11 11, #23, The Porus Mind, Magic, Beliefs in Unreality

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.

On Slamming Hillary: Letter to a Close Friend

I can understand your confusion in wondering why I would support Hillary.

But first of all, I supported Bernie and still do. But he's no longer in the running. She's up next, that's just how it works. Even Bernie's now supporting her. Does that make him bad? No. It's just the system. The system he was working to change, at least somewhat.

What I don't understand is your (anyone's) vitriol against her. Be against her, I get that. To take it so personally though. That is what I don't quite understand.

See...here's just a few things to consider about all this:

The only thing I can find that explains someone feeling about Hillary as they do when they literally come off a hating her, is being submerged in the conservative environment or at least their propaganda that goes beyond what she has earned either for or against her.

How is that? Because, that's where we see that, where it's born, where it has originated.

You say you have found your own data against her?
Where'd you find it? InfoWars is for the most part, garbage and nonsense. How'd you even get there?

Where are all the good things she has actually done and yes, those do exist.
You don't know about them? Why is that? WHY?
Is that the filter showing only the bad?

Her actions have killed people?
Whose hasn't in government at that level? They all have that burden.

Maybe not Jimmy Carter. Maybe.

I fully agree, we have to stop killing, stop drones, etc, so on and so forth, I"m on board there. We have made our killing fields and now we're lying in them so we have to kill for now. That's just a matter of fact in our being attacked. I don't think we need to create more than necessary as we are however.

Trump will do better? Bush did better? Or his dad?

What republican has done better? Reagan? History showed us what he did.

We have two parties in this system. We have to pick one or the other wins. It needs to be changed? Okay. Railing against it doesn't fix it when it breaks it more in railing against the wrong person at the wrong time.

Conservatives have spent literally millions upon millions of dollars over the years against her and her husband going all the way back into the 90s and pretty much originating with Newt Gingrich who we can trace all this Republican obstructionism to all these years since, and who has poisoned the well in American politics so to speak.

But some of what they claim is true you say?

Okay, but much of what they say isn't also, and much of their generalized claims is also true about others and yet, I'm not seeing the same vitriol against them. It's just her. Why is that one has to ask? I get being against her. But the visceral response against her comes from something other than merely her actions in her job and much of what is perceived to be her actions, were just her doing her job to begin with.

And yet, we do not see this reaction against others who have done the same things, even on the right, even by republicans. They have deftly turned a righteous hatred against George Bush and Dick Cheney into hatred against Obama and Hillary. Just think about that for a moment. Bush is far more deserving of hatred for his actions but do the conservatives feel that for him? No. Just Hillary. Odd, don't you think? She wasn't even president. They burden actually lays upon Obama anyway. So why Hillary?

Conservatives don't even feel about Obama (anymore, if ever) like they do her.
It's just...odd.
Well to be fair, it was against Obama first.

But now the black guy ain't running and the woman is.
You do have to consider that. Racism and sexism.

Elizabeth Warren wouldn't be treated this way by the right you say?
Only because they have not had the time to build and grow a grassroots hatred toward her.

But give it time, they would, they will, when they can, if they feel they need to.

Are you feeling like we're cats being herded into an election? We lost Bernie, as I said we would, though I supported him and hope his input will change things (it has already), and Trump (one time friend of the Clintons), is he just a shill to get people to vote for Hillary (not to mention all the bigots and ugliness his running has shown us all across America (not to mention the ignorance and stupidity).

That's our system. Possibly how it really is. Most possibly how it just appears to be. Which is so endemic of life today, what appears to be, people try to turn into fact, when it's not. Things just happen. So typically when it really is a conspiracy, no one notices, the desired effect of a conspiracy. On the other hand, time seems to show all conspiracies.

So. Why do we even bother? Well, because....

Look. In the end, it's just politics. Seriously. It's kind of detached from our actual reality. It's just fun to make it real and it can have real live consequences, sure.

But people first.

It's really not life and death, not for the voter. Though it can be. But typically casting the wrong vote, doesn't kill you. That's the thing about voting and democracy.

A single vote really doesn't kill people, it's everyone voting the same. Kind of like a firing squad where one guy gets a blank and no one knows who it is so you have that buffer to reality, "Maybe I wasn't the one to kill him."

But if you have a friend or a family member who is on the other side of reason in your understanding, even if it's the crazy side they're on, it's still just politics.

Consider that shutting people off is bad. So don't do that. Let them do that, to you. But don't you be a part to the closing off of possibly their only access to rational thinking, possibly to a sane way of viewing the world.

Sure, you can block them on FB if they are obnoxious.

Just don't block them in life. If you get along with them just fine, historically speaking, aside from politics, do not let politics then kill that in the both of you.

Not from your end anyway.

Keeping open the path to discussion is all important, it's imperative. Especially in politics. We need to keep the path to discourse open.

Otherwise, you're an irrational conservative and\or Republican.

Or a liberal nutcase.

Don't be either.

Be, an adult.

Be, an American citizen.

Be, a Citizen.

Winston S. Churchill (House of Commons 11 November 1947) — "Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…"

About that....

In, Churchill by Himself, what else Churchill did say about democracy?

"If I had to sum up the immediate future of democratic politics in a single word I should say “insurance.” That is the future—insurance against dangers from abroad, insurance against dangers scarcely less grave and much more near and constant which threaten us here at home in our own island.: —Free Trade Hall, Manchester, 23 May 1909

"At the bottom of all the tributes paid to democracy is the little man, walking into the little booth, with a little pencil, making a little cross on a little bit of paper—no amount of rhetoric or voluminous discussion can possibly diminish the overwhelming importance of that point." —House of Commons, 31 October 1944

"How is that word “democracy” to be interpreted? My idea of it is that the plain, humble, common man, just the ordinary man who keeps a wife and family, who goes off to fight for his country when it is in trouble, goes to the poll at the appropriate time, and puts his cross on the ballot paper showing the candidate he wishes to be elected to Parliament—that he is the foundation of democracy. And it is also essential to this foundation that this man or woman should do this without fear, and without any form of intimidation or victimization. He marks his ballot paper in strict secrecy, and then elected representatives and together decide what government, or even in times of stress, what form of government they wish to have in their country. If that is democracy, I salute it. I espouse it. I would work for it.” —House of Commons, 8 December 1944

Let's end with this:

How American Politics Went Insane
A pretty decent insightful exploration of American politics by Jonathan Raunch from The Atlantic magazine.