What are we buying?

No matter your perception of the world and who’s telling you what, always recall that you are a free and sovereign being forever on a journey much greater than this world.

"The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water and breeds reptiles of the mind." -William Blake

One can always know a people by their culture, their diet, their behavior, and their interests--all the things they consume in one way or another. Just as cultures of the past had their obsessions and concerns, our current Anthropocene era continues to leave a bit more than a breadcrumb trail. But if we're to be awakened, conscious beings, we must find patterns and processes as a part of our interaction with everyday reality and must be honest with ourselves about these implications. This begins when we pay attention enough to ask plenty of whys.

Next time you go to a landfill or even witness one from a plane or a highway, take a glance at its contents. There are mountains of things that once defined a culture and mounds of stuff that once held human importance. After all, this is how anthropologists perform as does anyone who studies the past: They collect the sh#t, both literal and very figurative, from a past time and study what was consumed as a culture with the purpose of defining it and the values it once held important.

Just as our Western diets that are full of additives and modifications (that are there for one reason or another) give way to dysfunction, disease, and imbalance where our bodies themselves provide the evidence, so do the results of what we consume as a society and culture resulting in an imbalance in perception. It’s time we realize that disease and dysfunction are just as much societal as they are physical.

There is much more to be said about what we consume materialistically, "spiritually," and existentially, but as conscious creatures with some form of a perceived soul, it's imperative we look at what we are consuming mentally and emotionally. But why? Well, it’s one key that unlocks the solution to all other imbalances found throughout our global constructs. I'm talking about an awareness of the anger and fear and divisive discourse that seems to permeate from every corner we turn to these days. It's obvious that our world stands at a precipice, and each one of us decides where it goes. That's the scary uncertainty and the exciting possibility at the same time.

In the event of a crisis, are we capable of understanding what is really important to us, not just on a materialistic or personal level but on a soulful level? And what exactly drives us to buy the fear, the apathetically accepted violence as a result of what we coin as righteous anger, and the "US vs. them" paradigm that still seems to rule the current day? Is it something that we identify with? Is it something we have been taught? Are we reacting emotionally and therefore as a result of personal bias? I think the greatest question for each of us to answer for ourselves is Why? Why do I feel this way? And what is driving me to FEEL this way? What am I emotionally, intellectually, and even spiritually buying and consuming that is affecting me this way? What am I putting into my heart-mind each day? Plus, are we considering the source from where it came? We humans are emotional creatures, but we are also conscious ones, too, endowed with an invincible spirit that empowers a conscious mind, one that connects to all else in existence. If we kept this at the forefront of our heart-minds daily, we would succumb to much less fear and anxiety about the uncertainty that encompasses us in our world today.

Yet, when things happen and challenges push us off the diving board and into the scary deep end, including those happenstances that threaten our "normal" way of life, instead of asking these "why" questions, we become blinded by our emotional reactions motivated by some form of bias, and in the act of seeing red, we lose sight of our own collective humanity. We go into self-preservation mode, which honestly is a part of being human, only without the awareness of it. It’s like the proverbial bag of potato chips that we consume entirely in one sitting. We buy every emotional idea being sold to us when we are being led blindly by our emotions and beliefs themselves. Yet why do we do this? We buy (with our consciousness) and consume (with our minds and lives) the fear and discord that is served to us daily--because like the chips, we can't help ourselves when we are unconscious to the processes of our minds, and our biases blind us through our unconsciousness, egoic justifications that we've developed through an egoic culture centered on the ego’s need to always be right (both individually and collectively). But what happens if we don't buy it and refuse to consume it? Change is certainly in store, and that includes us finding ourselves, and, in the process, like an archeologist of the soul, we uncover more of the truth of who and what we are, as well. We discover the wool over our eyes that blinds our hearts from this truth (that anger, fear, and division turn us away from the unifying truth itself).

"Opinions founded on prejudice are always sustained with the greatest violence." Hebrew Proverb

In the end, the anger, the fear, and the division that we buy daily from our social markets be they from TV/radio, school, church, or social media platforms, may not be controllable, but our reaction and interaction to and with them is, especially how much attention we give to it. Only you can answer these questions for yourself. It's time to KNOW your SELF. It's time to realize that there are 8 billion others who are a part of you, too, including an ecosystem that both gives out and takes away. Harmony is the name of this game, and if we're buying any form of anger, fear, or division rooted in national, religious, or tribal systems of thought that harbor at its core the "Us vs. Them" paradigm, then chances are we are not contributing to the health, healing, or harmony of this world's heart and soul. After all, an organism waging war upon itself doesn't usually survive. This rings true with body, mind, community, and global ecosystem alike.

So, what's the point here? Don't buy with intellect and soul the things that destroy and divide (that would be the anger and fear we've been talking about). Think for your Self. Understand how your emotions work. Most importantly, be able to answer your why questions for your Self. You'll be amazed at how much better life gets (really, for all of us). The worst thing that you could do right now is buy what they’re selling you on nearly every channel you can turn to. “It is what it is” only because we continue to say it is so. Everything is doomed and destined prophetically only because we choose it to be. The choice of what we consume and nourish ourselves with is up to us.

“You hold the key to love and fear

All in your trembling hand

Just one key unlocks them both

It's there at your command.”

from “Get Together,” by The Youngbloods