Good Morning Digital Neighbors!!! Happy Thursday ADD Irregulars, WSN Aficionados, Friends & Refugees, PHAM & Misfits, Conversants, Lurkers, Seekers, Wanderers and Lost of Locals.
Lately in Coffee Talk we have been talking over the vast lies, misrepresentations and manipulations of modern life. It is a recurrent topic since our lives and culture are often built on bullshit assumptions that often go unquestioned in our desire to not have to think beyond the narrative or our own semi-vetted assumptions. Questioning is tiring, and one cannot spend their days doing nothing but questioning and disputing, there are things that need to be done. Most people don't seem to spend much of their days questioning, wondering or digging deeper in a desire to find a smidge of clarity or understanding. The acceptance of assumptions goes on and hopefully nothing disturbs it, especially nutjobs and all their doubts and skeptical comments.
While I have often maligned the CABAL of the Enemedia, Perma-career-statist, Academia & Prosely-teachers of the Book of Woke , The BIGS: Tech & Pharma and Enterlamement I know that any of us who are skeptical of the NARRAVTIVE can become blind to our own assumptions without knowing it. No one is free of knowing incorrectly or incompletely, no one is free of the subtle pull of confirmation bias working as the background music of their internal dialogue (if they have one).
Are we just screwed with an inescapable state of erroneous knowledge or unquestioned assumptions? Are the only options mindless groupfeel or loner conspiracy kookery? I don't think so, but if you are a questioner, doubter, skeptic or seeker I think you have to embrace a few reality points to anchor you in reality. The following points are probably self-evident to most of us wandering around Locals, but it is good for me to list them for my own clarification. Enjoy or ignore, you've been warned.
1. I could be wrong. - Most will find this a hard pill to swallow. Warped self-love begins with never having to feel you might be wrong. You know, they don't. That pretty much settles it. Until you can tell yourself "I was wrong" forget being a person with affiliations and settle for being among the herd.
2. My most beloved assumptions/information/knowledge are incomplete. This is part B of point #1. Until some sort of humility can take root in your person, welcome to Club Bias and herd-thinking & group-feeling. I have at best partial knowledge of the things I treasure most. Things I think I know, might have been built on past assumptions now proven to be wrong or incomplete. Learning never stops.
3. Know & Own your shit, especially the shit committed or espoused by the group(s) you most claim for fellowship or identity (as much as I hate that co-opted word). Do your best not to bleach out the stains of past crimes or atrocities, own them but don't wallow in them. Owning your own shit also means you ought to know and be able to talk about the good your group has done. If you group has no good to claim as part of its story, get out! Mono-thinkers can only focus on the fault, the point of castigating you in their talking points and they don't move beyond that. Mono-thinkers are at best herd leaders, but still part of the herd. Many mono-thinker are known by their empty degrees and absurdities of self-expression.
4. Be prepared to be tired and tempted to either anger or dismay. There will be numerous experiences of surprise and "you're kidding me?" The list will keep growing of lies, damn lies and the NARRATIVE. WTF is it now is an inescapable experience.
5. Find reasons to laugh every single day. Not the spiteful laughter of a cynic, but laughter at the absurdity of life, especially yourself. Life is funny.
6. Spend time away from your research into the shaft of bullshit. Putting a spotlight on the lies is a great thing, exposing the bias and questioning everything is good, but it cannot be non-stop. Nature, music, literature, the arts and games with others offer a break from the all consuming sky-is-fallingism that any of us skeptics can be tempted to embrace & espouse.
7. Know that nothing is beyond questioning. Anything that cannot be questioned is not worth knowing or believing. Just don't rest in a state of unfulfilled questions, questions should be seeking some sort of conclusion or acceptable assumption that is open to further revision and growth. Strive for reasonable confidence in your limited knowledge.
8. Care for your acre of reality with the greatest amount of loving attentiveness. Make you home a haven, your family a place honest & humble vulnerability, your adventures into society armed with sufficient awareness not to be seduced or blinded by all the lies and distortions.
