What’s Different This Time
Fat and ugly are treatable.
That's what the whole fitness revolution for the last 40 years has been all about. No need to go through life having a complex that clouds one's perspective in this way anymore.
Now with the information revolution, a lot of conditions that people thought were immutable, will also be rendered inconsequential, and easily modifiable. Up until the recent past, people thought they were doomed to their conditions (fates) -- but with a better understanding, they resolve them easily and move on to be fully developed human beings -- instead of crippled by their mainly psychological (self-imposed) limitations.
With a better understanding, a lot of the problems of the past, both individual and societal, just disappear, and the conditioning (education) we receive, has to allow and empower that, rather than continuing the tradition of co-dependence, that becomes an increasing problem with the demographics of an aging population.
One half of the population can’t be taking care of the other half of the population, and then two taking care of one, and then three taking care of one -- while that population requiring that care, increases faster than the remaining. So obviously, that increasingly aging population, has to do so without the problems of that dependence.
The problem presently, is that those who would benefit the most from the powerful enabling technologies of these times -- are those most resistant to adopting them -- because of their conditioning to resist change. Without change, there can be no improvement -- because improvement would mean change, and change to the old status quo, is bad. So the solutions are there -- but we are conditioned to reject them, and embrace the age-old problems as familiar friends.
The academic tradition is the perpetuation of the status quo -- and not
responding to the challenges of the present times. In this manner, we prepare ourselves for a world that no longer exists -- while refusing to deal with the challenges of the present moment as the only reality. The critical question in conditioning (education) is asking what is not absolutely necessary to learn -- and eliminating that, rather than having no time, energy and resources for the challenge of one’s actual living because we are "too busy" learning the irrelevant. All the problems they are solving are theoretical and academic ones -- thinking in that way to develop the capacity to solve real problems.
Solving phony problems is not a skill worth cultivating -- though they ensure job security for the countless teachers, who have no real value to impart. They just do it because that’s what others did before them -- when the understanding was less perfect. When the understanding is improved, it supplants the old and shouldn’t be added to the old -- which the acquisitive and accumulative personalities of the past, think is the whole purpose of existence.
In almost every case, that which is better requires less -- and not more. The demand for MORE is indicative of the problem, and not its solution.
posted by Mike Hu @ 11:02 PM
3 comments
3 Comments:
What you call “narcissism” and others call “vanity,” is a large part of dysfunctional conditioning -- which is the underlying message that one is not deserving of the best that one can be. In the conditioning of a more unenlightened time, shame, humiliation, and sadism, are passed off as virtues to control others and keep them from their highest aspirations.
In my experiences with conditioning, that mentality is always the greatest handicap -- of getting some people to realize that they are worthy of anything they aspire to in life, rather than being, browbeaten, shamed, manipulated and humilated into thinking they are “nothing,” and should not even dream of anything else beyond what some authoritarian figure decides is good for them.
That’s the great theme of Martin Luther King’s statement that it was not so much the overt bigots that troubled him, but the well-meaning and well-intentioned (liberals) who expected so little of him and themselves.
We can condition our bodies (muscles) to do anything we want them to do and think is important. For some, that may be running a marathon; for others, it is lifting a lot of weight. For unfortunately too many over the last 40 years, what they've conditioned themselves to do is to make every effort as difficult, tedious and laborious as possible -- when really, their real objective is the opposite -- to make movement as easy, graceful and effortless as possible.
The desired effect doesn't happen because nature is fooled into producing the opposite effect as a reaction -- as though the final outcome can only come about if the gods are fooled into thinking we want something else.
In primitive cultures, that was actually a strategy of life -- to deceive others so they could not frustrate one's ambitions -- which they would surely do (or so it was thought) if they knew about it. Anybody else's gain was seen as one's own loss -- vis-a-vis "the competition."
The possibility that anybody else's gain could also be their gain, was entirely out of the question. Thus society was largely this competition against everybody else -- rather than the synergy and totality of everybody.
Most of the energy was consumed in nullifying everybody else's contributions -- so that one could singularly stand at the top. That we could all be co-contributors to a societal process rather than merely competing for dominance over everybody else, was regarded as a thought-crime.
There is no doubt in my mind that in the society of the future, everybody will be in marvelous shape and condition quite effortlessly -- because that is the intelligent way to be, despite the present "health crisis" that the condition of many people are hopelessly moving towards obesity and the other problems of overconsumption and excess.
More than not making enough money, is the problem of not spending it wisely and productively. Some people spend all their money on recreational drugs. Beyond the median income, what differentiates most people, is their ability to detect and determine value beyond the price. Many still are conned into believing that "you get what you pay for."
The problem is especially acute in regards to information. What is the price of good information? Certainly, it is invaluable. What is the price of bad information? To be able to discriminate the difference -- is the new standard for the quality of life.
That understanding -- conditions the rest of one's life.
A lot of people get really offended by the suggestion that they can improve themselves -- while healthy people see improvement as the reason and purpose of their being. The former will even erect temples and shrines to their own mediocrity -- and demand that everybody worship at it. If they are in a position of power, they will enact laws forbidding anybody else from surpassing their standard -- which they will insist is the limit of human possibilities.
It is encoded into every "seniority" system -- outlawing merit. Ability should not only not be a basis of discrimination and distinction, but must be forbidden, suppressed and vanquished at the first detection.
In this manner, "liberalism" morphs into "totalitarianism," on a reliably predictable cycle.
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