Can't Jail The Buddah!
Have you heard the expression, "you can't jail the Buddah"?
The idea here is that if your mind is free, nothing can hurt you. Or at least you can't suffer, although you may feel pain. Pain is a physical response that you probably wouldn't want to block even if you could. There are people born unable to feel pain and they rarely make it to adulthood. But suffering is a judgment of the mind: just another internal illusion coloring our view of the world outside.
So because the Buddah is the archetype of an enlightened individual who has overcome all suffering and is free of attachments, you can't jail the Buddah because the Buddah is always free in the mind. In fact, if you try to torture a practiced Buddist monk, the monk will say he is only getting closer to enlightenment with each strike, because suffering is the stepping stone to enlightenment, and provides the opportunity to work on overcoming the suffering. Remember the infamous photos of the Buddhist monks who burned themselves alive in the town square in Vietnam in protest of the Vietnam War? They just sat there calmly meditating until they had fallen to ashes. Are you beginning to understand how powerful your mind really is?
once you reach a deeper understanding through meditation, realize there are ways you can wrestle your mind free from the grasp of others, you will always be free, because your mind is free. Even if you're stuck in a jail cell.
Have you ever considered that it isn't Us that are waking up, but the superorganism we are merging into? I imagine this was a similarly bewildering time for single-celled organisms as they first started organizing into multi-cell organisms.
Meditation
Too often people think meditation is "hard". Which is interesting, because we also say it's hard to grasp complex ideas, hard to think too much, hard to think too long without a break, hard to listen to someone talk for hours on end. Yet when presented with the opportunity to stop thinking, empty the mind, and put down all the clutter, many people don't even want to try because they think it sounds too hard. What is going on, here?
For starters, many people have been sucked up into the incredibly popular mind prison of being "goal-oriented". I can go on and on about brain chemistry pertaining to this, but for now I just want to point out that this can ruin meditation for anyone because there is no concrete goal to meditation.
Ideas are contagious, and spread like viruses. They interact with each other through us, and are reinterpretted over time. They get entangled and split apart, and get combined to give way to new ideas. And if we're surrounded by people entertaining any one of these ideas, chances are we'll find ourselves entertaining the ideas as well.
No More Groups?
How I'm Feeling: One Tribe
So you're probably conceptualizing groupthink as different groups of people that each has it's own way of thinking. You may have even managed to identify different groups you run with, and how they tend to have some sway over your own thinking. After all, everyone caves to peer pressure a little.
This is indeed groupthink, but this isn't the extent of it.
If only it were so simple.
As you've noticed, our society has become so mixed and melted together that we are not simply a bunch of warring tribes anymore. The lines have blurred, cultures have cross-pollinated, all the tribes have become inter-married and inter-related. We have become One People. And yet, you wouldn't know it from the way we're acting.
What has happened is that we've held onto those same divisive ideas and emotional impulses that have divided us since we were roving gangs of apes. So even as our webs of thought have spread across the world, they have spread thin, and interwoven with other webs, each one calling the others into question. And in the confusion many are panicking, and choosing to cling even tighter to those old ideas that are being called into question for lack of any other solid ground to cling to. (This explains the bit of conservative backlash that progressive times like these often experience for a short time.)
But these simplistic ways of conceptualizing people as separate groups and individuals who are competing over resources is precisely what must now be called into question. It is the subconscious undertone to all the hatred and division in the world. This idea that we aren't one family, but a million broken families at war. Economic war. Each of us leveraging what wealth we have to try to get a leg up in the pyramid scheme when we would all be better off if we just learned to organize ourselves into sustainable communities that are no longer participating in the oil wars and big industry that is destroying our planet.
Of course, you can't walk around in one big group that includes everyone in the world. Humans will always end up grouping up in some way. But it's the way we conceptualize the groups as separate or united that colors the behaviors of the groups and whether they will have a tendency toward cooperating with each other or fighting each other.
Be The Exit
Good Matrix?/Cults?
People are the trap, but people can also help you along your path.You Do It To Yourself
If we can keep ourselves stuck in a feedback loop of old world thought just by letting our internal dialog run, then how can we ever escape? Well, if you're the only one keeping you in the mind prison, then it follows that you're the only one who can get you out!
But how can it be YOU who is keeping yourself trapped in your mind prisons when I said it's mass media, your environment, and everyone else's expectations of you?
