Humanity's Journey to Life: 2014

Day 229: The Math is Simple, We Need a Living Income Guaranteed

So I am going through my college classes, math in particular, so going over things like fractions and rations and linear equations. Being that I am now over 30 and have been living life for a while and not just fresh out of high school, and not still living at home with parents, I have actually practically applied a lot of this math within my day to day living, within things like budgeting mainly. And as I go through the course, this is actually the practical application that is shown for this math – is that it is useful for doing your own personal budgeting and such.

So we have here in this math a really cool and useful tool to be utilized in the distribution of resources and goods to everyone, the things that we need and use on a daily basis in our lives. It has helped me to figure out whether or not I can afford certain things, and just how much I can afford to pay in rent for a place to live for example. The problem comes in however when your numbers just don’t add up to being enough to provide you what you need.

It seems strange that we would allow such problems to exist where individuals can be faced with not having enough to cover all our basic needs, where no matter how you do the math, there is just no solution. You would think that we humans don’t even grasp the simplest of math to see that for so many it doesn’t add up. It’s even stranger still that there are those who would seem to even deny that such a situation exists and would imply that it is simply due to individuals not managing their money properly or living ‘within their means. But there is a bottom line that if your income is below that, you just don’t have enough and no amount of money management is going to solve that.

Interesting that we are taught this math in school to help us with finances but not really taught that hey- you might end up not actually having enough to pay all your bills though. I mean, maybe I would have geared up and gone to college right after high school instead of taking my chances with the ‘real world’ and trying to go straight into getting a job, if I’d had any idea that pretty much the only jobs I would have access to would be those that don’t pay enough. At the time, I was afraid to incur a huge college tuition loan, when I didn’t really even yet know what I wanted to do with my life. But if I had known that in the end I would be no better off than I was 10+ years ago, maybe I would have had a different perspective.

However, even then, it is still a numbers game. Even if you have a degree, it doesn’t necessarily guarantee that you won’t still end up in one of those jobs that doesn’t pay enough. Because over time, those types of jobs have been increasing, and the better paying jobs decreasing. The ones that provide better pay, decent benefits, paid leave, or any leave at all, and maybe some kind of retirement, or even pay raises. When we have heard politicians say they are making more jobs, we should have asked what kind of jobs? Ones that actually will support us? Or treat us as cheap labor?

Our economy is screaming for a Basic Income program like the Living Income Guaranteed. Just look at the numbers. I see more and more homeless on the streets literally every day. I am approached more and more frequently by individuals asking for some money. I see more and more shops closing and vacant buildings. The signs are all around and I don’t want to wait to see how bad it gets. If we are not going to make sure that we have enough jobs that pay enough, then we need a proper support system to make sure everyone has enough for a decent life. It only costs us more to try and help individuals once they aren’t being effectively supported by the system. We have so many costly programs that only exist to try and help the problem after it’s already been created, that often still aren’t enough to keep people on their feet. It is much more cost effective to prevent causing problems that need to be cleaned up. The numbers don’t lie so it’s really time we listened to them and make sure that everyone really is in a position to effectively work out a proper budget.

Day 228: What is Our Responsibility as Consumers?

So, in continuing from the last post, Day 227: Bunions and Self Education, I'm going to now look at in more detail how this relationship to our footwear came to be and namely, what is our responsibility in it, if any? Lately we have a tendency to blame corporations and businesses for the products that exist, but it's not like any product could just be 'foisted' upon us, whether we like it or not. It has to be something we will buy so that the businesses can make a profit because that's how they work.

Even considering all the money and research and effort that goes into marketing schemes and advertising to 'convince' us to buy certain things, in the end who makes the choice to buy it? Who decides to believe in what we see in the marketing without actually investigating it?

We're actually living in a pretty cool time what with the Internet taking communication to another level, where we can give direct feedback to companies about what we would like and what we don't like. The key would be to take an active role in that, and that would actually require a lot of self education, just as for example with myself all my life wearing improper shoes and never realizing what I was doing to myself, until I finally got an understanding of what is actually going on – how the feet actually work and in conjunction with the whole body and how our footwear affects our feet and thus our body and thus our entire life and well-being, and what proper footwear might rather be like.

Now I want to also discuss my own process in terms of how I even got to the point of educating myself on this topic, or even any topic, because this was not something I would normally do in the past, some years ago. Part of that is due to the Internet not being what it is today with information so available. Never has self education been this facilitated and really in the power of your own hands. But just because we have this tool available to us, doesn't mean we are using it to its utmost potential.

When we have the typical ideas and beliefs about what it is we like/don't like to do that are impulsed into us from early on in our lives, spending our free time doing research doesn't really fit into those preconceived notions. It typically has more to do with 'relaxing' like vegging-out to the TV, or maybe seeking a party to get intoxicated and have a 'good time' or being consumed with the hunt for a mate or some such encounter, all the general things that we're shown is what we apparently want to do, and all of which largely goes nowhere and amounts to nothing of any real substance or positive impact in one's life, but rather actually tends to cause negative consequences and generally waste one's time here. Now, I'm not saying to not be social or have relationships or anything like that, that is cool, but obviously there is a balance where your social activities should be positive in nature and not degenerative.

