Usually It’s Obvious

There seems to be innumerable articles claiming that exercise is good because it does some good for some part of the body that only their scientists/researchers are competent to measure -- and not that activities benefit the whole -- very obviously, and is apparent to anyone. The last miniscule justification for exercise I saw was that it was good for your “good cholesterol,” which obviously, is not apparent to everyone, but only scientists who have defined and measure, “good” and “bad” cholesterol.

The mainstream media, schools, universities and unions have already claimed to know what is good and bad thinking -- or “political correctness,” predefining what can be studied and observed, and what can’t be. Therefore, if one wants to observe inequality anywhere, under any conditions, that is no longer allowed -- because “equality,” is the only thing that can be seen now.

Of course there is a huge problem when ideology starts to overrule science -- which is the simple observation of what is, now preconditioned by what should be, according to some self-designated few, supposedly isolated in sterile think-tanks for this purpose.

Usually it is some middle-aged guy/gal laboring in anonymity and obscurity for they can’t recall what reason anymore -- but it was to become famous winning the Nobel Prize by contributing greatly to the knowledge of mankind -- rather than just being the pretense for some politician’s ambition to exploit their findings and distort to grotesque self-benefit of world domination.

But the pay is good, and nobody moves their cheese, and threatens them that they have to “perform.” Nobody does anything without careful calculation and consideration beforehand -- because everything in this world, is controllable and detectable to the nth degree of accuracy, in their small universe.

But life and living is this big thing -- not simply measured and defined by one small thing, no matter how much their advocates convince their legislators it is the key building block of the whole universe -- which they alone can command, with the help of the generously remunerated support staff. Of course, with generous funding, they can be much more diligent and rigorous in their findings and the defense of this singular claim to superiority over every other intelligence.

Health and well-being is always the whole picture -- and not just one limited, hard to detect measurement that would be unknown except for these obscure findings. People either look generally healthy or they don’t. People on top of the world, stand out in a crowd -- because of that presence and energy they give off.

It’s not like everyone has an equal and random chance of being that person -- of greatest energy and synergy. Synergy because it has to be an interaction with their environment. Ultimate fitness is the optimal adaptation to their environment -- and not in isolation, oblivious and arbitrary to it. There’s a reason things happen -- despite great efforts to not make it seem so.

The Highest Attainment

Leadership in every field is not determined by those who say everything everybody else is saying, but by those who say things people are not used to hearing, and the more they reflect upon and even try to dispute it, the more it becomes an undeniable truth that gives comprehension to their previous world of disorder and confusion.

People are not used to this manner of confronting the new; if anything, how they live their lives causes them to only seek the familiar -- and then live in that unchanging security the rest of their lives. That used to be the ideal model for a lifestyle when the unexpected things were regarded as bad -- unlike in these times, when the unexpected can and often is the good. But those with the previous conditioning, reject these opportunities as catastrophes -- which is the truth of what life is telling them -- that they previously were taught, to disbelieve, as that which was too good to be true, was false, and not the greater truth.

In this manner, they could never embrace a greater truth -- of the greater life now possible, but were limited only to that which was true when they first learned “everything,” and then stopped, once they were convinced they "knew it all." For many, that was far too prematurely, as it is, whenever learning stops before it is no longer possible at death; to do so before that physical death, is actually a death of sorts, that many condemn themselves to -- some even joyously and ceremoniously.

Once having discovered “everything” there is to know, they think that all that is required then is to accumulate “more” -- and that there is nothing else. It may be money, power, and food -- for most; they have stopped growing beyond fulfilling those “needs,” the fulfillment of which, just leaves them feeling more unfulfilled. Always, there is something “more” they do not have -- and think that if they just have more, it will be the source of their happiness, even if presently, it is the source of all their unhappiness.

They think the problem is that they do not have “enough,” and once they do, it transforms their unhappiness to great joy and fulfillment -- and not that the little of what they have seen and experienced, is an indication of that “more” to come.

