ready access to this drug while loudly proclaiming that they can easily live without it. Our technological culture has found such a drug to keep us docile. Far more seductive than opium, infinitely more effective at shaping behavior than alcohol, more pervasive and used more during each day than tobacco, such a drug exists. We call it Television.
People set aside large portions of their lives to watch a simulation of reality on the screen of a little box. They rely on this box for the majority of their information about how the world works, how their politicians are running their country, what to buy, where to buy it, how to live, where to live, how to love, when to love, what to fear and when to fear it. We spend more time getting to know the actors in the box than we spend getting to know our own neighbors and families. Even though the contents of the box are controlled indirectly by a handful of people who often are also in the weapons, tobacco and alcohol business, we still rely on it to tell us what’s real.
Most people wake up to this drug. They consume it whenever possible during the day, at the dentist, in bars, and even in hospital rooms. Many even take it with their meals and then they go to sleep with it. Our major regrets in life are never about the things we have done but rather about the things we’ve not done. The goals we never reached, the parent, friend or lover we never were, the time we didn’t spend with our own parents in their sunset years. Yet our culture encourages us to sit in front of a flickering box for dozens of hours per week and watch the time of our lives flow through our hands like sand on the beach.
Do the math; if you only watch 2 hours of TV per day you are immersed in an artificial reality for 45 days a year (assuming you spend 8 hours sleeping per night). Many of us watch more than 2 hours per day. Not only does this rob us of 10 years (3640 days) of our lives but is indoctrinates us constantly with a view reality that is a construct of someone else’s imagination. We learn to adopt their experience, fears, limitations, and shortcomings as our own. We start to govern our lives based on information that is made up, pure fiction, under the guise of entertainment.
How often have you in your world seen a murder? No not on television but in real life? What about a stabbing or even a fist fight? How often has your car been stolen or your house been ransacked? Is the fear that you feel about your personal safety and the safety of your property based on personal experience or just on the conditioned reflex that results from exposure to the television. Imagine how safe your neighbourhood would be to walk through and enjoy if all the people now glued to the TV would be sitting on their front porch watching or in the yard engaged in conversation with or helping their neighbors. Spending 45 hours a month in activities to build your community pays direct dividends in securing its safety and sustainability.
And for those of you who think you don’t have enough time to travel back and forth to work on your bicycle, you could spend those two hours a day now wasted on the tube by improving your physical health and the health of your community. But what about staying informed? Consider some appropriate technology, a portable radio.
This has often been called “The Information Age”. The average person today, it is said, knows more than anybody at any time in history. Through the Internet, via satellite, and with access to a 200 channel “universe” via television, the collective knowledge of our species is available to even the most ordinary of citizens. It’s a wonderful thing and as a result of it all we are all incredibly well informed about the world we live in. So the story goes. I’m sure you have heard it before and probably believe it. But is it really true?
If we are so well informed why is it that so many of us know so little about the history of the world? Why can most people not tell you where the water comes from that flows from their tap or where the sewer goes when they flush the toilet? What about simple things like food production? How many us really understand how the foods we eat make it to our table? Did you know that in order to drink milk you have to kill baby cows? To eat eggs you have to kill chickens?
How many of us understand the historical events that lead up to war in Bosnia, the Congo or Iraq? Do we realize that many more people were taken from their families through automobile “accidents” then were killed in the World Trade Center horror? What about growing your own food? Building your own house? Do you know how an automobile engine works or where exactly the gasoline you pump into it comes from? Do you know how steel is made and what the effects are on your daily life?
Yes, the Internet is a massive source of information but people in the business will tell you that the vast majority of profitable, well used, Internet sites are the ones selling sex or pornography. The most common word typed into all search engines is “sex”. Close behind sex and all its derivatives are searches for sports, soap opera and popular movies. The reality is that the Internet’s potential for information is largely underutilized and the technology continues to be misapplied.
The reason is that the Internet has to compete with TV. To do that it must bombard us constantly with glitz and fluff. Most people’s attention span has been conditioned to be less than 2 minutes. If a site takes too long to load or requires careful study it is skipped in favor of a flashier version. So computers have evolved into virtual powerhouses that are used by many young people for network games such as Doom and Blood Bath. Instead of a learning tool the computer has become a bastion for “interactive” virtual reality games where children can train to become familiar with the detailed operation of assault rifles and automatic weapons and then go on virtual patrol with a commando unit made up of other kids around the globe.
This kind of virile conditioning towards violence has its roots in the violence we find on television. No longer is it enough to watch the senseless murder of individuals in the screen we are now driven to actively participate in the act via interactive virtual reality experiences. To call them “games” is to play into the hands of those that wish to trivialize this sort of hijacking of the human spirit.