So, it's after quite a process of going through such types of distractions myself throughout my life and learning the consequence the hard way – many years wasted and not much to show for it – that I now see and understand the value in applying myself in practical things that actually have a positive benefit in my life/world, like educating myself on this world and what is here. I mean, obviously this is sorely needed, considering all the myriad problems we face from the global to the personal level, we require to finally get down to educating ourself to how this world really works and what is really effective living.

So I wanted to share the process that has now taken me to this point where I see the validity in taking the time to educate myself, for anyone who might come across this and still be at the point of not seeing this or some similar topic as being something that fits within one's 'prescribed interests' so that one might begin to consider that it is possible to broaden one's perspective and interest for one's own actual benefit.

Not only was it a process to get to see the value of self education, but also to sort out my value system overall, in terms of what I use, what I wear, what I do, what I buy, and looking at, is it benefitting me or not? Because if I was still attached to the ideas that I was in the past where for example what I would choose to wear was more based on fashion/style/look/imagination than actual practicality or whether an item was properly designed to physically support my body, then I wouldn't even be open to wearing properly fitting shoes, because they didn't fit in with 'what I liked'. For example, I can remember seeing here and there some shoes that had a wider toe and thinking that they looked terrible ad I wouldn't be caught dead wearing something like that. So that shows how our value system can be so backward where I was actually valuing things that are harmful to me, like seeing high-heeled pointy-toed shoes as really cool for example, and rejecting the more properly designed shoe that would have been supportive!

In essence, this is how we abuse ourselves and our bodies for fashion, for an image, an idea, that has grave consequences for our lives and livelihood. We have some reason, excuse, justification in our mind as to why we simply aren't/won't just do what is best for our body. We lie to ourselves that we're not really doing any harm, and it can seem that way because effects are accumulative and take time to show and progress so gradually.

So within this, you can see how it's actually our responsibility as individuals to sort out our own value systems. To question that which is presented to us as a 'positive' thing to see whether it really is so in reality. The products that are available to us are the result of our own value systems and what we accept and allow. If we want to see a change we have to become that change and find the solutions ourselves, because it is not going to be done for us.

This is where the process of self-forgiveness has come in very handy, to sort out my value system to see where I am placing my value in that which is harmful and correcting that to instead valuing what is actually supportive, and I'll continue more on that n the next post.

Day 227: Bunions and Self Education

So I rather recently discovered that I have ‘bunions’ on my feet. The interesting thing is that my feet have been this way for a very long time, since about as far back as I can remember, though I know I wasn’t born that way. Since I have practically always been this way, I never knew it was some kind of condition, or actually technically a 'deformity', I just thought it was normal for my feet and that they were just shaped a bit differently. It wasn't until I was recently diagnosed as having ‘bunions’ that I began a little process of self education on the point, which has led to some fascinating discoveries.

The existence of these bunions were going to potentially affect my ability to get hired for a certain job, so surgery was advised to me as a possibility. Normally I wouldn’t have considered something as serious as surgery for the sake of getting a job, accept that it sounded like ‘bunions’ is a progressive thing that will likely just get worse over time, so I started to take it seriously, as even though they don’t cause me any pain or seem to bother or hinder me in any way now, I can see how this could lead to serious complications later in life as it worsens, at a time where I might not be so robust to go through a surgical procedure.

I was told and read in many sources that surgery is really the only way to fix a bunion, even though it is not necessarily always permanent. That the bones have become out of alignment and nothing short of surgery could actually correct them. I also was told and read that bunions is a largely hereditary thing, and that certain footwear can support the forming of and/or worsening of bunions.

However I kept researching the point, because I like to really understand something, how it works, what are the factors involved to empower myself to make the best informed decision I can, especially when it comes to the physical body, something that is so important, and yet we usually take for granted. My research led me to realizations of a profound scope that I wasn’t expecting, but yet isn’t really that surprising.

What I came across is the point that our feet are naturally meant to be like a triangle in shape, like when we are born, where the very widest point of the feet is at the end of the toes. This is how human feet naturally form in cultures who never wear footwear. The toes are splayed and make a nice foundation to support us upon the earth, with strong flexible toes. And yet, when we look at the kind of footwear that is available to wear, very nearly none of it is shaped like that. They are all tapered at the toe and widest part is at the ball of the foot. This means that when we wear conventional shoes that we are squishing our toes together in an unnatural position.

