I realise that I haven’t said anything on this blog for quite some time. I’ve been busy elsewhere of course. I need more hours in the day!
Each year grows more and more interesting and challenging. The years seem to pass by even more quickly than before. 2016 was a most interesting year.
As 2017 approached many people began making New Year’s resolutions. I wondered about all this. A new year seems to bring new hope to the many. But what is hope? Well, people admire hope and any criticism of hope is fraught with danger. People are of course free to aspire and that may be a good thing. But what is aspiration without perspiration. It seems that a whole lot of people think that simply by hoping and aspiring that something magical will happen for them. The reality is of course very different.
I made no aspirations, hopes or resolutions for 2017. I stand to be criticised for not falling in line with the behavioural expectations of the herd. They expect me to be shouting “Happy New Year!!” to everybody on the likes of Facebook etc. It may be a New Year but I am still me as I was on New Year’s Eve. In order to change me in my circumstances, I need to be able to do something different. That something different must have impact on the way I interact with the world, or my own thinking. Nothing dramatic changes in 24 hours or a week or a year in my person.
My interaction in various forums has shown me the sides of human nature that many do not wish to see. Or even if they see it, they deny it. I’ve seen people searching for understanding about why things happen. However they never ask themselves how that understanding, if it comes about, would actually bring any change.
I’ve also seen people overvalue education. I’ve had to ask myself, “what is the value of education if it isn’t put to use?” But then there is another problem, in that even the most educated among the human race seem unable to use their minds effectively. The biggest pitfalls seem to arise from a lack of clear and logical thinking. There are some people who believe they are thinking logically, when in fact they do not know the rules of logic.
Habits are another interesting area of human nature. By habits I mean broad or deeply ingrained patterns of operating, thinking, feeling or acting or reacting (and I’m truly uninterested in what pop-psychology experts define habits as). I am of course not here to change other people’s habits. That is a matter for them if they want to change – and find ways of changing their own habits. Patterns however, rule people. The effort to be exerted to change personal patterns is staggering. Recognition of patterns is simply not enough. We may know that we need to change certain things but knowledge of the need to change, does not transform easily into action. People who attempt to change their patterns often find that then can do so for limited periods but somehow or the other, they re-emerge. This is called ‘restitution’. I case you who reads this comes to wonder if it is some high powered psychobabble – it isn’t. It is simple term in physics. Like a bouncing ball returns to some horizontal plane on which it first bounced, so too efforts to change our human patterns return to point at which change was recognised as needed. See also: The importance of patterns.
Advice and opinion are other areas that I’ve learned much about. On at least three occasion in 2016, I was asked for friendly advice or opinion. On each of these occasions, it was a waste of my time. Why? Because I soon realised that the people who sought my advice/opinion only cared to receive what was pleasing to them or would not cost them much effort. If my opinions happened to touch on some ‘truth’ about their modus operandi, that was also very displeasing. In one of these situations, an individual seemed to take a position that was ‘terminal’ i.e. knowing full well that the course of action would be a last straw.
So I’ve come to conclusion that most people only wish to have their own ideas and positions validated. They’re not really seeking a perspective that could be different to their own. But these same people pride themselves with being open-minded. It is very fashionable to think of one’s self as ‘open-minded’ and ‘receptive to new ideas’ but the reality is that a high percentage of people are not. Also a percentage of people (not just in 2016) were really seeking comfort and ‘hand-holding’, by seeking advice. If they didn’t get that, I was of no practical value to them. People in general also want quick-fix solutions to their life’s issues. I’m the wrong person for that sort of thing.
I’ll be judged as being bitter, of course. Amusingly I am not allowed to define my own state of mind. Instead people insist on telling me what is the state of my mind inferred from my words in text. After all, ‘perception is everything’, I’ve come to understand or rather what I’m told. Yuh know, stupid sayings like ‘if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck’ rules minds.
So what is my state of mind likely to be in 2017? I say I am likely to be in an even greater state of perplexity about the human race. I’ll wonder more about how people are stupidly manipulated by political games. Once I say ‘political’ people start thinking of Donald Trump or Theresa May – so simplistic are people of course. The politics in the system knows one important thing i.e. that people do not take a position just based on raw cold logic. Instead ‘they’ know that people act on what they feel strongly about. And that’s what the big mind game is about. If one or the many could manipulate people’s moral perspectives down to a group or individual level, then ‘they’ are king – they rule. Idiots at a ground level will be expected to think that they are making decisions based on ‘what is right’. Well, how do you tell people that what they ‘think’ is actually what they ‘feel’. You can’t. You’ll bounce. You’ll bounce because people hold very dearly to their own moral positions, or what they think is their true moral positions. Little do they know that their minds have been manipulated to ‘think’ exactly what the power structures want them to ‘think’.
The undiscerning can and will of course, label me as a ‘conspiracy theorist’. And that’s fine. I don’t give a monkey’s!!
