My new favorite book. I have so far started my own personal book club with my dad and mother in-law. I think Gelong has a great way of explaining meditation and his practices in his book are fantastic. I have been using his practices and have felt a noticeable shift in how I perceive my thoughts and feelings. I am not devoid of reactions, but I am more thoughtful and unattached. There is so much wisdom in Buddhism and I do not plan on branding myself a white girl Buddhist- but I will practice it everyday.
I don’t know if I am breaking copyright rules- but I just had to share some of his writing.
Modern Living
“Modern life tends to be characterized by an overload of busyness and the stress hormone cortisol. A grasping mentality is exhausting, and the things we surround ourselves with to satisfy that grasping also tend to drain our energy. We can reach the end of our working day and feel as though we’ve been climbing a mountain or have been dragged through a series of hedges backward. Our bodies feel wrecked, even though in many cases there hasn’t been much physical activity. It is our minds that are worn out. Nowadays being busy is seen as a mark of success, a badge of honor. We ask each other “How are you?” and we automatically answer, “Busy,” which means that all is well. We live in a culture of doing rather than being. Keeping busy is somehow glamorous; it defines us. Of course, we need to work to pay the bills, support our families, and generally contribute to society. But we have constructed a culture in which we are no longer simply growing the food we need to eat and protecting ourselves from danger; we are now locked into a complex matrix of buying, selling, comparing, insuring, communicating, and endless growth. This system has become exhausting to maintain, the planet is unable to sustain our demands, and meanwhile we run around our cities, busy all day keeping the system running. We validate ourselves through this achievement. The real problem is that we are out of touch with the true beauty of our own minds, as described in chapter two, and so we become obsessed with an identity based on a veneer of external achievements.”
True, Enduring Happiness
“A myth we have believed throughout our lives is that we have to “get” happiness, and if we can just get the external details of our lives right, we will be happy. This is not happiness, it is a form of enslavement. We seem to assume that happiness, and suffering too, come to us from “outside.” Surely, however, it is our thoughts and reactions that are the real defining factors. Furthermore, if it’s the case that two or more people don’t always find that the same things make them happy or unhappy, then it means we are talking about a mental experience within us, not the things around us. This book is about turning within and finding the source of happiness that lies inside us. Rather than being a random feeling we might be lucky enough to experience, I think happiness is a skill we can learn; I see it as a product of mental training, and I believe we are hardwired for it at a deep level. Through learning meditation and mindfulness, we can choose to be happy, no matter what. Without these tools, we may constantly find ourselves victims of what might or might not happen. Of course, there are many people in this world going through extremely harsh times, where even the possibility of happiness seems incredibly remote. Perhaps all someone can do is try to survive, but once they have breathing space, meditation can provide them with powerful protection for when they are next in difficulty. This builds a mental resilience that can enable a person to get through even the most difficult situations.”
I asked myself this question and found my answer to be outstandingly clear. To be an American is to be barraged with advertising, bombarded with bills, and battered by taxes. Everyone feels exhausted and inundated with a never ending to-do list, but end up looking at our phones for hours. We all suffer from phone addiction, which is dopamine rollercoaster and an assault of rage bait, doomsday news cycles, and porn. It all culminates into a feeling of feeling like were all slowly circling down the drain.
About a year ago I decided to actively limit my time on my phone. I started with taking breaks from social media. After a few months of not accessing it at all, I noticed a huge difference. Now I cant go back. Social media is just one source though. You want to watch anything on the internet or on tv, it’s muddled with cheap content and absolutely no substance. I’ve really reached a resentment for this “profit above all” mentality, and I believe it has permeated into almost all corners of our digital lives. The nature of these platforms are a vehicle to easily objectify and dehumanise our fellow humans. Good looks always make money because they grab attention. So we find women as our best marketing tools but at the cost of being minimised as products. Marketing has advanced so much that you literally can’t avoid advertisements.
My phone is a direct link to influences and my accessibility to advertisers and digital profiteers. Now anyone can monetize my attention. My time is essentially sold to Tik-Tok or YouTube and my data is farmed and leached by every domain I enter. The app for my car even accesses my photos for some reason. Terms and conditions are my official consent and I usually choose not to know the full violation of my privacy.