Things that work, work from the start -- and not only at the end, after many years of not working. That is the truth of life and experience -- that unfortunately, is not taught in most curricula. Instead, one is taught about pumpkins that turn into gilded coaches -- as the necessary preparation for the life ahead. Many do not get beyond that -- because that is what everybody learns too.

But despite that, there have always been a few, who have gone where none have gone before, asked the impossible question, and changed the course of the world because of that. Those few are those who can stand alone -- and because they persist, others come to wonder, why can’t I too? That is how the new world is created daily.

Some See Only Solutions

The world view of the 20th century, was to see as many problems as possible -- to create the need for the many newly trained experts the universities were minting at the peak of the specialization and fragmentation of knowledge -- just before the great integration we now recognize as the Worldwide Web of intelligence came together.

“Intelligence,” in the new paradigm (underlying way of seeing things), is the total intelligence available to every individual as a shared enterprise and achievement, and not, as in a previous time, that which one knew -- that others did not. It seems almost unbelievable now, that that is what was regarded as intelligence in a previous understanding (of it). Unfortunately, it is still the perception of it that a lot of people still have -- and will probably die with. It is the source of the 20th century problem of alienation and isolation -- that are solved with the new paradigm of understanding, and why it is so necessary to embrace at a moment of endless, overwhelming possibilities for fragmentation and disintegration. It is the very basis of mental health -- and not just the luxury of more “enlightened” people.

About 2,000 years ago, Aristotle created the concept that “knowledge” was simply putting everything into its proper category, and once labeled properly, that was all one needed to know. Then for 2,000 years, that’s what the business of knowledge was -- simply classifying and categorizing everything -- because nothing could ever change from one thing to another. It was not a world of change but of stasis; change was merely regarded as a disruption to the “normal” status quo -- until it came to be realized, that change was the normal -- and not the permanent and unchanging.

That led to the important insight of “Evolution” -- that change and diversity, was the objective in ensuring greater survival capabilities, and not unvarying conformity -- that when threatened, decimates the entire population because it has no alternative but the unvarying, single response. But diversity is not the superficiality of appearances behaving essentially the same. Real diversity are differences that make a difference, that really matter.

When one is clear about that, they know a “solution” when they see one -- and not just a better explanation of why things continue to go wrong. That is not the answer to any problem but merely the continuation and justification for these problems -- as though they are inevitable, which is not knowledge worth cultivating, propagating and perpetuating. That is the despair of lives in desperation and futility.

It’s a crime that people are still conditioned (educated), in that way of being -- often as the height of sophistication for those with no meaning and purpose for their lives to be productive and positive. It’s fairly unique to affluent societies. In an age in which the miraculous is possible and commonplace, the novelty for the bored, is to convince themselves and one another, that nothing is possible, or can make a difference. But that is not a sign of intelligent life in the universe.

Making People Do What They Don't Want to Do

The most misguided “conditioning” tactic has to be this principle of “making people do what they don’t want to do” -- as though it was some great guiding virtue in life -- rather than the cause of many people’s difficulties throughout life, as they “learn” to work against themselves. Not all learning is good; some is very counterproductive and destructive. We like to mislabel it as well-intentioned, thought one wonders if it is even that. There is this tendency to give credit where it is not due -- but in doing so, one can no longer identify those deserving of that recognition -- when all deeds, thoughts and actions, ae lumped together indiscriminately in this way.

There are some actions that are truly harmful to its practitioners -- as well as those affected and impacted by those actions. To lose one’s capacity to judge merit -- or to deliberately subvert it in every case, produces the futility and randomness of action. Those with a poor understanding of everything, think the objective in life is to produce random behavior -- rather than conscious and conscientious behavior.

The reason for this is because there are too many too easily certified and credentialed -- for that which used to be truly rare and valued. so they have a superficial understanding of that which is significant and meaningful -- while thinking they understand everything there is to know, and in the case of journalism, spread that misunderstanding as widely as possible. That is the great failing of popular culture -- as promoted mainly by the media, schools and universities, indiscriminately.

