Thursday, November 24, 2011

Conformity (Consensus) Is Not Reality

No matter how many "experts" they get to repeat it, conformity of opinion, is not the same as reality.

In the previous age of mass media, that was what was important -- to get everybody repeating the same thing, as though that was enough to make it so -- even if the results in reality, could not be verified, but people were advised they needed to believe harder, and do it even more. That used to be the only game in town -- and so those who could buy up all the mass media, propagated their world view, as though that was true, because that was the only thing people ever saw, and even the freelance writers were paid to confirm.

Writers don't get paid for writing the truth; they get paid for writing what somebody else wants them to write -- as though it were the truth, and how they got to that point, was the tricks of the trade in convincing people of what they wanted them to believe. This is especially true of law and politics -- that whoever is most successful at propagating (propaganda) their truth, controls the offices and institutions.

That's been true the whole history of civilization -- as Plato noted in Socrates' dialogue -- on the difference between reality, and the shadow on the wall -- most people mistook for reality. The shadows were the manipulations to convince one that the "appearance" was the actuality -- which is the beginning of the divergence of thought from the reality -- which is not simply an opinion, and who can control opinion most completely and ruthlessly.

And that is why although more people than ever before try to attain and maintain their optimal health and condition, fewer than ever before actually achieve it -- because they simply have the wrong understanding of what it takes to achieve that, and not that people have to believe harder, and spend more time and effort achieving it. No amount of effort with the wrong understanding, is going to allow one to achieve the same results of having the right understanding -- with very little effort and resistance.

That is true with everything in life -- especially and particularly true of conditioning to attain and maintain one's optimal shape and conditioning. No amount of only working the heart harder and faster, is going to cause all the other muscles of the body, to actualize their best condition and shape. One has to actually effect and articulate those possibilities with the muscles one actually wants to shape in that manner -- and nothing else is possible!

But one doesn't have to do 600-800 specialized exercises (movements) to work all the different muscles of the body -- if one understands that effecting movement (contraction) from the furthest extremity (insertion) at the head, hands and feet, requires the engagement of all the supporting (connected) muscles back to the point of muscular origin of the muscular structures back at the heart -- which is conveniently designed and evolved by nature as the greatest efficiency of purpose, form and function.

In realizing this, the heart is not the lack of functioning in the (human) body, but rather, the lack of the skeletal (voluntary) muscles, in pushing blood back towards the heart -- which is why exercise (movement), produces a healthful effect. But simply working the heart harder, is the major reason most people don't want to exercise -- in this conventionally prescribed manner, and even if they persist, achieve minimally satisfying results to persist as a lifelong, nearly effortless, rational practice.

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

If You Want To Make Somebody Do Something

If you want to make somebody do something, the best (easiest) way to do it, is to make it as easy as possible to do it, and not increasingly more difficult -- until people just give up and no longer try, or even think about it.

Unfortunately, that is the track education, or the learning of anything, has taken -- because it provides more jobs for teachers (professionals and experts, etc.), and not that that would be the best way to do anything, much less, learn how to do it. Eventually, as we're now seeing, it requires more and more expensive education, just to do nothing in particular (the unemployed).

Meanwhile there is a lot of good that could be done -- but goes undone, because all the money is tied up in this "education" for no particular purpose -- except to provide lifetime job security for the teaching professionals. The fact of the matter is that we don't need more education and more highly paid teaching professionals, but could get by with less -- because most of the people are already educated so that one cannot help but be educated by living in such a society (environment). It is a learning culture -- and not the medieval one that needs to be reinvented every day to justify doing what we've always done before.

If anything worthwhile has been done, it changes the world, and society -- and most would have to admit, that the world has changed greatly even while they were fully awake for the last 20 years -- unlike the Rip van Winkle of legend who awoke after a sleep of 20 years to find the world changed.

For the last 20 years, even those trying to keep up with all the latest developments, found themselves woefully behind every curve -- because progress did not wait for their approval to go on without them. Of course that is very disconcerting to those who would call themselves "leaders" in those societies they demand everybody else follow behind them.

Thus the major function of such leadership, would be to defend the status quo, and not disrupt it by suggesting that the new leveling of the playing field at which everyone begins as a beginner again, is fair and just. They want their more than everybody else -- as what they think they are entitled a lifetime to, with no further discussion. And so those problems and inequities cannot be solved and examined because they are sacrosanct. But those are mainly the problems of the institutions and not the greater progress of humanity -- which simply marches on without them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iv_NEo6NzqY&feature=related

Tuesday, November 08, 2011

The Revolution in Thinking

Any fool can make a simple thing seem very difficult and complicated -- not because it inherently is, but foolish people think that is what smart people do -- try to seem more intelligent (knowledgeable) than they actually are. Mainly that is achieved by simply repeating what all the people pretending to know what they are talking about -- are saying, simply because they believe that many people thinking it so, makes it so. Other variations of this social phenomenon, is that might makes right, which is usually the defense of the dominant and domineering status quo -- or the powers that be, and intend always to remain so.

And so the first thing they enforce, is the belief that everything they say, is true, just because they say it is -- and there is no greater truth and validity beyond that. That is the lesson of Columbus, Galileo, Paracelsus -- and every other heretic who ever challenged authority -- with good reason to believe that theirs was a better understanding, that conformed to the observations, rather than the insistence, that one could not trust their senses, but had to rely on the proper authorities in the hierarchies to tell them the right thing to think -- which we know today, as the political correctness insisting that "consensus" must be achieved as the highest end -- even if we are all wrong, and eventually dead-wrong.

But before that happens, there is just the general feeling that everything is not right, and nothing makes sense anymore, because all that we were taught to be true, doesn't seem to explain anything at all -- except that we need more of that kind of education (indoctrination). Eventually, as the pre-Industrial Revolution poets wrote, everything falls apart, but is replaced by a greater social order and productivity -- until the next, but always towards a greater simplicity and accessibility to all, and not just the old favored few.

That is also the disruption of these times -- when a few think life is getting worse, while for many others, they are getting better.

Yet we are still conditioned to think, that life must be hard to be noble, virtuous and good -- and only through that route, can one reached the "promised land. " This is especially true of the more primitive cultures that believe that in order for anyone to win, everybody else must lose -- and not that there is enough for everybody to win, if the resources (abundance) is managed wisely. That requires shared intelligence (information), rather than the old model, of the knowledgeable, exploiting the lesser -- and so on.

When everyone has all the information, individual actions predispose that reality and outcome for everyone -- including oneself subsequently and inevitably. Any society loses its vitality and sustainability when individuals become dependent on many others for their basic needs and survival rather than the ability to sustain and improve themselves -- all their lives.

That is the challenge of these times. How can we continue to get better all the days of our lives?


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iv_NEo6NzqY&feature=related