I've been noticing the effects of this "colonization of the mind/spirit" more and more, both in myself and others. What to do?
Active Resistence is futile, even counterproductive. The System is optimized for appropriation. Failing that, it will destroy you, quite literally.
Denial. Addiction/avoidance. Scapegoating/projection. These are all options many, understandably, pursue. Whether consciously or not.
I don't know the answer, but I do know that Awareness is a good start. Awareness coupled with self-love (don't laugh!) and gentleness. And slowing down a little bit.
We can exhaust ourselves trying to keep up with an impossibly fast System (which demands ever-increasing Productivity). Or, we can do what may be the biggest taboo of all: Do less. Make less. Slow down. Think more. BE more.
Astute and comprehensive post Daniel! Things we all need to understand!
However, what is Tamera but yet another intentional community or commune like 'The Farm' that emerged from 60s San Francisco and migrated to Tennessee. They found themselves challenged by the exact same problems. The trailer reveals that these people at Tamera faced the same difficulties when joining with "people we love". How much difference can their success make if we cannot connect with those we don't love? It seems all such efforts descend just as the 60s 'Summer of Love' did - a heartfelt well meaning counterculture that ultimately dissolved and overtly imploded at Altamont. I see no ground being broken here - in concept or practice. The total solution we need asap must be all-inclusive.
"Our predicament is unprecedented. Any successful solution that matches our plight in magnitude must surely lie beyond what is currently tangible."
I must state here that I admire, applaud, and fully support everything Tamera and similar communities are doing (I lived in a commune once). Parallel communities is a viable alternative to what is being imposed on us. I am on board with all those who suggest that community at the local level is the foundational start point of our recovery.
As conspicuously evident in the 'Village of Lovers' trailer, the root problem is always, always, always the same issue: "I, me, mine; I, me, mine; I, me, mine - all through the day, all through the night."! Outside of committed individuals and burgeoning pockets around the world of the aware and awakened (like Tamera), humanity at large is incapable of CHOOSING to resolve this - especially with psychopaths gripping the levers of power, whose unrelenting efforts to break us all down lie at the root of your post here (re 5GW - 5th Generation Warfare).
From this chair, it's clear that resolution must be BROUGHT to us in some fashion - a concept that currently challenges what most of us can imagine - I think you've seen this before:
"The egocentricity experiment with human Design has run its course – its climax is our confluence of crises. Virtually all system solutions and ascension paths proposed by even the most enlightened among us fail to breach egocentricity’s stronghold. The forecast for our imminent extinction is well founded and arguably certain unless we BECOME something new. Metamorphosis is appropriate terminology here. At this Moment in history, ages of humanity can be metaphorically distilled into a litter of newborn kittens, blind from birth, whose eyes are now poised to open onto their world for the very first time….are we ready? This is our evolution.
Relieving humanity of egocentricity’s bondage by consensus is impossible. Political proposals are hopelessly impotent. It is now imperative that we develop metamorphic catalysts immediately – means and methods to efficiently transmute egocentricity and profoundly evoke our innate senses of interdependence and compassion."
Until we all FULLY discover the heart that lies within each of us, and the perpetually empirical loving connection to one another to be found there, wherein we universally recognize and acknowledge our humanity in common as fundamental to our way of life - how can anything possibly change enough to arrest the descent playing out in front of all of us?!!
I always appreciate your good work and the always inquiring mind behind it, Daniel - keep it coming!!
I would love to see the film you mentioned. Some friends and I formed a private education association several years ago and it worked for a few until money became the core issue that severed the group. My hopes were so high and my heart a bit broken, it may assuage the wound to see someone doing it right. We need material threads of hope out here.
I find it high time to be very discerning as to how we define what a human is and think extensively on what the purpose of human life might be. The materialist view of think of humans as no more than soft machines will not stand up to the onslaught of the machine as it seeks to devour all souls. I speculate that the religious definitions are more liable to hold up and assist us in this resistance to the technological colonization of the mind. It is taught that 3 gifts unique to humans are: a Nous(heart/mind), a conscience, and individual sovereignty(free will). Here is a great video teaching what the Orthodox Christian view on the purpose of human life is, Theosis. Warning: strong religious language used throughout----https://youtu.be/E2x2WTWjcEA?si=2FBIBSOPDXHTtwIQ
Hi Jaysun, based on your comment, you might enjoy the Abbey of Misrule, Paul Kingsnorth’s Substack. He is now an Orthodox Christian, and has written extensively on the Technium (which he calls The Machine). For the record, I am new to Daniel Pinchbeck’s Substack and really impressed with his writing. He and Paul are doing important work - one from rural Ireland, and the other from the urban core. A nice balance.