Now, to some degree I knew this or knew something wasn't quite right, I mean you can feel how your foot fits in a shoe, and yet I never really questioned it, because no one else seems to be concerned about it, and really like all shoes are shaped in such a way, and it just doesn’t strike you that all of our footwear would actually be detrimental to our health and well-being. I mean, before I researched and educated myself to understand how the foot works, its bones, tendons, blood-flow, all the parts that make it up and how they function, I really didn’t have a concrete clue as to what I was actually doing by wearing our normal, everyday, standard, widely-accepted and worn by most, shoes.

I would highly recommend doing some research for oneself on this point to get an understanding as well. The statistic is that more than 75% of adults will suffer some form of foot deformity and that most of this is caused by ill-fitting footwear. It's only a small percentage that are actually born with deformities.

It was kind of funny because now that I am aware of the harm and damage and deformity that typical shoes can cause, I went to the store to look for shoes that would be properly shaped to fit your foot as it should be, and was taken aback by how almost every single shoe was one that had a tapered toe. But then I brought myself back to reality because it’s not like they just suddenly became like this, they were this way yesterday and the day before that and I wasn’t reacting then. It is just now that I know better, and my perspective has changed.

But so I had to look at now, how did we get here, to this point where 99% or more of our available footwear is actually inappropriate to wear. Even many sports and fitness shoes that are supposed to be really good for you are actually the opposite. It just seems so bizarre, like waking up from a strange dream, like how is it possible that for essentially my whole life, I have been wearing shoes that are deforming my feet, and leading to such physical consequence? How is this possible?

Well one of the essential factors of course is not being educated on what is really going on and how the the physical body works. I mean, throughout my life I have witnessed, interacted with, passed by countless people, probably thousands, and I can’t recall ever seeing one who hadn’t worn typical footwear, tapered in the toe, to have any kind of direct experience or context for how different feet could be. In school we learn a bit about anatomy, but kind of in a bubble, like we learn about the body generally, but not so much in application and in relation to our actual lives and day to day stuff, like for example something as basic as the shoes we wear, and what is appropriate footwear and what are the consequences of improperly designed footwear.

If it was such an intrinsically 'hereditary' thing, meaning that we are genetically prone to it, wouldn't that all the more reason to ensure that our footwear doesn’t exacerbate conditions that we know are prone to form? I also find it strange that when we look at the facts of the improper shaping of our footwear and how it deforms the feet over time, it seems rather pointless to say it is hereditary. It kind of sounds like saying that the body has a hereditary condition to die when it can’t get food, like citing that as the main cause of death when a person would starve, no obviously it was the lack of food that was the main factor that brought on the death. I mean, if you grew a tree in a box, what shape is it going to grow into?

We need to educate ourselves and then take responsibility for how we know the human body functions and how best to care for it, as a living growing thing which allows us to be here and living, especially when it comes to children when our bodies are in the most formative stage and children as yet don't have an understanding of how the body works. What would be cool to see is to have that be a part of our education system where children could learn such life skills and how to support their body, and prevent the very consequences that we come to suffer as adults.

For self education on this point, here's a video that I found to be very supportive in explaining how the foot functions and just what is going on when the foot is put out of alignment by improperly fitting footwear, starting at around 3:40:

Here is a video from a podiatrist that came to this realization that gives a nice overview of the point (I am not an official endorser of this person or their product, I don't get paid to promote it or anything. I am sharing this just for information/education purposes):

Day 226: Caring - What's In It For Me?

Here we're continuing from a previous post - Day 224: What's the First Step to Caring For Real? For reference, here's where we left off from:

Something we don't tend to realize/be aware of is how much of the consequence we face in reality and in our relationships is a result of this simple point of separation, where we've formed a relationship toward each other of not caring, where we have justified even being nasty, spiteful, and even just apathetic toward others, and that's what I'll go into more in the next post to come, to see why is it that we would even want to care about others – to see what difference in one's own life would that make? So until then, you can start to simply become aware of these moments in your day to day living where you actually go into/participate in some form of separation/spitefulness toward another, as that is the first step to sorting ourselves out as a whole, which is going to have very positive results, as you'll see more in the next post.

So, why is it in our interest to care about others? It sure may not seem like it is in the moment, it's so easy to go into a point of spitefulness or nastiness as it's been so accepted as an underlying and automatic part of our nature and behavior. But, within this, we haven't yet effectively connected the dots between our behavior and the consequence of that behavior. With some things in life, consequence is remarkably obvious. Say for example, hitting your finger with a hammer, the consequence is immediate and direct – injury to your finger and most likely a good deal of pain. However, when it comes to human relations, the consequence is often more indirect. But once you see it, is still quite obvious.