Imagine if every newspaper in the country ran a series on how to use weapons to kill people, over and over and over again. Imagine this same step-by-step instruction being packaged with every grocery order you pick up at the super market, with every car you purchase or rent, with every airplane ticket you buy. Now imagine that there would be a detailed explanation on the back of those instructions to show why such violent acts are justified and considered appropriate behavior by the authorities. How safe would such a world be?
In fact that is exactly what we do when we watch the endless stream of violence on television. We continuously expose ourselves, and our families to countless acts of senseless violence, from CNN to NYPD. Even the nature shows often focus on the ruthless fighting of wild animals. Truth is, the real world is just not that violent. The average 10 year old sees more death and destruction on TV in one night than the average police officer sees in a month or more. Most animal species on the planet live in harmony and only are aggressive in a small percentage of circumstances. Even humans, the most violent of all species on the earth, experience very little violence in their personal lives.
So why are we bombarded with such
virulent images? The answer is simple; death sells. To confirm this take a
little survey of your own. For one week keep a pad and pen by your television
and monitor the commercials. Draw two columns down the page. Head one column
“quality products supporting a healthy or sustainable lifestyle”. Head the
other column “products causing pollution, contributing to my lethargy or the
deterioration of my health”. Now evaluate every commercial you see and place a
check in one column or the other. Tally up the total.
Now you know why TV must capture you with shock and awe to keep you around so
that the advertisers can convince you to purchase their products that without
adequate conditioning you would not choose to spend your hard earned cash on.
Fact is that that, upon closer analysis you come to realize that these products
do little to improve your quality of life and the intensity of the advertisement
is proportional to the amount of damage the use of the product will inflict on
you and your family in the long term.
All this would be less dramatic if we didn’t inflict this terrible addiction on our children before they even have a choice in the matter. We use television as our electronic babysitter. Today the average child spends more than 4 hours per day in front of the tube and anywhere from 44% to 85% of network programming contains violence that is beyond what a child would normally encounter in every day life.
So by the time we are old enough to have the ability to reason that TV is as costly to our selves and society as ice cream, soda pop, french-fries and automobiles we are so preconditioned to defending our chains that we are prepared to fight like the addict that we are for our right to “enjoy” our fix.
Some of you will be too addicted to do your own research and give serious consideration to the issues involved. Some of you however may grow to understand that next to the Automobile the TV has done more to destroy the fabric of our society than any other public enemy. To those of you who are looking for alternatives let me share a concept I learned from Swami Beyondananda. Tell-a-vision.
Let me tell you a vision. Let me tell you about a world where we talk with our neighbors, share experiences, help each other understand the world that is immediately around us. Let me tell you about a place where we know one another, where we help each other, where we share our resources and skills.
Let me tell you about a world where we trust one another, where the back door of our houses leads into the kitchen and is always open for neighbors to drop by. Where neighbors do drop by. Where we take the time to make our strawberry compote in the spring, applesauce in the fall, coleslaw in the winter.
Let me tell you about a world where children still wonder about life and play with each other. A world where we cruise slowly down an empty autumn street, after school bicycles pedaled side-by-side, fat tires crunching maple leaves.
Let me tell you about a place where parents take raising children personally. Organize their lifestyle to trade toys for time to spend with the children as they grow up. A place where the two parents take turns being the breadwinner and homemaker.
Let me tell you about a world where we care for our parents, take them to a park for picnics in their sunset years. A world where we integrate time spent with our parents and our children into our daily lives. A world where we lie cheek to cheek in the grass under the clear blue sky grateful for one more day together on this wonderful planet.
Let me tell you about a world where we do business with our neighbors, helping them to earn an honest living and support their family. A world of respect where we trust each other to do the right thing even though we can get away with doing anything.
It is a world that is within our reach. It does not take much money or some special outside event to achieve. It takes a paradigm shift in the privacy of your mind. It is in our mind that we stage the genesis of our reality. We have all heard the phrases, mind over matter, think and grow rich, what you think is what you are, a thought is a dead, let there be light.
Take stock of the thoughts and images that flow through your mind during the day. What are the thoughts you have of yourself and your world? Are they full of strife and fear? Are they full of love and security? Choose your thoughts carefully. Be selective about what images you allow into your mind. Start visualizing the world you really wish to inhabit.
Most importantly though, start living your own life. Stop paying others to live it for you. Personally taking care of your family is more rewarding than earning the money at a job and paying someone else to do it for you. Love and security is not something we can buy, it is something we create, one simple choice at a time.
Let there be peace on Earth and let it begin with me…
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American Psychological Association