One of the truly awesome marvels in life is that things out of the ordinary do happen. Way more than you think. Especially if your life is or appears to you, dark and ominous. Just open your eyes, marvels are everywhere. They happen all the time. To think they don't is to be delusional. Not the other way around.
And that, is a problem.
Patterns, occurrences, events, the porous mind, examples of the underlying formula in the universe that appear different from what you normally see day in and day out. Strange things happen all the time. Good and bad. Recognize them. Enjoy them as you can. Just do not run off like they have some vastly intense and significant meaning to you personally. They probably don't much of the time.
Don't just go off thinking there is some conspiracy, when all there is has to do with regular and random occurrences. In a vast network of processes and systems such as our life and the universe are, the fact that many of these things happen simply appear in a way, unique. When they actually happen less than one should expect.
It can be counter intuitive.
What may seem to happen all the time... to you, actually happens all the time everywhere, unseen. Yet, once you notice it it may seem to happen (even if only to you) all the time. When really, it does not. No I'm not crazy, the universe merely appears to be if you do not understand what is going on.
Once you notice them, they are everywhere. Like my last car I bought. Never noticed those before. Now I see they are everywhere. They are everywhere, and yet in reality, they aren't that big of a group compared to the whole of all cars, or all vehicles, or all moving (even air and water and space) vehicles.
Numerology, phrenology, the occult, all fun stuff. Just, keep it in perspective. For your own good. But to be honest, mostly for ours.
"Robert Anton Wilson cites William S. Burroughs as the first person to believe in the "23 enigma."[1] Wilson, in an article in Fortean Times, related the following anecdote:
"I first heard of the 23 enigma from William S Burroughs, author of Naked Lunch, Nova Express, etc. According to Burroughs, he had known a certain Captain Clark, around 1960 in Tangier, who once bragged that he had been sailing 23 years without an accident. That very day, Clark’s ship had an accident that killed him and everybody else aboard. Furthermore, while Burroughs was thinking about this crude example of the irony of the gods that evening, a bulletin on the radio announced the crash of an airliner in Florida, USA. The pilot was another Captain Clark and the flight was Flight 23."[2]
- Wikipedia
On the other hand, several millennia ago, had you pulled out your Bic type lighter and flicked it at another person, aside from the possibility you could be killed on the spot. You'd be thought to have some kind of magical, or god like power. You'd be seen as a witch, a subject of Satan, or a demon.
When we all know it's just a conglomeration of plastic, flint, steel and gas put together in such a way to allow the spark of a flame to sustain itself.
To think there aren't such other things on that order in our current environment is simply not rational or reasonable. Though I would argue, science has made us very aware of these types of things and we may now have the ability, at very least, not to be so easily fooled or amazed.
Special effects in films, computer graphics, magicians and stage shows have added to that awareness. As well as conmen (criminal CONfidence abusers) through dissemination of police and media awareness efforts, the complaints of friends and perhaps but hopefully not, personal experience.
And therein, as with any good conspiracy theory, lay the rub. The ability to divine, to differentiate between fact and fiction, becomes for many, easily blurred. Some therefore may find themselves trapped in a belief they should never have entertained. And yet, there they are. Stuck, entranced, captured. And that opens them up for further abuse and misuse.
Conmen depend on that element of human nature. They depends on people's decency, or greed, or even our pattern recognition skills. Conspiracy theorists depend on this, too. Some may well be heartfelt and inadvertent in their actions, not even realizing themselves what they are doing. To themselves, to others, to their country at large when they have a platform to speak from.
Too many however, especially nowadays have discovered, as it has become obvious, that one can live an extravagant life if only one can dispense with ethics and morality. Something which too many today have done and they are prevalent on TV, radio, in print and online. Even our White House.
We see it from sites like InfoWars, from Rush Limbaugh, from other alternate fact (lies) people. It broaches over into more mainstream media like the problematic and too often disingenuous, Fox News. On a lower plane there is Breitbart and the Drudge Report (someone asked if it wasn't really the grudge report, but I digress).
Arguing over the clarity or alacrity, the veracity or truth of these sorry elements is not the point.
People abuse us merely because of how we work and react as human beings. We have been hacked and it is up to us, not just the government, police, or others, but us to educate ourselves and remain vigilant. For our own protection and for the protection of all others. Especially those who can so easily fall prey to these kinds of people and dynamics. Easily preyed upon and abused. And that can affect us all.
Still, aside from the negative aspects of humanity and the dynamics of hustling, it is still easy to find oneself immersed in strange, unuseful, unproductive, or even damaging beliefs. Partly because we observe, we notice things, and they stick with us.
Our naturally obsessive compulsive and pattern recognitive nature takes over and our pattern recognition skills kick in filling in what isn't there. Our imagination goes into overdrive. Our cognitive dissonance and so many other phrases and dynamics, syndromes and conditions can and many times do engage. We need to be aware, to stay abreast of these things, to watch out for others.
Because for some things like these, we all really do need one another's help. Together, we can get to a better and more stable life. First, we have to stop seeing one another as the enemy. For we have met him, and he's not always us.
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