Remember, I didn't say it was just everyone else's expectations that mold you to act as expected. I said it was your perception of their expectations. Then you mold yourself to act as you expect them to expect of you. Are you beginning to see how our internal realities and personal truths are completely lost in this process? Especially when you live in a nation where people spend more time watching TV than talking to each other face-to-face.
So you do it to yourself because you're the only one keeping yourself in the feedback loop. Relatively speaking, we're all keeping each other in the feedback loop, and therefore you are keeping yourself in the feedback loop.
Fortunately, the answer is suprisingly simple. So simple that you may have heard it a million times, you may have even followed the advice, but for some reason you just keep forgetting to keep it up.
Meditation.
Before anyone runs away, I promise I will explain meditating in a way that makes it very easy for you. And you will plainly see within a couple posts that I am not an advocate of "doing nothing", but meditating is one of the pieces to the puzzle that helps the other pieces become clear. And it is not difficult - this is a fallacy based on a misunderstanding of the purpose of the practice. I will tell you all about it in my next post!
I also have to point out that this whole awakening process is so goddam non-linear it is hard to know what order to cover topics in. For some people, meditation may be the most pressing matter, and may allow them to overcome their environment completely. Yet others may meditate daily and find that other aspects of the mind prison still have some sway over them despite it all. I think all the topics I end up covering here will probably pertain to everyone, just not necessarily in the same order, but...
Stay tuned and all will become clear.Psychological Funneling
People dress up in suits for job interviews, and are funneled from there into forever fronting like they're the most qualified person for the job or else they might lose the job. And it's easier to get into a conversation with a homeless person if you look just as homeless. If you meet on the job you might be too nervous to ever admit to each other that you both smoke weed. If you meet while you're homeless you might be more likely to smoke a bowl together but you might not
Mirror, Mirror
How I'm Feeling: WHAAAAAT!?!??!?!!
No one is keeping you trapped.
You're doing it to yourself.
But how can it be YOU who is keeping yourself trapped in your mind prisons when I said it's mass media, your environment, and everyone else's expectations of you?
Remember, I didn't say it was just everyone else's expectations that mold you to act as expected. I said it was your perception of their expectations. Then you mold yourself to act as you expect them to expect of you. Are you beginning to see how our internal realities and personal truths are completely lost in this process? Especially when you live in a nation where people spend more time watching TV than talking to each other face-to-face.
People reflect back at each other the version of themselves that they believe is most suitable for the environment they're in. Drinking at the bar, we might piss in the street to show each other how much we don't give a fuck. But on the job, we would never dream of stepping out of line. When we're driving, we're quick to get impatient with pedestrians, and point out other people's mistakes. But when we're walking, we feel rushed by the cars, and claim we would never be in such a hurry. Cognitive dissonance keeps us from realizing how hypocritical we have become. Now can you tell me who the shape shifting reptilians are?
But stranger still, we associate our feelings of closeness with the ideas we've come to hold in common. If we beat up hippies together growing up, and it was the only thing we ever really went out of our way to do together, then that becomes a point of bonding. If ever we wish to feel close, we might just bring up that time we beat up some hippies together to reignite the spark of our bond. Of course, this is problematic because if the event we've been bonded over was hurtful or divisive to others, then our connection was forged out of the pain and suffering of others, and will repeatedly drive us to divide ourselves further. If either of these two friends starts to develop the idea that it was wrong for them to beat up hippies before the other one comes around, that having been the only basis of their bond, they might just stop feeling connected, stop talking, and go their separate ways.
Being so easily and instantaneously persuaded by our immediate circumstances, we hardly exist as individuals at all. We simply reflect back at each other what we think our roles are in a given situation.
Awakening is a Maze
The psychological Matrix is extremely multi-faceted, as you've no doubt noticed. Much more layered than just one single mind-blowing epiphany that the world is destroyed and you live in the Matrix, as it was portrayed in The Matrix movie. It's more like the layered illusions in the movie Inception, although still less linear because in real life ideas don't always fit neatly one inside the other, like those dream bubbles did.
These movies are great metaphors, and great starter packages for the journey down this rabbit hole, but you need a few more details before you can apply them to your own life. There is a little more nuance to our mind prisons irl. For instance, although your personal path might be experienced as a linear progression of mind-blowingly waking up from one illusion after another, that doesn't mean the Awakening itself is linear. Because someone else may experience their own linear path in an entirely different order, and perhaps have entirely different epiphanies depending on how different your preconceived notions were. Perhaps you were raised taking for granted all the things they are just now coming to realize, while they were raised taking for granted all the things that you are now coming to realize.