I mean, we know that for most of us, ourselves included, life is no 'walk in the park'. We know that we have a tendency to be 'thrown off' by just one person being nasty to us, where we will say 'now my whole day is ruined'. We allow how others treat us, to affect us, and in turn, affect how we treat others. When someone is nasty to us, we become nasty ourselves, and don't even now notice who we're actually being nasty toward. You can see how this just perpetuates and endless cycle round and round, so that the next time you experience someone as being nasty to you – you really have to ask yourself, do I know what is going on in that person's life? What their day was like? What they're going through? Because, it's really usually not about you at all, as you can see for yourself, when you're in the same situation, in a reaction toward something that happened to you maybe earlier that day, and is affecting how you are interacting with others in a totally different moment.

When we stop the automatic reaction of taking things personally, we stop that cycle. Within this, not only do you gain a will power to not automatically get sucked into reactions that would then 'ruin your whole day', and in fact cause more consequence, but you will rather become more aware of what is actually going on in reality, see solutions more easily and have more of an understanding of what is going on around you. You'll have a self-stability to remain calm and prevent unnecessary stress, which can tear down your physical body. And you'll prevent a lot of unnecessary consequence in other's lives, which ultimately comes back to you in a direct and indirect way, through your own immediate interactions on a daily basis, and in general as we're doing less to antagonize others as well.

In addition to this, you develop an integrity with yourself where you know that you are no longer blindly adding to the problem, but are sorting yourself out and becoming the solution, no longer accepting and allowing yourself to justify spitefulness toward others. And this integrity would also come through in your relationships with others and will open up the opportunity to develop more substantial and stable relationships, since you've shown yourself to be someone who is actually trustworthy and consistent, meaning not like friendly one moment and nasty in another.

Here I would suggest taking the free DIP Course to assist and support yourself with getting more into the detail of how to walk this process of sorting out such patterns that we've automatically become that have become such a detriment to our living.

Day 225: The Desteni of Living - My Declaration of Principle

Here I'd like to take a momentary pause from the series I'm walking on 'Caring', to post this Declaration of Living Principle, and to state that, having realized their validity as a guideline of how to effectively conduct oneself in life in this reality, I commit myself to live by the following principles:

1. Realizing and living my utmost potential
2. Living by the principle of what is best for all – guiding me in thought, word and deed to always in all ways direct problems to the best possible outcome for all
3. Living by the principle of self honesty – to ensure I am pure in thought, word and deed: that my within and without is equal and one. Who I am within is who I am without and vice-versa
4. Self Purification through Writing, Self Forgiveness and Self Application – the action of realizing I am responsible for my own thoughts, words and deeds, to forgive myself for transgressions and change myself to ensure I take responsibility for who, what and how I am and through this know that I can trust myself to always be honest with me and so others
5. Living the principle of Self Responsibility – realizing only I am responsible for what I accept and allow inside of me, my relationships and my outside world and so with this responsibility: only I have the power and ability to change that which I see is compromising who I am, what I live and how this affects others
6. Realizing that who I am in thought, word and deed affects not only myself – but others as well and so with Self Responsibility in thought, word and deed – I take responsibility for myself and so my relationships to be Self Aware in every moment and live in such a way that is best for me and so others as well
7. Living the Principle of Self Awareness – to be aware, to see, to recognize my own thoughts and Mind, to be self honest to the extent where I can take responsibility for when I see my thoughts / Mind is not what is best for me / others and commit to immediately take responsibility and change for myself and so for others
8. With taking responsibility for myself, becoming aware of myself – take responsibility and become aware of others in my life, to assist and support them as I am assisting and supporting myself – to give as you would like to receive and do the extra bit every day to see where I can contribute to other’s lives and so my own
9. Living the principle of self trust – as I commit myself to remain constant in my living of self honesty, self responsibility and self awareness, I stand as an unbending trust that I always in all ways know who I am no matter what I face and that in this I know, as proven in the constancy of my living that I will always honor and stand by what is best for all and so best for me
10. Making Love Visible – through me not accepting/allowing anything less than my utmost potential, I support those in my life to reach their utmost potential, to love them as I have shown love to myself by gifting to me my utmost potential, the best life/living experience and show others as I have shown myself what it means to LIVE
11. No one can save you, save yourself – the realization that the tools and principles of Desteni is the guide, but I must walk the path myself. We are here to assist and support each other in this process from Consciousness to Awareness/LIFE and what it means to live – but the process itself, where you are alone with yourself in your own Mind: is walked alone
12. Not waiting for anything or anyone to take responsibility for me and this world – but that I realize I have created who and how I am in this moment, therefore I have the responsibility to change who and how I am and so the realization that we as a collective created how and what this world is today and so it is the responsibility of the collective to change how and what this world is today
13. Honoring the life in each person, animal – everything from the great to the small of earth, that we expand our awareness and responsibility to creating the best possible life for everyone and everything and so ourselves
14. Relationships as Agreements: individuals coming together using agreements as a platform to one-on-one expand, grow and develop as individuals in life and living to support/assist each other unconditionally to reach their utmost potential where the agreement is a coming together of individuals understanding what it means to stand as equals and to stand as one
15. Sex as Self Expression – where sex is an united expression between individuals in honor, respect, consideration and regard of each other as equals, two physical bodies uniting in equality and oneness – a merging of two equals as one physically.
16. Realizing that by the virtue of me being in this world – my responsibility does not only extend to my own Mind / my own Life, but to the minds and lives of everything and everyone of this earth and so my commitment is to extend this awareness to all of humanity to work together and live together to make this world heaven on earth for ourselves and the generations to come
17. I must in my thoughts, words and deeds – but most importantly in my living actions, become a living example for others in my world that is noticeable and visible when it comes to the potential of a person to change themselves and so change their world. So that more people can realize how we can change this world, by standing united in our self change within the principle of what is best for all to bring heaven to earth
18. I am the change I want to see in me and my world – to bring heaven to earth is to bring into being, into living the LIVING PROOF of a PRACTICAL HEAVEN that can be seen and heard in our actions and words. We are the Living Heaven that must come into creation in this living world.
19. Through purifying my thoughts, words and deeds – my inner becomes my outer, so I bring into creation me as heaven into earth, realizing it is not enough to ‘see the change / be the change’ – for change to become REAL it must be a constant, consistent living of me through the words I speak and the actions I live visible and noticeable to all in every moment of breath
20. Realizing that my physical body is my temple – my physical body is the living flesh through which and in which I will bring into being and create / manifest heaven on earth as me in my thoughts, words and deeds and so I honor, respect and regard – nurture and support my physical body as I would nurture and support me as equals: my body is me
21. We are the change in ourselves and this world we have been waiting for: and so I commit to dedicate myself and my life for each one as all to realize this, as nothing will change if we don’t change in all that we are, within and without
22. The realization that for me to be able to change myself in thought, word and deed to the most effective living being that I can be and become – I first have to ‘know thyself’ and so commit myself to investigate, introspect and understand how I became who I am today, to prepare the road before me into self creation of a responsible, aware, self honest and trustworthy person for myself and so for all
23. The realization that for me to be able to contribute to change in this world – I have to get to ‘know thyself’ as this world and so commit myself to research, investigate and introspect the inner and outer workings of this world and align the systems of today to present and give the best possible life for all on Earth

