Truth & Fear: How to Heal the Divide by Rusti Lehay
Psst... We are being watched!
Is this surveillance disrupting or even disposing of our intuition? If the answer is either (or both), can this most powerful of human gifts be retrievable?
Spies and cameras are everywhere. Alexis and Siri sell us things we just mentioned. THEY are listening all the time. It feels like we don't even have to search for something but when you do, you can bet and win you will see Facebook ads pop up the next time you log in matching your recent search or offering related items.
Shop on Amazon for books, anyone? I believe Amazon is stealing our intuition, interrupting the flow of universal wisdom with its clever algorithms. When you buy one book or even just look at one, the A.I. Bots quickly add, “You might be interested in these titles."
In my early 20s, I picked up a book that made no sense to me. Despite that, in my nomadic years, I moved it with me every time. Although I failed to match my sister's transitory life, I came close enough to distinctly remember several times sitting with a box in front of me, choosing which books made the cut. Each time I would look at this one book, assess its value, peer inside, and read a few lines…still struggling to make sense. It felt like I was trying to parse a code language that offered no gateway to understanding. Ordinarily, I would leave a book that didn’t immediately grab me on the shelf, put it back on a garage sale table, and walk away free of remorse. I regularly go to libraries and let books draw me in for no good reason, no predictable patterns. Same with CDs and oh, how I have discovered authors and artists to thrill my senses and imagination.
Yet, every single time I packed up my stash of books, trying, unsuccessfully, to read and resonate with the words, I still couldn't part with this book. It came with me. It wanted me. I wanted it. It waited for me to be ready.
In my mid-40s, two decades of moving, five lovers, and multiple trysts later, it fell off the shelf when I removed another book. I took them both to the couch with my cup of tea and a deep desire for stillness and tranquility. In that magic space, I learned I had been too much of a bisy bakson to glean its message in previous years. It was only when I slowed down to a stall, shunning my natural ways, molding myself to ease the comfort of the palindrome (my lover at the time), that I could see myself in the pages of Benjamin Hoff's little book, The Tao of Pooh, with cute images at the beginning of each chapter. I had previously been a bisy bakson. I would become one again after leaving the palindrome to reclaim my inner extrovert, just with more passion, more selective of where I put my energy, and finding my life purpose with a lot more balance.
In Hoff’s book, Christopher Robin posted the following sign all too often:
GON OUT
BACKSON
BISY
BACKSON
The palindrome loved criticizing 'Bisy Bakson' people.
Hoff’s book The Tao of Pooh uses Tigger, Piglet, Christopher, Winnie, and Eeyore to illustrate the principles of Taoism. I finally began to grasp and understand the text. Now while I'm waiting for The Chi of Piglet to want me enough to fall off my shelf, I wonder how will we ever trust we are finding our own way in this rapidly hypnotized world? Does it make any sense to you? How can we honestly say we are making our own decisions? Think about how we burn more calories sleeping than watching TV, making it the perfect method for hypnotizing the masses.
Guilt trips, propaganda, and the silencing of alternate views exist regardless of which side of the fence you fall (or choose). Being one who fasts from news, I confess to wondering if the mainstream media is programming us to hate the people who are not complying with the status quo.
Does it make any sense to you that brothers stop speaking? One brother trusts his sources of information and the other his. Their opinions are so diametrically opposed, they won't listen to each other. My handyman tells me his story, too, of broken connections. My own eldest sister did not want her son in her house due to his different views. Thankfully, she has softened. Young children fall between the cracks on each side of the freedom line. As if children need one more instability and inconsistency from the people who are to love, protect, and guide them.
Both sides seem to be choosing freedom and security based on the findings they trust. Both sides feel strongly connected to how they arrived at their decision. While we all wait and hope for the pendulum to stop swinging wildly from one side to the other and find the middle capital T truth, do we stop to consider that the difference between a pendulum and a wrecking ball is minuscule?
Fear is an incredible, albeit negative motivator. Fear motivates people on both sides of any coin. I have learned never to underestimate how fear is a mighty powerful means of control.
In the midst of all this controversy, do we invite our loved ones to open dialogue? If family members are silencing and rejecting other family members, where is the chance to speak openly for either side and for both sets of ears (and hearts?) to be open and listen? What happened to the ‘agree to disagree’ philosophy that can nudge us back to love? Where else in history did a leader choose the way for a country and take measures that allowed only one way to be promoted and spoken about and spread in the media? To me, that provides significant grounds to pause and reflect.
Think about the past two-plus years and the meaning of Remembrance Day. What do we remember? Are there too few or too many who forget the methods employed in the second World War?
Hate crimes escalate, with fear and doubt existing on both sides.
Are we lost? Are we hypnotized? Are we cut off from our intuition? Is our intuition retrievable? If we have allowed recent events to split families, experts, communities, and nations, what do we need to do to mend and return to love?
I suggest we need truth-tellers, open conversations, and a willingness to listen!
If you want to delve into writing your truth in a way that invites open dialogue, let's chat. Everyone's opinions count. Yours are as important to you as mine are as important to me.
~Rusti L Lehay
Reference link in the body of the story above
Click here for The Tao of Pooh
Click here for a book you might like to read. More Than Meets the Eye, Watching Television Watching Us by John J Pungente
Learn more about Rusti:
Rusti L Lehay, a global editor and book and writing coach, created over 40 reference articles guiding writers to authordom. Witnessing writers find and speak in their own voice to serve the real boss, the audience, not the editor, is one of Rusti’s greatest joys. She offers bi-monthly online writing STAY-Treats and monthly lounges and teaches weekly creative writing classes. Her primary mission is to inspire, provide value and make writing fun and easy.
https://msha.ke/rustilehay.info
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, can this most powerful of human gifts be retrievable?
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