But if there is no linear progression to the awakening, how do you know which direction will lead you toward the Exit?
Tune in Next TiMe!!1
ExTra CreDit LuLZ!
Here is a simple board game that we'll just call "The Path". It's incomplete, so maybe you can add some more twists to it to make it even cooler. You can make it yourself using a pen, scissors, and a couple notecards or pieces of thin cardboard. Or if you're really fancy you could make the board and pieces out of wood, or anything really.
You want your two pieces of material to be rectangular, and the same size.
One will be the board, with a grid of squares drawn on it. The other will be cut up into squares
that fit perfectly on the grid - one square piece for each square on the board.
Leave one side of each piece blank, so you can't tell what's on the other side.
On the other side, draw eight light pencil marks, two on each edge of the square, evenly spaced, identical
on every piece - so any two pieces side by side at any angle should have two marks on the
sides touching and perfectly lined up with the two marks on the other piece. Then, for every piece,
draw a line from one mark to another. Don't draw more than one line
from any mark, but be sure every mark is connected to another. There should be four lines twisting and
curving and overlapping on every piece, with two "exits" on every edge of every piece.
There will also have to be a game player piece for each player, but anything will do (like an
acorn cap). The player pieces don't even have to look different, since there are so few of them.
If the board is real small, it's probably just a two player game, but it could be more.
Divide up all the pieces evenly among the players, without looking at the paths drawn on them.
You can look at your pieces once you have them. Each player starts by laying their first piece
down in a square at the very edge of the game board. Then you choose which of the two paths
coming off the side of the board to place your player piece on.
The player piece will now be sent all the way to the furthest end of any path they are
connected to. The point of the game is to try to stay on the board. So as you take turns placing
your pieces, to guide your player piece safely away from the edge of the board, you have to
be aware of what's up ahead! Otherwise if someone else lays a piece down where one of the paths
on the piece connects to your path, then your player piece will have to travel all the way to the
end of that path even though it isn't your turn yet, and often that could mean going right off
the edge of the board! Which means you got knocked off course, and fell off your spiritual path.
On the other hand, sometimes you get lucky breaks and find a convoluted path that sends you all
over the board before returning you safely to the edge of a blank square.
I didn't make it up, but I like it. It is interesting how everyone falls off the path eventually,
too, because as all the pieces are laid down eventually all the paths lead off the edge of
the board (don't they?) Which could be a really deep statement about death or a flaw in the game. You decide.
Please email me if you think of any awesome twists to add to the game! anonananana at sigaint dot org
EXTRA ExTra CreDit
Create a co-operative version where the goal is to set up all the board pieces just right
so none of the player pieces ever fall off the board again, and instead go around forever.
Please email me if you think of any awesome twists to add to the game! anonananana at sigaint dot org
Acceptance Process
Denial, Anger, Bargaining, AcceptanceCognitive Dissonance
Cognitive dissonance is our greatest enemy of all. One of our greatest shortcomings as a species. And one that takes a great deal of humility to admit to, which is why people are still running around acting like they know exactly what they're doing when this law of psychology suggests that absolutely none of us can see things for what they really are.
Our minds seek cohesion between our actions and our beliefs. This speaks to our calling as psycho-spiritual beings to be genuine in our actions, and believe in what we're doing. But if for some reason our actions and beliefs don't match, then we have to change either one or the other to maintain a cohesive worldview.
The weird thing is, we really can change either. You might be a police officer who realizes you're a part of something you don't agree with, and that change in beliefs will force you to act, probably by quitting your job. However, if for some reason you absolutely can't quit your job, perhaps because you need the insurance to see a loved one through chemo-therapy, then you are stuck in a position where your actions and beliefs are out of line. This will cause a serious case of cognitive dissonance, that will feel kind of like a grating feeling, or like nails on a chalkboard, begging for relief, causing migraine headaches, and in some cases even driving people to suicide. Then, because they cannot change their actions, relief can only come from changing how you think about your actions, essentially altering even your core beliefs to justify your actions.
Research in this area suggests we essentially come to love the things we are forced to endure, because we have no choice, and come to believe in our actions wherever we don't see any way to change them.
North Korean MiND PriSoN!!1
Judging by the term, a "mind prison" is a prison for your mind. And presumably, a prison restricts movement. So in this case it would restrict the movement of your thoughts. But how can thoughts be restricted?