Here and there in posts to come, I will take some of these principles and go into more detail about what it means to practically live what is stated here and some specific ways how I've aligned myself and my living to stand as these principles and in so doing, essentially becoming the change that I would want to see in the world.

Day 224: What's the First Step to Caring For Real?

In this post I'm continuing with looking at what it means to live Caring, and how I've actually changed in my living in my words and actions and particularly in my interactions with others, within the process of considering what it really means to care, as actual living action, and not just a sentiment or idea, that produces no actual results or effect in reality.

So firstly, this means becoming aware of and taking responsibility for how/when/where I am spiteful or nasty to others whether out loud or even just in my mind, because all that carries through, nothing is really hidden. I mean, if I'd like to see others not be nasty or spiteful, then I need to become the solution to that problem, get to know why/how are we spiteful and how do we stop that and correct ourselves, so that I can then show others by example how to do so. And this means actually admitting to ourselves that we have in fact been spiteful and nasty to others, because there is the tendency to not what to see that, the truth of ourselves, but it's there, you can't really hide it from yourself.

It's as if we think that if we allow ourself to be self honest about what we are really doing and who we really are in our behavior and actions, that then we'll see ourself as bad or wrong or evil, and yet it's just the opposite in a way where when we are hiding that reality from ourself, that is actually what we could call evil, because then you are going to continue in such behavior all the while pretending you're not. So rather we would want to face the truth of ourselves, so we can really see what it is that we are doing, because then we can change our input as what we are living into this world, and that would change the output, of what we get back from the world. So we would become the cure for the nastiness that exist in the world by starting with ourselves first.

What this means therefore, is getting down to the nitty-gritty, the small moments that seem so insignificant and that we take for granted. The little moments where we allow a nasty though or allow ourselves to act out in nastiness toward another, whether directly or indirectly. One great example of this is in a documentary I recently watched, called Children Full of Life (which you can watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tLB1lU-H0M) in which a teacher, who takes a bit of a unique approach to teaching, notices that there is bullying going on between the students. He encourages them to share about it, and several children share their experiences with being bullied. However, he then does something rather striking – he points out that all the students are sharing about what has been done to them, as if they are all innocent, but none are sharing how they have participated in bullying themselves.

As I've mentioned in previous posts, we tend to focus on others, rather than ourselves, to the extent where it's like we aren't even aware of what we're actually doing. But on some level we do know, because really, how can you not know what you're doing? I mean, you're the one doing it. And as the documentary shows, even as children, we can see what we are doing and what we're responsible for, the unnecessary consequences we create for ourselves and others, and so having a detrimental effect on our relationships with others and our world.

