Personal Meditation No. 155

“It’s not all in your mind but if you don’t control your mind, then the rest doesn’t matter.”

Embrace the Within

I have friends that believe a lot of things. I have friends that are blue-pilled, red-pilled, black-pilled, king-pilled, they’re using a lot of allusions to The Matrix to explain their world view. I have friends that gladly allow their children to sign into the system and friends that are ready to burn the system down. I see a lot of ideologies where I sit. And I have never wanted to silence their ability to speak.

Even though I think that worrying about conspiracies all day means you need a new hobby, I won’t ever force you to take up gardening. Even though I think that allowing your child to join the military is promoting violence, I won’t ever force you to change your mind. But I will not go along with either mindset. I can’t endorse wasting time trying to convert and awaken folks. To use another allusion to The Matrix, Morpheus explains to Neo as he is about to offer him the choice of the blue or red pill, “You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inert, so hopelessly dependent on the system that they will fight to protect it.”

Folks get so inside their own minds that they lack the perspective to see where they once were. Folks like to believe that the same journey they are taking is the same journey that everyone should take. Whether it be politics, religion, health, wellness, education, philosophy, whatever else, folks think that their way is the correct path and that other folks not traveling their path are incorrect. It’s a sort of xenophobic view of the world where we in-group bias everyone and want to convert the masses because they’re just ignorant, uninformed, uneducated, or too dumb to get the truth we’ve found. And I have been down that road before. And I think what we all could use a lot more of today is empathy.

I can understand a lot of these beliefs from personal experience and there are a lot more that I don’t understand because I never thought or acted that way. BUT, in either case, I still feel for folks that want to remake the world in their image. I mean where is the fun in everyone believing and doing and saying the same things? That would be like having the mainstream media talking to me all day and I already do everything I can to avoid that as much as possible. BUT folks on all sides seem to want to share with me their latest news in order to prove their point and convert me.

BUT, I am past conversion. I’m not looking for a new belief because beliefs are mind killers. Beliefs stop folks from learning new things. Beliefs allow folks to write off things because they don’t fit their system. I just want to learn and learn and learn. I want to read and think and converse and decide and choose. Isn’t that enough?

I am tired of all this forcing folks and incentivizing folks and manipulating folks and influencing folks to conform to your world-view, your mindset. I just wish we could stop trying to force people into spaces. I wish folks could have some empathy for ideas we don’t understand or respect or believe. I wish folks would start allowing everyone to be as different as they like. I wish folks would start to see the other person across the table as a person and not an ideology. And in order for that to happen, I think we need to stop believing that any type of media is bringing us together. I think we need to stop being divisive about what we believe and realize that fundamentally all people want are a few things.

People need to feel needed.

People need a sense of hope.

People need to feel noticed and understood.

People need to feel a sense of power.

People need to be right.

Have the day you want. I hope you find whatever you’re looking for.

#ThinkBetter #BeBetter #NoGodsNoMasters #MyBodyMyChoice #MakeYourselfGreatAgain