I remember hearing about a "mind prison" for the first time through some documentary about North Korea. I was fascinated by the idea. How could a whole country be brainwashed, and yet none of them even seem to realize it? The documentary was full of bizarre examples of just how completely brainwashed they really were. They seemed genuinely star-struck by their leader, and would put up with any amount of abuse as long as it was cast as their duty to their country.
What I couldn't figure out was why it seemed like the people were genuinely happy with their leader, if things were so bad. Was this just US propaganda? Or was North Korea really so totally brainwashed?
But what I really wanted to know was whether they were just pretending, and secretly wanted to escape, or whether they had been so completely brainwashed that they were just "blissfully ignorant". Because if they are aware of the situation they're in, they sure are good at acting like they aren't.
This was the most ominous part of the documentary. As it went into more detail about whether or not the people were acting, or whether they genuinely believed the lie they lived, this distinction all but broke down. While some people may fully believe it, and others may be pretending, there may never be any way of knowing who believes it or not. And it doesn't matter as long as you can keep everyone pretending. Yet, because of how --------------cognitive dissonance works, if people cannot find a way to change their actions to align with their beliefs, they will align their thoughts to justify their actions instead, just to relieve the tension of their cognitive dissonance. So the difference between whether they are "pretending" or not is essentially non-existant. Which is what makes it literally a "mind prison" - the victim can be completely unaware that they are so hopelessly trapped.
Shocking to think the human mind is so weak, because this seems to imply any of us could be in any number of mind prisons without knowing it.
It turns out we have a few bugs in the operating system in our brains. You could spend years writing academic papers on what caused these bugs, and whether they are just inevitable cognitive biases that are just being greatly exacerbated by recent mass media hypnosis, or whether they could have in fact been caused by the mass media hypnosis itself. But make no mistake, these bugs are there, and it is these bugs we have to come to understand and deal with if we're going to keep ourselves from becoming trapped in a North Korean mind prison.
Jamestown
Even growing up in all the mind prisons we're in, we can never be completely sheltered from the reality that mind prisons exist. Overcoming our mind prisons is so central to the human experience that our entire human history of literature is full of inspiring stories of "breaking out of your shell" or "coming of age". And new ones are coming out all the time.
But, almost as a law of nature, every symbol is eventually co-opted by the powers that be to serve their own interests...
And so even these cautionary tales of mind prisons, once meant to encourage people to continuously push past their boundaries and free their minds of old stuck ways of thinking, have a funny way of being presented as some kind of horror story warning against thinking differently. That's right, I'm talking about Jamestown.
Perhaps you've heard of Jamestown, and the Jamestown Massacre. I was too young to have "been there", but throughout my childhood people seemed to throw the phrase around almost as an ominous warning of what would happen if you let yourself think too differently - too far outside of the box. Or to caution people against getting too close to any group of people (presumably any group other than the one giving the warning :P).
As the story was presented to me, Jamestown was a cult that appeared on it's surface a picturesque little utopia, while under the surface the people actually wanted to escape. After getting lots of heat from the families of the "victims" who had been "brainwashed" to join the "cult", one congressman actually went to visit and see for himself. Everyone warmly welcomed him, and acted as if nothing was wrong. He met lots of people, people told him about their day-to-day life, and he was quite satisfied to find that it was more of a hippie commune than some evil cult. But just as he was about to leave, someone handed him a note that said something like "help us". As he nervously hurried back to his plane, the desperate captives made a break for it and tried to run after the congressman, begging that he bring him with them. The whole thing ended in a huge bloody shoot-out, and I think pretty much everyone died, including the congressman.
So what happened? How could they be so hopelessly trapped, but act as if nothing was wrong? This is the part of the story that always haunted me. Because if this is how people act, how could you ever be sure you aren't surrounded by some menacing force that everyone is just pretending isn't there?
Sweet dreams.
The Exit
So where's the exit?
The problem with asking where the exit is, is that it is everywhere and nowhere. As mentioned in my previous post, the best way to unplug from a mind prison is to physically remove yourself. So the exit is everywhere, because unless you are physically entrapped, you can literally just leave and go anywhere else to clear your head of all that bullshit.
Unfortunately, because mass media propagates the same false image of reality across the whole world, almost every group has become infected with some of this same sick psychology, so often you get away from one group's bullshit only to get caught up in another group's bullshit. But removing yourself from one group only to end up in another that thinks very much the same way is not much of an exit. It may be refreshing. It may be just what you needed for a time. But by no means have you found an exit.