Because the fact is we don't live here alone, we're all here in this one reality together, and so have to find ways to live together effectively, because we are in fact responsible for being here and considering the effect we have on each other and reality. There's the tendency to be only focused on one's own self interest, like you live in a bubble where all that exists is you, and every one else is just basically a prop in the movie paying out that is your life. I mean, that's usually the extent to which we think about or consider other people, always from this very limited perspective where the bottom line is always me and what I want or don't want. We don't consider others equally to ourselves, even though on some level we do know that we are in fact equal, by virtue of being alive and being here. Each and every one of us is an individual being with their own life, own experiences, and own potential to develop and expand and grow.

Something we don't tend to realize/be aware of is how much of the consequence we face in reality and In our relationships is a result of this simple point of separation, where we've formed a relationship toward each other of not caring, where we have justified even being nasty, spiteful, and even just apathetic toward others, and that's what I'll go into more in the next post to come, to see why is it that we would even want to care about others – to see what difference in one's own life would that make? So until then, you can start to simply become aware of these moments in your day to day living where you actually go into/participate in some form of separation/spitefulness toward another, as that is the first step to sorting ourselves out as a whole, which is going to have very positive results, as you'll see more in the next post.

Day 223: Who Cares?! Does Anyone in Humanity Really Care?

One thing I have been looking at lately, is what it really means to Care? Like, to actually care about others, and not only as an idea in my head or as a sentiment, but as a living actual reality as who I am in my actual living, in my thought, word and deed, in every situation and any interaction I have throughout my day. I mean, it is one thing to, in theory, 'care' about others, and quite another thing to take that principle through to my actual living in how I interact with others in my world and reality.

I mean, it wasn't very hard for me to see that everyone is human like me, has the same basic needs as me, and thus every one deserves to have a proper life and to be treated well not with nastiness or spitefulness. But when it came to who I am around other people in actual reality, it was kind of a different story. Because, for a long time, I didn't care. All I really cared about was myself, my own experience, what was going on in my life, what I wanted, and maybe I cared a little bit for a some friends, but even that was rather limited, and overall never really came before my own interest, even though I may have liked to think so, liked to think that I was a really caring person.

I'd say that it's as if over the years we learn to not care about others, but actually, looking at it, we never really learn to care about others in the first place. And to be clear, this doesn't mean caring about others and not caring about yourself. It means caring about yourself AND everyone else at the same time, and not seeing those as like somehow mutually exclusive things. Because, strangely enough, we tend to believe that they are, when the opposite is actually true, but we'll save that topic for another post.

The fact that we don't actually learn to care about others has become more clear to me, as I have been walking myself through a process from not-caring to caring, essentially learning and seeing for myself just what it means to care. Because, it's like the 'idea' or the 'sentiment' of caring exists within us, but actual caring doesn't. Because if we actually cared, we would never be spiteful, never be nasty, never think a nasty thought about another, or gossip about another, or secretly rage at another in our mind. I mean, none of that is 'caring' behavior, it's the opposite in fact, and yet all of us participate in this to some degree or another.

I mean, we are just full of judgment. So much of our conversations is made up of judgment. Making fun of others, blaming others, gossiping about others, I mean, when you get down to it, our actual nature is really quite nasty. A lot of the niceness we project toward others is not even real but is superficial and done for our own sake, so that we seem like a nice person. And we accept all this as quite normal.

So, we live in a world where we are quite nasty to each other overall, and I don't think this is the kind of world we would really like to live in. But it's as though we've accepted this as 'just the way it is', that humanity is just 'nasty' and you just have to live with it. I mean, I'd basically come to that conclusion myself, that there was just no hope for humanity.

What I noticed is that that actually becomes the underlying excuse, in a way, of justifying being nasty toward others. Like, there is no point to care, because others are just going to take advantage of you, they're not worth it. So, because I had so many encounters with others throughout my life where others didn't care about me, were nasty to me, took advantage of me, gossiped about me – it's like you just 'fall in with the herd'. Like, 'if you don't care about me, then I'm not going to care about you'.

And this was the underlying point that I found within why I would be nasty or not care about others. It was like I was doing what had been done to me. Treating others how I had been treated, which was like in a way a form of revenge. And it seemed to make sense at the time. Why would I care about others if nobody gives a shit about me?

But what I never considered was that all I was doing was passing it along, and continuing the nastiness. To me it seemed like it was just my reaction to how the world had treated me, but I didn't realize that by living this myself, that I had actually become a part of the cause. And therefore, you could say, responsible for the very lack of caring in the world that I hated. Because I was living it myself, I had become the nastiness and the spitefulness and generally just 'not giving a fuck' about others.

The point of responsibility that I realized within this, is that if what apparently 'caused' me to become this way was that others had treated me this way, then was I not responsible for 'causing' others to be the same way by treating them as such?

