We are by nature a sensitive species. Every last one of us. We learn through cultural conditioning to ignore and shut down what would be our highly sensitive natures — our birthright. The conditioning we learn from our parents and our community (and the TV and internet and mass media) further encourages additional habits that appeal to us in particular. School furthers the conditioning. Later we develop more habits to reinforce the conditioning and keep ourselves numb. We use food (highly processed and toxic and developed to encourage craving), drugs (both legal and illegal), alcohol, video games, porn, TV, internet, shopping and the pursuit of more, more, more stuff to keep ourselves numb to the lies we’ve been told since the day we popped out of the womb. Breaking away from all this runs the risk of being ostracized in a multitude of ways. And so most of us just keep at it and here we are today with epidemics of psychiatric “illness”, addictions and chronic physical debilitating illnesses of all sorts. Here we are today with a planet that is becoming uninhabitable for its many citizens of all species. We are a sensitive species who have forgotten who we are. We are killing ourselves. We must remember. Those of us who understand this have a responsibility to love those who are still in the dark haze…to love them the heck out of their toxic sleep. We have all been born into this and we are all required to turn it around.
It is no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society. – Jiddu Krishnamurti
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AND yes, I could use some compensation for the many 100s of hours I’ve worked with folks over the years. Working like we do and not getting any sort of compensation that I might live more comfortably in the face of continued challenges continues to teach us what we’ve learned from psychiatry. We must not be worth it. Let’s change that patterning. If I helped you or a loved one out, please help me back now. thank you.
****We could use some financial support at the moment! You know, for things like the mortgage so that we can maintain a roof over our heads. Yup. I do this all for no other compensation than what the readers want to offer in support. Thank you!****
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Monica that is a really good blog everything you wrote in this is so True and to the point!
Dear Monica
There are too many gurus who claim they are enlightened and that people flock to. 😥
Yes that is why I always talk about being in touch with our inner Guru there is no need for those outer types
I worked in one of Krishnamurti’s schools and joined expecting a kind of spiritual haven where everyone starting with the trustees would be enlightened spirits. Boy, I was badly disappointed. It was worse than the normal corporate world where I worked earlier.
groups with followers tend to be dogmatic nightmares…I’m sorry you got hurt. Community is really best served up organically 😜 when people make them around one person or figure it almost always devolves into dogma.
I don’t suppose you’ve been reading me – I don’t really recommend it, I think and learn by writing, not much of it is complete just yet – but it’s my contention that what is left off of your list of cultural influences that seems most important, our semi-conscious application of punishments and abuse on each other and on the youngest, with any excuse at all – this stuff is so ubiquitous that it’s “to big to fail,” I mean, like, too big to talk about – too big for lists like yours, too big to be a “cultural influence.” First, about that, abuse and punishments are extremely personal, and second, ubiquity suggests biology more than culture. Abuse is a physical thing (physical threats at the very least), and so a biology thing, to my mind. “Conditioning” is one side of it, that we are forced to learn what is being taught and naught else, but that is still the “positive” side of the abuse/punishment equation, the desired result for the abuser/punisher. But the side of it that hurts is just the plain hurt, the abuse. That has its own effects, very predictable ones, when we think of it this way, or even just psychologically: we are all hurt, embittered, damaged, etc., – crazy, many aggressive. My worry is that this is not ostensibly what is intended to be conditioned in us – but this is what is happening. I cannot get the EP/anthro writers to acknowledge a downside to punishing, it controls us and it’s what makes us such a moral, godlike creature, they say. No downside. For me, logically, we will be far more conditioned to the ubiquitous methods than to any particular lesson.
What is awful is it’s not just the EP swine, we all seem to believe we can deter and abuse one another into being better people. Of course, this is the core belief that makes some psychiatric situations so conducive to abuse.
Monica
Thanks very much for posting this. It is even more true at this time as a 66 year old male as I reflect on what you say. It surprises me when a good friend who is a therapist and takes medications himself said your article is “ok” but it did not “wow” me. I wrote back to him, “perhaps being numb is how you cope”? Thanks to you for being brave enough to post this. BTW I did make a donation to you.
Thank you!
Monica
It is my pleasure. At least I don’t feel alone. I wish more people would read your posts and support your views via comments.
If they don’t agree with you I hope they would provide respectful, constructive and thoughtful responses which I’m sure you would do your best to address. That would be nice to see here as well as with our current politicians, especially our current President.