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The Price of Participating in Society is the Sacrifice of Privacy and Self
The Price of Participating in Society is the Sacrifice of Privacy and Self
In what is arguably one of the most craven opportunistic moves by a business/media group to increase its circulation/profitability, on 10 April the New York Times (NYT) embarked on what it describes as its Privacy Project. A day later on 11 April, no doubt with the NYT’s foreknowledge of what was to come thanks to an unofficial US government tip, Ecuador revoked Julian Assange’s (Wikileaks founder) asylum in its UK Embassy and fed him to the British Police dogs eagerly awaiting to arrest him and dump him in jail.
In May 2017 I wrote that Assange was doomed from the get-go to be arrested and handed over to the US Government and that it would only be a matter of time before Edward Snowden befell a similar fate.
“Chelsea Manning’s leaked information made WikiLeaks and its founder, Julian Assange, a household name. It also made them permanent enemies of the US State. In 2010, Assange released a video that he called Collateral Murder. The video shows an airstrike in which Iraqi journalists are killed. Other releases based on Manning’s leak were known as the Afghan Diary and Iraq War Logs. The diplomatic cables exposed some of the silly machinations of the US State Department and the over classification of documents.
Meanwhile, mainstream media (MSM) outlets like the New York Times and Washington Post feasted on the leaks and gave them prominent coverage daily, even as they excoriated Assange and his merry band of leakers. The MSM believes that WikiLeaks is not “real” journalism even as they used the classified material Assange provided to bolster their subscription numbers. Aren’t they accessories to Assange’s crime? Apparently they are not.
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I WILL NOT HAVE A DEPRESSING DEPRESSION
I WILL NOT HAVE A DEPRESSING DEPRESSION
With the world careening towards great change, challenges and chaos, there is no shortage of links and lists to help us toughen up and get prepared to stay healthy, alert and nimble. But at the end of the day it is our own ‘self’, our mind we are alone with. It is here where fear creeps to the forefront and the darkness which is the unknown future appears so menacing.
Many who are making big changes to their lifestyle express the anger and frustration of not being able to shake friends and family awake, myself included. The adjustments I make will probably allow me to continue to be warm and fed, but leave me wallowing in what I think of as an advance case of ‘survivor’s guilt’. Knowing there will be extreme suffering and loss for everyone, loved ones and strangers alike, if the bottom falls out, how am I to reconcile this contradiction and seek my own happiness?
It is said misery loves company. And it is the rare person who doesn’t resent others basking in a happy disposition while their world seems to be falling apart. So is it wrong to be happy these days? Does it make it more acceptable to others and ourselves if we call it contentment or inner peace instead?
People have a difficult enough time finding happiness in what are generally perceived to be good times. So imagine what happens when fear sets in as the general population beings to recognize that the image of life as it was sold to them is not real and most certainly unattainable. How many people will be thinking about being happy then? Will those who seem to be happy be resented and despised for it? Should we also make ourselves miserable, or fake that we are, in order to appease those who are not?
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WAKING UP IS HARD TO DO
WAKING UP IS HARD TO DO
Do you remember when you first woke up, that point when it all became frighteningly clear to you? I certainly don’t, and if rigorous honesty is employed I doubt you do as well.
I make this statement with a high degree of certainty based not just upon my own personal experience, but from countless conversations over the years. Stated simply, ‘waking up’ is not an on/off switched event, but rather a process of slowly clearing away the fog of self deception and comforting illusion. Just as we do not instantly wake from our overnight slumber fully aware and properly functioning, so too do we fail to shake off decades of deep social conditioning and propaganda in an instant.
Sure, during this awakening process there are lightening strikes of clarity and revelation that stop us dead in our tracks while sickening the stomach and weakening the legs. The most devastating of these bolts from the blue are usually self revelatory and rarely joyful events. In fact I still suffer from these ‘First Light’ events to this day. The only thing worse than being caught naked to the world is to be exposed to our ‘self’ devoid of comforting emotional cover.
It is the height of childish thinking, something I am guilty far too often of, to believe we can wipe away in days, weeks or even months what has been carefully and painstakingly crafted within our psyche (what we think of as our ‘self’) over decades; our entire lifetime in fact. The ego does not easily concede its manipulative techniques nor lift its concealing veils willingly and without a ferocious fight.
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