In every field of knowledge and activity, there are always a few, who discover the truth for themselves, and therefore for everybody else -- but there are many others, who will never discover the truth of anything for themselves, yet claim that they “know” as virulently as though they pioneered the field personally -- and those who cannot tell the difference, are particularly susceptible to their claims, which are the weak link that is contemporary journalism -- because while the world of information processing made a quantum leap into the 21st century, they were still insisting people needed to go back to the 19th century in which journalists ruled the day as the most, if not only informed person, in that community. That was also true of the few “educated” persons like the teacher or the lawyer -- who were distinguished by their ability to read.

Now, reading has become a skill by which the best can “read” the whole context in which what is written only begins to make explicit -- between the lines, the words, the thoughts. Most people’s ability to read, far surpasses their ability to write. That’s always been true -- but now, the magnitude of that effectiveness, has been honed in some, to laser-sharp clarity that one sees only now and then -- rather than the run-of-the-mill in writing and communications.

This exposure itself, transforms people without even their awareness of it -- because their training in awareness, has heretofore, largely been absent. But that doesn’t mean people are not affected and changed by it; they’re just not aware of it -- until they are trained (conditioned) to be.

Is Life Getting Better or Worse?

The world is -- a projection of who we are, and how we feel about that world; that is the reality of each life -- which is expressed as our being. That being defines the manner in which we see the world -- as the best of what we make of it, or merely the worst because we fear to make it so.

And that is why the most important action in every life, is not solving all the world’s problems, but in solving all one’s own problems -- as the most powerful, evident action for making a better world -- and not that only one person can, and the rest of us can only argue among ourselves to tell that one person what to do. That is the disempowerment of our lives -- that manner of thinking that it is only other people who can do anything great and important, while the best the rest of us can do, is sit and watch what they do -- and of course, express our opinions.

That is obviously the conditioning” of mass media -- and the mediated life. The “mediated” life is having somebody else tell one what is the truth (of their lives) -- because they are the people one should believe, even over one’s own senses and judgment. Many will find it peculiar even to question that it should be any other than that -- because that is always and the only thing they’ve been “taught.” Of course the “authorities” tell us the truth, and we should believe them. Why else would they exist -- but to serve us, unselfishly, as their self-promoting public service announcements tell us is so?

There are honest people in every walk of life -- and finding them, is the joy and wonder of every existence, that should be treasured for the rarities they are -- and not merely lumped into the generalized notion that because anyone tells us it is so, even if it is what everyone else is also telling us is the truth of the matter (and one can inquire no further), if that explanation does not solve the great difficulties in one’s life -- that one has every reason to believe, should not be the only and inevitable end of the exploration of truth in their own lives -- prematurely stunted at a young age, never to be revived forevermore.

Everyone has every right to believe they can live their lives at the highest level of their own possibilities -- and not merely only to the expectations of others, hoping to exploit them for their own purposes. Finding that difference in the orientation -- is the first task of any learning, the task of every great student. Greatness in all things, is not reserved just for a chosen few -- but is the right of every life to realize for itself, and then, everything one does has great significance and effectiveness -- rather than the despair that nothing matters, and nothing makes a difference.

This is the attitude one experiences meeting the great teachers. With everybody else, the feeling is that one should never aspire to surpass the teacher; that is forbidden and out of bounds. Then one will know a great teacher when one encounters one -- which is not everyone these days who calls themselves a “teacher” or “master” -- which is the original meaning and significance of that word.

But it all gets watered down, so that even those who demand that they be called “Doctor” or “Honorable,” are not worthy of such names. More than ever, it is necessary to distinguish the truly good from that which merely pretends to be -- because the mantra of popular culture is not to be able to discriminate these things at all.

Information is the New Education

Do we really need education anymore -- when there is instant, easy access to information? What little education thus needed, is simply how to access the rest of the information -- rather than that it needs to be spoon-fed to every individual to insure that they only get the “right” information.

