The journey each of us must take in order to live life fully, not just be a robot or a monster filled with envy and rage, is one of deprogramming. All of us have been programmed to a greater or lesser extent. Our family, culture, institutions, peers all indoctrinated us into systems and reinforce these over time. Much of what we think and even feel is result of our programming. Most of us assume that the thoughts rolling around in our heads, the feelings and reactions we experience are a result of something inside of us. Many people think that these thoughts and reactions are who they are. It is the subject having these experiences, but they are filtered and processed through preexisting programming.
Most people go through life NEVER questioning their installed operating system or software, they may make updates, but rarely does an individual call into question their deeply held beliefs in a meaningful way. If they were taught to be a victim, or that they aren’t good enough, or in some way defective or stupid, or the opposite that they are entitled or better than others this will become the lens they view life through. Simply put many of us have erroneous beliefs installed very early in life and these in turn profoundly affect us and our operation in the world.
“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” – Carl Jung
The vast majority of people I talk to believe that they are free thinkers and that they have come to conclusions on their own. Yet my experience indicates that nothing could be further from the truth. First, our highly degraded education system does not teach people how to think, but what to think. Most learning today is passive, it washes over us usually in the form of a blue-light emitting screen. With the rise of fascism, having a differing point of view can result in negative consequences or punishment, as seen through cancel culture, the tightening of the surveillance state, and sophisticated algorithms designed to obfuscate the truth and promote whatever dehumanizing consumerist mind virus those in power see fit. Also, much of our information is propagated by special interests that do not want average denizens developing a rich conceptual understanding or an ability to connect them to decipher complex systems, which have been rigged and corrupted. Ignorance and poor use of mind enables the authoritarians’ power. Many of the systems in place are designed to keep us dumbed down, despite the fact that there are more college “educated” people than ever before. Parents are just people who unwittingly become modelers of this nonsense. As we have seen this is progressive, each generation becomes more degraded than the last. This is a result of a lack of awareness, an inability or lack desire to think critically for ourselves.
Unfortunately, most of what we think are our thoughts is really second hand information with little more credibility than gossip. It is we who, usually without examination except junk as the truth, usually because it confirms a preexisting bias and is delivered by someone is a position of authority. This is why ideologies are so dangerous, as they take hold they tend to become mindless and destructive i.e. communism, feminism, critical theory etc. All the “champions” of these ideologies are rendered frustrated and upset when asked to thoughtfully posit the virtues of whatever ideology they have conformed their mind around. In every case, from my experience, it has been laid bear that there is little to back up the ideas they so fervently support. Their mind is not their own, they have allowed alien ideas to shape their beliefs, severely diminishing their ability to make sense of the work around them and wrecking havoc on their nervous systems. In truth, they are cowards and likely stupid (doing and thinking things that don’t benefit oneself or others), making them most dangerous and destructive sort. They will support whatever the latest in-group trend, whether it be Modern Monterey Theory, kink in classrooms, hatred of some out-group etc.. Due to their inability to think for themselves they are unable to recognize the absurd or evil, they just go along, while rationalizing it themselves.
You have been programmed, I have been programmed… it is our responsibility to deprogram ourselves and work toward discovering truth. Not your truth or my truth, just truth.
It is each of our individual hero’s journey to discover who we really are, not what society, our parents, teachers, or Sex and the City told us to be.