Even completely avoiding all other people is not necessarily enough. The reason being that there are reminders and psychological triggers everywhere. You might be trying to clean your third eye by watching some enlightening YouTube videos or listening to enlightening music over Pandora when suddenly there's an ad taking up your whole living room. Radio ads and mainstream music blare out of car windows. You can turn off TV but you can't turn off all the billboards you see everywhere, subconsciously drawing you back in. Even seeing some trash, like an empty potatoe chips bag, can be a trigger. Enough to start a subconscious background process that makes you want chips more with each reminder. This is how we're so easily drawn back in; bribed by short-sighted comforts to remain addicted to the very Matrix we despise.
Which is why the exit is also nowhere. In fact, many of us have become so brainwashed we don't need any trigger at all to stick to the program. I've met people who have already gone years without watching TV, purposefully trying to detox their mind from all that garbage, but since they had already spent half a lifetime watching TV it will likely take another half a lifetime to cleanse from it. Since we've lived our whole lives in these illusions, they've worn deep grooves in our brains. After a while, we no longer require constant bombardment from mainstream media because we keep our own minds on the same destructive mental feedback loops with our own internal dialog. Which means even if we close our eyes and plug our ears, we can still have a head full of old world bullshit.
The truth is, there is no Exit Door. It will never be that simple. But there is an Exit. Now that you understand that the Matrix is held together by groupthink, and that every groupthink bubble has been tainted, hopefully you understand why escape is so difficult. And so confusing. But don't worry, I'm here to help you navigate it.
We all are. ;)
There is no way out that always works,
everyone must find their own way.
But with these tools and tips and tricks,
hopefully I'll have helped you along your way.
Bound by Groupthink
We aren't immune just by turning off the TV, because everyone around us hasn't turned off the TV yet, and so talking to any of them is just like turning the TV on again.
Remember, the psychological Matrix we're afflicted with irl is bound by the glue of groupthink. I'm not going to go into detail, because I already did in my "away message" on the front page, so just go read that, follow links, etc.
OK, so keeping in mind how groupthink works, you realize that people's mindset is more profoundly influenced by their context than anything else. So it makes sense that to change our mindset we must change our environment, and vice versa. In fact, entirely removing yourself from a situation can often be the only way to fully exit a mind prison.
With this insight, we find that the Matrix metaphor persists quite completely throughout The Matrix movie as a mirror of what might be one person's experience of waking up from the spectacle of mass media, as they find themselves feeling permanently removed from those who still live in the Matrix, and yet whenever they re-enter the Matrix (which in irl is basically any environment of mainstream thought) then they have to appear as if they haven't woken up just to blend in. Which is why they'll often only re-enter the Matrix for a short time, to quickly complete a mission and then retreat. Because to be genuine in the Matrix automatically attracts unwanted attention. Just look at the bullying of homosexuals, or how people can become ostracized from their family for drug use even if they only use marijuana and psychedelics. Or for a more extremely relevant example, just look how the US government has treated whistle-blowers like Chelsea Manning.
Speaking your truth in the Matrix is an uphill battle, because people's confused old-world ideas are in such conflict that the conversation often becomes a big argument between two completely disjointed worldviews until one person just gives up. So many times the awakened ones end up fading into the background whenever they re-enter the Matrix, often sitting by quietly, usually seeming a bit odd to the others, and occasionally mentioning a fact here or a story there just to put out a piece of information now and then when they think someone might actually be receptive to it.
Mission: Find an Exit
How I'm Feeling: Wayseer Manifesto
By a twist of fate, I've been guided over my lifetime to "wake the fuck up" to some extent. And I'm no one special, I'm just a product of my time and place like everyone else, so I know I'm not the only one. But what happens when someone wakes up and realizes they're living in the Matrix, only to realize that they can't find an exit? No phone ringing in the distance... No special cell phone that patches you through to the ReaL WoRLd... No matter what you do, or where you go, you just can't seem to find an exit... Everyone just seems to be walking around in a daze, pretending nothing is wrong. Whoever you try to confide in assures you there is nothing to worry about, and that the Matrix isn't real. Then, if you persist, they resort to questioning your sanity.