And that realization really opened the door for me to consider that just joining in to the cycle of not caring was not actually a solution, but actually a cause of the problem and supporting it to continue! I was actually creating the very same problem that I didn't want to be experiencing. So, from here I was able to look at, what then, is the solution?

And that would be, to instead of doing to others what had been done to me and repeating the cycles of abuse, to rather do to others as I would have done to me, to live that which I want to see in the world. Which means – Caring! Not being Nasty and Spiteful!

So in the next post to come, I'll go further into what that means – to actually care, and how I have changed, and am changing, who I am as a result of these realizations.

Day 222: Thor: The Dark World and What's Missing in Movies

Just the other day I watched the 2nd Thor movie, Thor: The Dark World, in 3D. I have to say, it's quite a testament to the skill of movie makers these days, that they can take a big, hulking guy, in a red cape, that flies around with a giant hammer, and make it not look totally ridiculous. That's quite impressive. But that's not what I'm here to blog about.

What I noticed as I was watching a sweeping view of the massive vaulted ceilings and stone columns and ornate décor of the interior of their opulent Asgardian palace, was what you rather don't notice while watching the movie, or really in fact almost all movies, which is – where are all the slaves?

Now, what do I mean by that? I mean – who built these massive columns and chambers and ornate decorations? It certainly wasn't the main characters of the movie. And who makes their clothes? Their fancy ornate costumes that flutter and shine so perfectly like the utter symbol of regality? Certainly not them. Who cooks their food, does their laundry, cleans their bathrooms?

I never used to consider these points in movies and shows. I used to just watch and try to 'sink into it' in a way and 'just watch the show', but this would often just seem so empty. And that's because movies usually are quite empty as in not having anything of real substance within them. Like they are usually just trying to evoke some feeling or emotion like 'hope' or 'excitement' or 'romance' and in the end you're left with nothing but a momentary feeling. There is usually very little that actually has any relevance to life, but is usually meant to be a momentary distraction from it, to distract from the general disappointment with the status quo or with how our lives are going by for a moment taking us into some fictional reality which becomes a sort of coping mechanism, so that we can tolerate our reality for a bit longer, without ever actually getting so bad that we would actually want to change it.

So I had eventually lost much interest in movies, until I found that it is actually a cool tool to test yourself and your awareness of reality. How you do this is to simply watch the movie and as you watch, don't just 'sink into it' like a zombie where it is really then just your mind watching it while you are in like a trance state not really here, and see what you notice as you go what is out-of-sync with reality. This becomes quite a fun game, suddenly the movie experience is not so empty, and you are testing, exercising and building your awareness as you go. Suddenly watching movies and shows has become a self expansive and rewarding thing to do.

It's also quite fascinating and quite humorous at times to see just how far departed from reality movies and shows can be.

It's also interesting to see in what ways a movie does actually mirror reality, like for example with the Thor movie, and many others, where in reality we tend to take for granted all the 'behind the scenes' stuff like who makes our clothes, and we have a whole slave labor thing going with people working in sweat shops to make our clothes, which we then wear as we're trying to be the characters in our own personal 'movie' of our life, where our clothes are just costumes that we wear to 'express' our 'individuality', while disregarding the truth behind them, and the fact that we're all wearing the product of slavery, essentially.

Just like as we watch these movies, we don't even for a moment consider how were the fancy buildings built and where are the people who built them, and did they build them because they were slaves to labor, or because they actually wanted to build them? And the people who made their armor and their clothes, and cook their meals, and clean their rooms, why aren't they in the movies? Who mines the rocks, the metals, filters the drinking water, grows the food they eat? And this goes for the 'alien' races as well. If we saw that stuff, those inner workings of the system that we tend to ignore, would it change our perspective on those people? Like when we look at how all that exists in actual reality and is a result of largely forced, abusive and/or poorly compensated labor – it's not so cool is it? So no wonder we don't show that in the movies, and we only see the 'pretty parts', the parts that we've given a 'positive' value – the heroes, the action, the suspense, all the emotional and dramatic moments.

But what I realized is that no matter how awesome that 1.5-2 hours in the theater was, the same reality was waiting for me when I walked outside. Actually, reality has been steadily getting worse, while we tend to hide away in distractions instead of face what's here. Imagine, if we sorted this reality out, then we wouldn't care so much about having a moment's distraction, which only lasts for a moment anyway, and never changes anything. No matter how much of a positive experience I had, nothing positive had actually happened, in reality.

I'd like to see what movies would be like if they weren't just here to distract us from reality for a little while longer. Or if they weren't made just to make a few bucks off of our desire to be distracted for a moment more. We would certainly see a lot less horrible movies that were made purely just for the money!

So here, sharing how I've transformed movies and tv shows into tools for self expansion and made them something actually worthwhile and truly entertaining, instead of just distracting. If you too have noticed how just blindly watching movies has become empty, try it out and see what you see.