“The grand plan on which the unconscious life of the psyche is constructed is so inaccessible to our understanding that we can never know what evil may not be necessary in order to produce good by enantiodromia, and what good may very possibly lead to evil. ” said Carl Jung
Maybe the same is true for our collective psyche.
“A man's at odds to know his mind cause his mind is aught he has to know it with. He can know his heart, but he dont want to. Rightly so. Best not to look in there. It aint the heart of a creature that is bound in the way that God has set for it. You can find meanness in the least of creatures, but when God made man the devil was at his elbow. A creature that can do anything. Make a machine. And a machine to make the machine. And evil that can run itself a thousand years, no need to tend it.”
Cormac McCarthy
I’m not advocating for depravity but it sure seems to come around once in a while.
It’s a wild world out there I’m going to take Tristan’s advice and let my mind rest from trying to ‘solve for planet’. It’s not a good story if you know how it’s going to turn out…
Either way - I think any new endeavor that seeks to order society with the naive hope of people putting the balance of their actions and thoughts on the virtuous side of the table … while not acknowledging and making preparations to deal the force and power of the shadow side, will have to face another reckoning.
Maybe that shadow can be prohibited, transformed or transcended.. but it’s not going to be ignored.
I feel there’s something of truth here, in there is a colonisation of our consciousness and yet, I feel the beginning of the essay portrays an inherent contradiction, in that, neuroplasticity can indeed lead to decline in some areas of the brain and yet, this is rarely, if ever permanent. Perhaps the spatial / mapping part is diminished in one sense or area and yet enhanced in others, for instance?
Increasingly though, I find the drive towards uncovering the mythos of our current times to be useful in combatting these encroachments on our very essences. I find it helps to know what you’re fighting and allowing ourselves to give up to mystery, intuition and all that which is truly new and unknown.
Just my thoughts Daniel. As I know you know, I always enjoy your posts, regardless of if I agree with them or not.
I've been noticing the effects of this "colonization of the mind/spirit" more and more, both in myself and others. What to do?
Active Resistence is futile, even counterproductive. The System is optimized for appropriation. Failing that, it will destroy you, quite literally.
Denial. Addiction/avoidance. Scapegoating/projection. These are all options many, understandably, pursue. Whether consciously or not.
I don't know the answer, but I do know that Awareness is a good start. Awareness coupled with self-love (don't laugh!) and gentleness. And slowing down a little bit.
We can exhaust ourselves trying to keep up with an impossibly fast System (which demands ever-increasing Productivity). Or, we can do what may be the biggest taboo of all: Do less. Make less. Slow down. Think more. BE more.
Astute and comprehensive post Daniel! Things we all need to understand!
However, what is Tamera but yet another intentional community or commune like 'The Farm' that emerged from 60s San Francisco and migrated to Tennessee. They found themselves challenged by the exact same problems. The trailer reveals that these people at Tamera faced the same difficulties when joining with "people we love". How much difference can their success make if we cannot connect with those we don't love? It seems all such efforts descend just as the 60s 'Summer of Love' did - a heartfelt well meaning counterculture that ultimately dissolved and overtly imploded at Altamont. I see no ground being broken here - in concept or practice. The total solution we need asap must be all-inclusive.
"Our predicament is unprecedented. Any successful solution that matches our plight in magnitude must surely lie beyond what is currently tangible."
I must state here that I admire, applaud, and fully support everything Tamera and similar communities are doing (I lived in a commune once). Parallel communities is a viable alternative to what is being imposed on us. I am on board with all those who suggest that community at the local level is the foundational start point of our recovery.
As conspicuously evident in the 'Village of Lovers' trailer, the root problem is always, always, always the same issue: "I, me, mine; I, me, mine; I, me, mine - all through the day, all through the night."! Outside of committed individuals and burgeoning pockets around the world of the aware and awakened (like Tamera), humanity at large is incapable of CHOOSING to resolve this - especially with psychopaths gripping the levers of power, whose unrelenting efforts to break us all down lie at the root of your post here (re 5GW - 5th Generation Warfare).
