Back in May I conducted a 30-day news fast and wrote about it twice here in the DEEPER side of things, Today Is Day-One of a 30-Day News Fast and Consuming News Creates an Emotional Feedback Loop. I also posted regularly on social media about what revelations I garnered throughout the process. I’ve been meaning to write a follow up for some time, and so here it is.
In a recent discussion with a family member it was suggested that one cannot completely disengage from news without completely disengaging from technology. True enough, but I would say the protocol I used was fairly thorough, thorough enough to notice something changing in my day-to-day brainwave patterns.
Each morning I immediately deleted emails from writers who cover the news, I stopped visiting news sites, and when visiting my social media feeds I scrolled a little quicker than usual so I could zip on by things that seemed to have a news focus. But of course, I still caught some glimmers of things. May was the month of the Ulvade tragedy, so it was hard not to sense that something was up.
Maria was very supportive. She didn’t mention anything news related and gently guided conversations with others away from the news so I wouldn’t hear it. For the most part I was in the dark for 30 days.
Having just re-read Consuming News Creates an Emotional Feedback Loop, that I published ten days into the news fast, I realize that there were many important understandings in the post that still held true at 20 days and 30 days, and even today. Mainstream, and lots of not so mainstream news, is designed to play with our emotions because every writer and publication seeks readers and emotional manipulation is a highly effective way of gaining attention. I worked at a big-city newspaper for 11 years and I never saw scary looking men in black suits looking over the shoulders of writers, but I’m convinced there was and is a form of control that is more subtle and complex than any kind of direct influence such as the men-in-black types.
I’ve also written about the Illusory Truth Effect and Cognitive Dissonance, two concepts that explain how easily we can be deceived by false information. Then I had a little fun writing about the Birds Aren’t Real Movement, and I’ve read a little about Truth Bias, another well researched phenomenon that illustrates how we have a tendency to want to believe people more so than to apply skeptical analysis, or even to merely trust our gut.
In fact, as I scroll through the DEEPER side of things archive I recognize a trend in my writing, one that I hadn’t fully perceived until just now. It’s a not-so-subtle message that I’ve striven to reveal through a point-by-point analysis of human nature, the reasons for our suffering, and how to transcend it. And so, in this moment I realize that my entire message can be boiled down to this,
We are incredibly gullible and vulnerable to manipulation and control. Being controlled leads to our collective suffering. Our gullibility is somehow baked into our DNA and knowing this makes it seem like we’re completely fucked. But actually not, because we have a superpower and it’s called consciousness. Elevating our consciousness is a courageous journey, which is why only a rare few endeavor to such a life. But for those who do, it has a profound effect on their lives, the lives of those around them, and even the whole of humanity. So let’s do the deeper work of elevating our consciousness.
I know . . . that was a lot in one paragraph. But that’s literally it. All of it. So, I can stop writing now because I’ve said everything I need to say. There is nothing more.
And what the bleep does this have to do with news?
News is a giant clue staring us right in the face. All we have to do is go inward and seek to understand how it makes us feel. Do we feel comfort, intellectual stimulation, curiosity? Or do we feel fear, anger, and judgement? Do we feel empathy for those we read about, or do we want them to burn in hell? What does news evoke within us?
Understanding how it makes us feel is a first clue to the truthfulness and healthfulness of the news we consume.
Intelligence is just intelligence. There are plenty of highly intelligent and learned individuals who get sucked into the giant lies perpetrated upon humanity all the time. We can’t become more educated and expect that we’ll remove the veil of deception. It doesn’t work that way. It’s always about consciousness. The more elevated our consciousness the less vulnerable we are to manipulation. It’s just that. Always that. There is nothing more to say.
Except maybe . . . perhaps . . . the need for little reminders along the way. So as we tend to gradually fall back asleep and unaware of how news affects us we can be reminded again and again. Just as the great spiritual teachers throughout the ages keep sharing essentially the same messages in different words over and over again ... so we can be reminded, prodded, and gently invited into a more wakeful state.
I need reminders all the time. That is the essence of spiritual learning. The DEEPER side of things is our little reminder to you, and to ourselves. Keep reading us and others. Continue to notice how news makes you feel. And keep taking small steps to elevate your consciousness. You’ll be glad you did.
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