This is also a cool point for those who may have come across all the info that is out there about how movies are used to 'brainwash' the masses, perhaps by the 'Illuminati' or the 'powers that be' and such, because if you are sticking to reality and developing your awareness of reality and crosschecking with what you see in the movies, then you are certainly not going to be brainwashed by it. So, this is also the solution for those that would fear that point. The solution being to make sure you develop effective self awareness and awareness of reality so that you can't be fooled, and movies and tv shows which are essentially total fiction, are thus a great way to test and assist in developing that. So you take the tool that's been used to 'placate' and 'brainwash' the masses, and actually turn it around and use it as a tool for the development of your own self awareness! And, you can still find the movies entertaining, which I did find of Thor: The Dark World.

There are also other dimensions to how you can use movies to increase your self awareness, which I will likely blog about in a future post to come, so stay tuned for that.

Day 221: Alcohol: Where Does Your Responsibility Go When You're Drunk?

Here's a google hangout with a ton of support and assistance for anyone who is addicted to alcohol: What They Didn't Tell You about Alcohol Addiction.

I definitely suggest to check it out. It covers a lot of important points related to alcohol consumption/addiction that you don't want to miss.

When we drink, a big reason for that is to drink away our responsibilities, to not have a care in the world, to be 'free' for a moment from whatever is bothering us about our lives that we don't know how to fix or deal with.

One thing I never questioned, was when I was drinking away my responsibility, where did it go? Did it just vanish into nowhere for a moment, without any consequence, like I would have liked to believe? Or was it simply that all I was doing was not actually escaping from my responsibilities, but was just putting blinders on so that I couldn't see it for a moment?

Working jobs in the service industry has also helped me to see and realize this point, where you have to occasionally interact with inebriated individuals, who can't really effectively interact or communicate, and it's like you have to baby-sit, in a way, and take responsibility for them, because they can't.

And so, that's how I started to realize where one's responsibility actually goes, some of it goes directly onto those around you who you interact with. And some of it also goes indirectly to others, through the consequences one creates, while not really being here and being responsible. One extreme case of this would obviously be those who are harmed or killed in car accidents due to someone driving drunk. I mean, that's a pretty obvious case where you can see and consider the effects that would have on all involved, not just those directly injured, but their families and friends and so on.

Another example is where we have big festivals or concerts where there is lots of drinking and probably also consumption of various other substances, and the aftermath is often a sea of garbage left behind for others to clean up.

And all the laboring of doctors and nurses who care for all the various injuries that come about as a result of alcohol consumption, such as the cars accidents, brawls, domestic violence, etc. Where all of that labor could obviously go to treating other things that aren't the result of the deliberate choice to forgo one's responsibility and basic motor skills functioning.

Within all this, it is never the alcohol that is to blame, it's just the tool we use to act out the decision to avoid our responsibility for a moment and disregard the consequences that we'll create, that not only affects others but ourselves as well, as it never leads to solutions for anything we're facing in our life, that we are trying to escape from. There are much less consequential ways to approach our living, to make it so our lives are something we wold not want to 'get away' from by intoxicating ourself.

I found it such a relief eventually to no longer feel like I needed or wanted alcohol to do something for me, where I found and established a self-stability where I don't 'require' a substance to for example 'relax' or change my experience in some way, because I'm fine being here as myself and facing reality head on, where inebriation would actually be quite a hindrance and waste of my time here, of which you only get so much.

So I'd suggest to make the time you have here count. And, to realize that in this you're not alone, there is support to walk through this every step of the way, which you can find here unconditionally at the Desteni forum, for not just stopping alcohol addiction, but any addiction, when you are ready to take yourself back and live for you. It's up to You.

I also suggest to take the Free DIP Lite course to learn essential life skills, that provide a solid foundation for facing life's problems in a practical and self-supportive way.

Related Interviews for further perspective and support on Alcohol consumption:

Alcohol Poisoning Death Research parts 1-3:
These interviews give awesome description of what exactly happens to the body when we drink alcohol.

https://eqafe.com/p/alcohol-poisoning-death-research-part-1

https://eqafe.com/p/alcohol-poisoning-death-research-part-2

https://eqafe.com/p/alcohol-poisoning-death-research-part-3

Words, Behavior, Alcohol Life Review:
In this interview you get a first hand account of someone addicted to alcohol and how they diminished themself to the point where they had almost no personality beyond when drinking/being drunk.

https://eqafe.com/p/words-behavior-alcohol-life-review

Words, Behavior, Alcohol Death Research parts 1-4:
These interviews go into a deeper level explaining how it's really who we are in our relationship to our words and behavior that creates consequence and sometimes ultimately our death.

https://eqafe.com/p/words-behavior-alcohol-death-research-part-1

https://eqafe.com/p/words-behavior-alcohol-death-research-part-2

https://eqafe.com/p/words-behavior-alcohol-death-research-part-3

https://eqafe.com/p/words-behavior-alcohol-death-research-part-4