Without an outlet, without an exit, without so much as a little validation from their closest friends, too often people who have seen through the illusions just decide it's less trouble to pretend they're still asleep, and fall back in line. Fortunately, you're different. Even without an exit, you've seen too much. You know beyond a doubt that you're immersed in some sort of virtual reality. A prison for your mind. A psychological conspiracy to keep you from waking up to your potential, and keep humanity from overcoming those secret dark forces that are so insistent on ruling over us. Those dark forces that are keeping us divided, distracted, overworked, and underpaid, just to keep things as they are to prevent us from dissolving their power. So what do you do?
In the movie The Matrix, the Matrix is an entirely alternative reality to the DeSeRt of the ReaL WoRLd. In our real world metaphor, however, the Matrix is entirely psychological. So how do you find an exit from something that isn't physical?
Well, as if you hadn't heard it a million times before: turn off the TV. But that's just a start. The psychological triggers that keep our minds entrapped in the popularized worldview are everywhere, including increasingly on the Internet. But here I'll be trying to explain in layman's terms, without missing any important details, the exact nature of this Matrix situation in which we find ourselves. That way you can decide for yourself how to shield your mind, and how to tailor your media exposure, as well as how and when to use the many tools and instructions I'll be providing all about how to free your mind.
To put things in plain terms: The Matrix itself is the comfort of the first world luxuries that we've become accustomed to, where the illusion we're enjoying is that there is no harm done in the creation and distribution of such luxuries. The DeSeRt of the ReaL WoRLd, on the other hand, represents the cold, hard facts beneath the surface, and the more ascetic/minimalistic lifestyles we often choose as we come to terms with them.
#opLetItAllGo:Engaged #opFuckItAllOff:Engaged
How I'm Feeling: Runs In The Family by Amanda Palmer
This has been a long time coming. It's just that it took me a quarter century to work up the courage to do it. It's time for me to leave everything behind. It's time I left the world I was born into to join the world that is rapidly replacing it. There is no place for me in the old world anymore, anyways, so there is no longer any reason for me to hold on...
So, since I'm hoping these #ops might help me on my own journey, I'm taking this opportunity to give honorable mention to these two little-known Anonymous operations #opFuckItAllOff and #opLetItAllGo, which are like a pair of decentralized Anonymous support groups to help people detox their minds from the old world and inspire each other to strike out and find or create healthier spaces and new ways of being. As the names imply, #opFuckItAllOff is for a more strong-headed approach, better for those who have had a lot of pain in their process, who might benefit from a dose of anger to break away from everyone who keeps drawing them back into their mind prisons. Under this tag you're likely to find motivational messages and personal stories of persaverence about not letting others hold you back, with a common theme around completely breaking away from everything you've ever known. On the other hand, #opLetItAllGo is for a more bittersweet approach, where people share personal stories that are honest about the pain and loss of leaving loved ones while acknowledging that sometimes you have to unplug from the Matrix alone.
May we all help each other find our way.
first post!!1
May 1st, being the People's May Day, seems like the perfect day to start my blog. And Aaron Schwartz seems like the perfect special person to share such a special day with. So here's a moving Ted Talk about Aaron Schwartz. In yet another synchronicity, they call their proposal "May One", but they are not proposing that it happens on May 1st. That confused me just because I happened to see it on May 1st.
The Story:
He invented RSS when
he was a teenager. He had always been at the forefront of Internet activism before others even realized
it was necessary. He had embraced the big picture of just how corrupted everything had become while
maintaining his wide-eyed idealism that would allow him to tackle the monstrous projects required to
overthrow these dark forces who are keeping us under heel, even while those around him tried to discourage
him, couldn't keep up with him, tried to engage in ego games with him, and even turned on him when they got scared.
(Keep in mind, almost anyone would rat on anyone else when confronted by the full force of the US Government.
Don't blame anyone for it, they want us to turn on each other like that.
If you get leaked on, blame your own failures for not sticking to #opSec or learning decent
security culture.)
His last heroic act was to download every scientific article ever written and freely distribute it to the world, so that the first world could no longer have an intellectual monopoly on thought and science itself. Unfortunately, he didn't manage to make the upload before getting caught. The CIA got involved, and took it way too far, threatening his family and driving him to suicide (if they didn't just kill him themselves).