From this chair, it's clear that resolution must be BROUGHT to us in some fashion - a concept that currently challenges what most of us can imagine - I think you've seen this before:
"The egocentricity experiment with human Design has run its course – its climax is our confluence of crises. Virtually all system solutions and ascension paths proposed by even the most enlightened among us fail to breach egocentricity’s stronghold. The forecast for our imminent extinction is well founded and arguably certain unless we BECOME something new. Metamorphosis is appropriate terminology here. At this Moment in history, ages of humanity can be metaphorically distilled into a litter of newborn kittens, blind from birth, whose eyes are now poised to open onto their world for the very first time….are we ready? This is our evolution.
Relieving humanity of egocentricity’s bondage by consensus is impossible. Political proposals are hopelessly impotent. It is now imperative that we develop metamorphic catalysts immediately – means and methods to efficiently transmute egocentricity and profoundly evoke our innate senses of interdependence and compassion."
Until we all FULLY discover the heart that lies within each of us, and the perpetually empirical loving connection to one another to be found there, wherein we universally recognize and acknowledge our humanity in common as fundamental to our way of life - how can anything possibly change enough to arrest the descent playing out in front of all of us?!!
I always appreciate your good work and the always inquiring mind behind it, Daniel - keep it coming!!
(quotes: https://bohobeau.net/2016/07/24/care-to-evolve/)
I would love to see the film you mentioned. Some friends and I formed a private education association several years ago and it worked for a few until money became the core issue that severed the group. My hopes were so high and my heart a bit broken, it may assuage the wound to see someone doing it right. We need material threads of hope out here.
I find it high time to be very discerning as to how we define what a human is and think extensively on what the purpose of human life might be. The materialist view of think of humans as no more than soft machines will not stand up to the onslaught of the machine as it seeks to devour all souls. I speculate that the religious definitions are more liable to hold up and assist us in this resistance to the technological colonization of the mind. It is taught that 3 gifts unique to humans are: a Nous(heart/mind), a conscience, and individual sovereignty(free will). Here is a great video teaching what the Orthodox Christian view on the purpose of human life is, Theosis. Warning: strong religious language used throughout----https://youtu.be/E2x2WTWjcEA?si=2FBIBSOPDXHTtwIQ
Hi Jaysun, based on your comment, you might enjoy the Abbey of Misrule, Paul Kingsnorth’s Substack. He is now an Orthodox Christian, and has written extensively on the Technium (which he calls The Machine). For the record, I am new to Daniel Pinchbeck’s Substack and really impressed with his writing. He and Paul are doing important work - one from rural Ireland, and the other from the urban core. A nice balance.
“The grand plan on which the unconscious life of the psyche is constructed is so inaccessible to our understanding that we can never know what evil may not be necessary in order to produce good by enantiodromia, and what good may very possibly lead to evil. ” said Carl Jung
Maybe the same is true for our collective psyche.
“A man's at odds to know his mind cause his mind is aught he has to know it with. He can know his heart, but he dont want to. Rightly so. Best not to look in there. It aint the heart of a creature that is bound in the way that God has set for it. You can find meanness in the least of creatures, but when God made man the devil was at his elbow. A creature that can do anything. Make a machine. And a machine to make the machine. And evil that can run itself a thousand years, no need to tend it.”
Cormac McCarthy
I’m not advocating for depravity but it sure seems to come around once in a while.
It’s a wild world out there I’m going to take Tristan’s advice and let my mind rest from trying to ‘solve for planet’. It’s not a good story if you know how it’s going to turn out…
Either way - I think any new endeavor that seeks to order society with the naive hope of people putting the balance of their actions and thoughts on the virtuous side of the table … while not acknowledging and making preparations to deal the force and power of the shadow side, will have to face another reckoning.
Maybe that shadow can be prohibited, transformed or transcended.. but it’s not going to be ignored.
I feel there’s something of truth here, in there is a colonisation of our consciousness and yet, I feel the beginning of the essay portrays an inherent contradiction, in that, neuroplasticity can indeed lead to decline in some areas of the brain and yet, this is rarely, if ever permanent. Perhaps the spatial / mapping part is diminished in one sense or area and yet enhanced in others, for instance?
Increasingly though, I find the drive towards uncovering the mythos of our current times to be useful in combatting these encroachments on our very essences. I find it helps to know what you’re fighting and allowing ourselves to give up to mystery, intuition and all that which is truly new and unknown.
Just my thoughts Daniel. As I know you know, I always enjoy your posts, regardless of if I agree with them or not.