Programming.
One thing I think about quite frequently, but have never actually written anything about, is PROGRAMMING. Not computer programming, but programming of people. I think about this a lot, and for the most part really despise its ongoing and continual use in our country and the world around us.
I'm talking about the instilling of consumerism and so-called patriotism from an early age, where children are indoctrinated almost from the moment of birth, scarcely allowed to develop their own personality and sense of self, and are instead imprinted with a mold of sameness, bombarded by the media and virtually everyone around them, telling them to conform, conform, conform.
Take, for instance, the war: Back in the 60s and 70s so many of America's youth protested war and argued vehemently and passionately against it. Today, we've been programmed so efficiently that anyone who speaks up against the war is undemocratic, unpatriotic, freedom-hating, etc. Most of today's video games are not only extremely violent, but are basically programming kids from an early age into thinking that war, killing, fighting, and combat are not only good things, but that they are ESSENTIAL. I find it extremely distressing when advertising has come full circle to the point where video game ads now very closely resemble recruiting ads for the National Guard, Army, Navy - and vice versa, of course.
Similarly, with religion, and nationality - people are taught from an early age that their religion (or their country) is the only correct one, and all others are wrong, or bad. Nationalism or patriotism isn't quite as bad elsewhere as it is here in America, but I find it fairly pervasive, where people from one given country tend to harbor extremely harsh feelings towards people from another country, for no particular reason other than their parents (or the media) taught them it from a young age. Some of these thoughts are so pervasive and global that they're practically a part of our consciousness: Polish people have so many jokes portraying them as oafish, stupid. Russians are evil, war-mongers. Anyone from the Middle East (particularly Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya) - or almost anyone of the Muslim faith - is a terrorist. All Arabs are money-hungry Rolls Royce-driving oil tycoons. All Wiccans, all Witches are Satan worshipers (or that the pentacle, pentagram, is a mark of Satan). Etcetera.
WHY IS THIS? We're all people. We're all basically the same, and like it or not, we're all stuck together here on this planet. Logic alone would seem to provide a compelling argument for us to JUST GET ALONG, to put aside our bullshit and COEXIST - yet for some reason our governments and other controlling forces out there seem to have this urgent need to separate us, to divide us, to keep us squabbling and hating each other. Perhaps it isn't even that sinister, perhaps they're just following what they themselves have been programmed to do, going thru the motions without even thinking of the global implications.
These are only a few of many hundreds of things I've always felt a tremendous sense of WRONGNESS about our world, one of many many things that I feel could be improved, should be improved - and in some cases MUST be improved if we're going to continue living and evolving as a planet. Many times I think we're doomed, humanity that is, at least the majority of us who sit back complacently in their lives, perpetuating the lie and just chewing their cud like a content cow. Granted, I'm not perfect, FAR from it in fact, but I'm at least writing something about it.
I've been off this path for a while now, but I'm determined to get back into it with a vengeance. I've always been told that my writing is extremely powerful, and finally I'm in a position where I can actually put forth my ideas in a logical, cohesive manner. (Thanks, LiveJournal!). It took me a while to get here, because I kept falling off the path, which I first truly started on 2-3 years ago, when I began writing my essay "Unifying Theories: Of Gaia, Of Nature, and Our Future". Then I kind of wandered away for awhile, only to resume interest when I came up with the idea of "The Four Elements of the Euphoria Project". Once again, I stuck with the idea for awhile, but eventually got caught up in my life and personal issues.
As I mentioned earlier, around that time I started seriously improving myself, my health, my spirituality and many other elements in my life were beginning to converge very satisfyingly. Then I had some personal problems with a couple very close friends, and as I'm prone to do, completely freaked out mentally, shut myself off and pulled back for a while. Then, my cat Trouble died and all hell broke loose. I COMPLETELY diverged from a spiritual/mental path, and completely wallowed in my person, loving my laziness and just gorging myself on any food I could find. I'm still recovering from that whole period, and to some extent still find myself overly enamored of junk food. That's always been a BIG problem of mine, but fortunately I'm always well aware of my problems - I just usually choose to ignore them, or put them aside in favor of other issues.
Lately, I've been spending most of my time working on expanding my business, The Euphoria Project, Inc. However, as things improved with my business, I found my mind re-awakening as if coming out of a long sleep. I guess as my personal mood improves so does my desire to improve every element of my life. So I created this livejournal page, in the hopes of having at least SOME outlet for my problems, issues, thoughts and concerns.
If anyone out there's actually reading this stuff, please feel free to comment on it, I'd be very happy to start a discussion over some of these things. I'll try and post something up fairly regularly, as thoughts occur to me I won't just push them aside as I had been, and instead throw them up here and try to confront them, deal with them, and make some sense of them.
lateron
Mitch