I have so much respect for the foundations America was built upon. Our constitution was created with the best of intentions. Our economy is a mix of capitalism and socialism in a very effective blend. The culture does allow more freedom than most. It is a privilege we have opportunities to make money. I live comfortably so it almost feels ungrateful to point out issues. The internet has everything for us, so is is truly bad? can I truly resent a place that can hold infinite options and information?. I do believe in nuance to ideas. It’s not that we don’t have freedom, but that the need for profits are pushing the boundaries of what makes us thrive as a society. If I want to use my phone then my privacy and my time are now at major risks because they have become commodified but not in a way where I make any material gain. I do resent the limitless lengths that marketing and media will go to.
The marketing of the American dream has made us lose touch and become incredibly shallow. It has us focused on this carrot up ahead – the promise that we can attain happiness through money or status, alternatively we are threatened with living a life of no merit. This American dream feels more like a hamster wheel, and we foot the bill for becoming driven by greed to a dizzying degree. Influencers are a career made by literally by influencing us to buy products. The rich are gifted things, and paid to sell it to us at full price. Are we seen as just a conduit for cash?
Ai Generated
I do feel as if money has muddied the waters, and promises freedom for business and commerce, but directly conflicts with the bedrock of what freedom is. Our capital based system influences us and perpetuates a hierarchal structure. Hierarchies are directly oppositional to freedom. I don’t believe we are capable as humans to not create these social structures but the danger is in the extremes- and if we allow unbridled greed we allow corruption to flourish. Corruption feels widespread across industries and the political sphere. I do believe the opposite of capitalism does not work. I do not aim to make an argument of communism vs capitalism. We obviously have found success in our economies structure and it’s not truly evil- but maybe that humans seem to have patterned behavior of needing to hoard wealth, and to create structures than perpetuate unequal wealth- seen time and time again.
I do believe this video is worth watching. I don’t idolise socialism and demonise capitalism, but rather too much of an extreme can have drawbacks. I found it interesting that he said the 1980’s were the shift into a more capitalistic structure. The workforce turning into consumers.
Noam Chomsky is a controversial person to quote currently. He is known as an acclaimed professor, author, political activist, social critic, philosopher. His opinions on manufactured consent have been very famous. I do not think you need to be a conspiracy theorist to see this as a possibility. Media is a vessel to influence culture and the public, but it is not a clear lens or expression of the world.
Noam Chomsky had some old emails with Epstein released recently. It involved discussions on how to deal with the media after Epstein was convicted of rape. I have attached the article outlining his conversations because I think they clearly highlight his real distaste is for the media, but not for the media influencing and coercing the public. He is happy to influence and push a narrative that he thinks is better.
There’s also a huge factor about health when it comes to being online. All philosophical discussions aside, it is also just incredibly bad for our brains.
Studies over the years are showing data of how truly damaging it is for our attention, memory, processing capacity, and it is not just figuratively addictive. It feels akin to a drug and apparently it truly is.
Our habits shape our lives as well, and habitual phone use is training our minds to crave constant stimulation.
People make it their job to keep us hooked. It is incredibly hard to fight addictive urges and I constantly fight with myself to stay off my phone and not watch tv. ”
I do believe that it is not too difficult for educated people to understand how to bio-hack our prehistoric brains. Our brains and bodies are generally studied enough to know its faulty habits.
The Danger vs Empathy dynamic of the brain.
Your brain is constantly balancing two major survival systems:
Threat & self-protection system
Social bonding & empathy system Community and empathy are evolutionary for survival
Empathy, moral reasoning, and perspective-taking rely heavily on the:
prefrontal cortex
medial prefrontal cortex
anterior cingulate cortex
These areas help you:
Understand others’ feelings
Inhibit aggression
Make compassionate decisions
Under threat the Amygdala activation can over-ride these regions.
Think about how effective it is to create a bias by painting a group of people as violent, depraved, and a danger to you. With strong enough messaging and fear you can have the threat over take any feeling of empathy. This is helpful for a soldier in battle, but that feature can be hacked very easily. You can see the use of this propaganda model before almost any war.
Intent and focus can drive humanity to greatness, wherever the intent is it will flourish. I just wish for days where positive impact outweighs greed.
I do believe that our minds are fallible, our realities are relative, and our time is precious.
I do not make claims to never use the internet as a platform, and I do not condemn American culture. I condemn the bad actors- and the goal based mindsets that are created when forming a company. The ends do not justify the means. I do think I will create boundaries for how I interact within it. We live in an environment where I can use my free will, and choose platforms like this- to express my thoughts and my free speech. I do see the irony of using this platform to speak about the dangers of the internet. But we have reached a point where this is the way to have your voice expressed.