It's worth pointing out that just because this anon failed his last mission doesn't mean he didn't inspire Anonymous to carry the torch. In fact, in risking his life for this cause, he has drawn the whole world's attention to just how important this mission really is. So if anyone else out there is willing and able, and looking for a really hardcore mission... Just saying. The third world could do with all our scientific knowledge. Are we really so invested in feeling like saviors that we have to keep our research secret from the third world? Is this how far we've fallen? I guess we were never anywhere else, we're still just trying to climb out of the muck. But wouldn't this be the most symbolic recourse?
Since I've called attention to it here, I can only assume others in the swarm are just now doing the same. With a dream so powerful that Aaron would risk his life for it, it is only a matter of time now before the swarm completes the mission. We expect that which Aaron put into motion will inevitably manifest into reality shortly...
Anonymous is Everyone.
We are the human collective.
Become a part of the whole.
Help us build a better world.
Anonymous is waiting for you.
We are uniting humanity.
We are Anonymous.
Morpheus: You're here because you know something. What you know you can't explain, but you feel it. You've felt it your entire life. That there's something wrong with the world. You don't know what it is, but it's there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad. It is this feeling that has brought you to me.
Morpheus: Do you know what I'm talking about?
Neo: The Matrix.
Morpheus: Do you want to know what it is?
Neo: Yes.
Morpheus: The Matrix is everywhere. It is all around us. Even now, in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work... when you go to church... when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.
Neo: What truth?
Morpheus: That you are a slave, Neo. Like everyone else you were born into bondage. Into a prison that you cannot taste or see or touch.
Morpheus: A prison for your mind.
*** 1337Rul3r sets mode: +b Neo*!*@*.*
*** Neo was kicked by 1337Rul3r (no spamming movie quotes)
*** 1337Rul3r sets mode: +b Morpheus*!*@*.*
*** Morpheus was kicked by 1337Rul3r (no spamming movie quotes)
The Matrix
The Matrix is the mind prison. It is relatively comfortable, but only if you're blissfully unaware of what's going on under the surface.The DeSeRt of the ReaL WoRLd
This is the cold, hard reality you face when you wake up from the dream and join the struggle to free mankind.Anonymous
The Rabbit Hole
These are the many layers of illusions you wake up from, one after the other, like the dreams within dreams as portrayed in the movie Inception. At first, it is incredibly startling to have your illusions shattered as you tumble further down the rabbit hole. But after awhile, you become accustomed to the chaos of constantly tumbling and never knowing if and when, or where, you will land.Birthday Cake Moment
If you've watched the movie The Truman Show, you remember he lives in a reality TV show in which everyone but him is an actor, and he's the only one who doesn't know he's on TV. But some people think it's wrong that he is trapped in an all-encompassing illusion, living a lie, unaware of the world outside, so they try to infiltrate the TV show to tell him what's really going on.One such incident was on one of his birthday's, in his youth. His "family" gets him one of those BIG birthday cakes. As expected, someone jumps out of it, but instead of singing Happy Birthday it turns out to be an infiltrator who was smuggled in to frantically try to explain to the boy the nature of the reality TV show he is trapped in before promptly being tackled to the ground by agents and escorted.
This scene is especially poetic because it links the artificial world of the Truman Show to our real world mind prison, like a wink and a nudge, or a tip of the hat, because the Happy Birthday song is actually copyrighted irl. So, as absurd as it may sound, you have to pay a toll to some troll somewhere to put the Happy Birthday song we all know and love in a movie. And no, it wasn't the person who created the song, it was just whoever thought to copyright it first.
The Birthday Cake Moment is that fleeting moment you have to help someone out of their illusions. Every time someone walks past, any time someone is within earshot, any time you have the chance to catch someone's attention. A chance to make them question the status quo, or question why they do what they do. Every moment is that Birthday Cake Moment. Once you realize that, you realize the gravity that every moment holds in a world that desperately needs to be woken up before it's too late.
The Red Pill
The red pill is a psychedelic. Probably LSD, as hackers love LSD, but I personally like magic mushrooms more. Psychedelics have the ability of giving you a fresh outside perspective of things, essentially giving you the kind of insight you can only achieve from outside all the mind prisons. By increasing the potential for every neuron in the brain to fire, we remove many of the filters we usually impose on our minds to see things the way we WANT to see them rather than the ways they actually are. We can also hold more in mind at once, and therefore have a greater capacity to connect more distant ideas and detect patterns between distantly related things. To put it in technical terms, it literally increases the bandwidth of your brain. It's like you somehow greatly increased the bandwidth between all the components on your own motherboard, and then used the performance boost to do an amazing job of defragmenting(re-organizing) your harddrive. Tripping on psychedelics is often a series of mind-blowing epiphanies that are actually good ideas and not just something you think is a good idea, as the mainstream is hoping you will believe. Everything I'm saying here, and on the rest of the website, will become crystal clear as soon as you're tripping. In fact, I bet this site would be a great one to binge read just before tripping, to "pack for the trip".The Blue Pill
This is an anti-depressant. Good for pretending things are still OK. Only really made to keep workers working, not really to look out for your mental health - as reflected by the many fatalities caused by the increase in suicide among those who take anti-depressants...in Progress...