That is the crux of the great challenge in the age of abundant information -- that nobody can enforce their exclusive correctness anymore. A few think that’s a bad thing, but for the majority of the people and all consumers of information, that is overwhelmingly a good thing -- especially since the information is no longer exclusively controlled by those who stand to profit the most from propagating their version of the truth -- exclusively and monopolistically.

That is obviously tempting to the overtly partisan parties but eventually challenges the status quo of even the most unquestionably esteemed institutions of our society -- which are presently, the media, schools and universities, the last bastions still insisting they are the unbiased guardians of the “objectivity.”

Or are they? Even if they were not deliberately biased, they may think as even the most enlightened do, that what they know, is all that can be known -- rather than that it is simply “what they know,” and presume, is all there is to know.

In a time when information was scarce and checking claims were difficult and made difficult if not impossible, hierarchies of information and esteemed, unquestionable authorities could be maintained -- and few had the confidence, courage, and resources to launch an investigation, much less a challenge to these appropriated authorities.

Obviously, something changed that world of information (reality) -- which was the old education, and that was merely the questioning of authority. Was there not even a higher authority, than the “credentials,” of those in authority? That of course, is truth -- and what is. That is the scientific method -- and not simply, who said so.

Some societies are quicker to pick that up and change for the better, while many more traditional societies will insist that whatever has been true in the past, is good enough to remain true for all time -- and one should have no notions of introducing anything else. All that has been known, is all that is necessary to know -- and there is no time and room for anything more, because the oldest knowledge, must remain intact and inviolable.

Those are the traditional societies that are proud of their age-old problems of human nature. That is the way it has been, is, and will be for all time -- regardless of the changes that may impact more susceptible mentalities elsewhere (sic).

For people living in such cultures, “fitness” is the ability to resist change, and that is what their conditioning (education), has been -- this indoctrination that can never change, no matter what. That is who they are, and must be.

Seek Out People Who Make Sense

One of the bad things schools and especially universities teach, is that the more complicated and convoluted an explanation, the better it is for you , and the greater an understanding it must be -- rather than that the greatest wisdom, is the simplest self-evident truth.

It is far more reliable, to find one hundred people with one simple truth to tell -- then to find one person, who has a hundred different explanations for a hundred different things -- each having no relationship to everything else. The world is related -- each to everything else, and so the wisest of these times, are those who look for that unifying theory of explanation rather than the one who has a different explanation for everything, That confusion is called an ad hoc explanation -- or arbitrary -- different for every occasion, circumstance, and expedience, and one is convinced, has to learned them all, rather than a simple universal principle that governs them all.

Thus one doesn’t need to learn one kind of mathematics to count up apples, and a whole different mathematics for counting oranges -- even though the teacher can earn twice as much in doing it that way. The whole purpose of education, is to benefit the student, and not to maximize the compensation for the teachers -- which is what most contemporary discussions about “education,” have devolved to.

With that kind of “education,” the more one receives, the more one needs -- and qualifies for more education. Fortunately, that is not the only learning model in the world today -- because with the rapid pace of change, there is great urgency to learn at a quicker, easier, simpler pace. But many conditioned (indoctrinated) in the previous manner, have a great disadvantage in learning in this new way, particularly if they are still required to learn in that obsolete fashion.

So the freedom to learn, is probably the critical factor -- in whether one attains wisdom today. Learning is that which is embraced as an act of freedom and free choice -- and anything else, is an indoctrination of accepting, what one is compelled to -- even by generous enticements and entitlements.

The lack of fitness in today’s world is a dead giveaway that a person lacks that essential connection between thought, language and action -- and that people are advised to ignore those discrepancies and contradictions -- and think nothing of it. That is the eternal confusion of their existence -- that they confuse the worst for the best, and can tell no difference, as the politically correct way they were "taught" to be.

Thus, most teachers, are not role models of the kind of person one hopes to be -- following their advice and instruction. That should be extremely disturbing -- rather than accepted as the way it is now. Those who can see the truth as the truth and the truth in the false -- are the leaders in any community that create a healthy society.

That is the only revolution -- of those seeking to change the world for the better. One is the shape the world is in.