But now with the rise of Anonymous, it's almost as if our technology itself is beckoning for us to awaken and catch up to it's advances. Of course, Anonymous isn't just our technology, it is all of Us - but it is our technology that allows us to manifest in this form. So Anonymous is sort of like a hybrid superorganism of both humanity and technology, thinking as One, connecting our world through an underground dimension that twists beneath our universe into a tightly knit series of tubes so that everyone, everything, and everywhere seems to be all in one place. Connecting all our brains and servers into one giant hive mind we call The Internet.
But what is the use of a cyborg superorganism beckoning us to unplug from the Matrix if we can't find an exit?
in Progress...
Continuing with the Matrix metaphor, lets examine a few more nuances. The Matrix is the superficially comfortable twisted reality that entraps our minds. Then there's the ReaL WoRLd in which our minds are free but we live entrapped to the harsh onslaught of our physical reality. But there is a third dimension. The whitespace. The training simulations and waiting rooms, the bridges between one reality and the next. Where Neo learned to jump from one building to another, and where Neo and Trinity both called for thousands of guns to appear out of thin air before patching through to the Matrix. This is the dimension that is nowhere and everywhere. An imaginary world of endless possibilities whose influence reaches both the ReaL WoRLd and the Matrix. This... is the Internet.
The simplest way to exit a mind prison is simply to physically remove yourself. Many people may have experienced this type of thing with relationships and break-ups. Perhaps you thought you could remain friends, but somehow the groupthink between you two specific individuals just got so messed up that you could only "be yourself" when you were away from each other. Other people might recognize that they feel pushed back into their "role" as whichever family member you are whenever you go back to see family. By simply removing yourself, you have the freedom and clarity of mind to be whoever you want to be.
So how do we Exit the feedback loop? Well, when I capitalize Exit I'm reserving it for a very special type of Exit. A complete Exit from this reality and complete re-entry to the reality on the horizon that we are all working together to forge, right now, for all future generations.I know this can look pretty bleak, and make it look like everyone just has to leave home and start wandering the Earth looking for community as if a psychological World War has destroyed our psychological make-up. But that's because that is exactly correct. However, I haven't yet listed all the many tools at our disposal! There will be sadness and loss that can't be avoided at this time, but there is also great adventure ahead! I just wanted to set the scene first XD, but now on to the solutions!
First of all: meditate. I can't stress this strongly enough. Although leaving a place can be the quickest and most effective way to clear your head and think for yourself, meditation is still the missing link to get out of the frenzied feedback loop of habitual thought you're trying to get out of. Not to mention, there are also times when leaving just isn't that easy.
How I'm Feeling: The Status Quo Line Dance Song
So you can leave the mind prisons and free your mind, but you'll find you end up alone. There is another way. There is meditation. Have you heard the expression, "You can't jail the Buddah"? No matter the condition or position of your body, it is still theoretically possible to free your mind by observing your thoughts and sensations without judgment, and letting go of all attachment to any outcome. So we find ourselves living in an all-encompassing, multi-faceted illusion that has been turned us all of us onagainst each other unknowingly. If anything can draw you back into the Matrix, including your only inner dialog, then the only way out is to go within.
Continuing with the Matrix metaphor, lets examine a few more nuances. The Matrix is the superficially comfortable twisted reality that entraps our minds. Then there's the ReaL WoRLd in which our minds are free but we live entrapped to the harsh onslaught of our physical reality. But there is a third dimension. The whitespace. The training simulations and waiting rooms, the bridges between one reality and the next. Where Neo learned to jump from one building to another, and where Neo and Trinity both called for thousands of guns to appear out of thin air before patching through to the Matrix. This is the dimension that is nowhere and everywhere. An imaginary world of endless possibilities whose influence reaches both the ReaL WoRLd and the Matrix. This... is the Internet.