Awakening to Alienation

It seems like these days the more you conform, the more accepted into our culture you become. In an age where people are supposed to be more open minded and intelligent I get a horrible feeling that we are actually de-evolving and becoming more self involved. My wife and I were discussing this the other day and we both agreed that thinking back to our childhood, people seemed to be friendlier and more ready to help each other when it was needed, there was a stronger sense of community. What happened to us?

I have had a few experiences lately that have made this quite obvious to me, where by not conforming to cultural "standards" I seemed to be alienated, by not following the masses and walking your own path you are looked at differently. I have always liked the saying "Be the change that you want to see in the world" - make a stand for your ideas, don't just talk about how "life would be better if...." or "I wish I could...." just do it.

People seem to constantly put obstacles between themselves and achieving their dreams, or they find that stepping outside of their own reality tunnel (or everyday life) is just too hard an option to pursue. There is a sort of cultural and societal meme handed down from our parents that we absorb and use to shape our own reality. Rather than approaching the world with a free and open mind, experiencing both sides of the story, it is far easier to rest on the way we have always known things to be, never question why things are the way they are, why we think the way we think, why we have faith, why we believe certain things. People settle into this neophobic state and anything outside it becomes unacceptable for consideration.

The following story illustrates how doing something very simple, but slightly outside the "standard" boundaries can create a sense of alienation.

At a social lunch the other day I ordered a vegetarian dish and instantly received strange looks from people around the table, I was questioned about being a vegetarian (of which I am not) and was met with blank looks and smirks all because I broke the cultural convention of having meat with every meal, which is a real "red blooded kiwi male" type of tradition. I had to explain that I wasn't a vegetarian but simply liked vegetables and often had vegetable based meals - In that social situation I actually had to defend having a vegetarian meal! I think I was also the only one at the table (other than my wife) that wasn't drinking alcohol but luckily that never came up! I hate to think how much controversy that would have caused if they found out that I don't drink.

I started to question my own perceptions, why are some of us more open to new ideas than others? Why does the gap between those that work at evolving themselves and those that conform to "the way it has always been" seem to be growing? Why can some of us see past the consumer driven world of possessions and see the things that are really worth having? Why do these questions keep going around my head!?

Perhaps it is because I am a new parent that I seem to notice these things a lot more, I see the world that my child will grow up in and the imperfections seem clearer and more personal. You want the best for your child, you want them to be well adjusted and not just another unit in the system (or another brick in the wall if you are a Pink Floyd fan), you want them to question everything, follow their own bliss, be a leader, but at the same time you don't want them to be alienated and looked at as an outsider.

Perhaps it is practicing Zazen that has opened my mind a lot more, made possessions and social status seem unimportant (this is not to say that you shouldn't have possessions, the world simply doesn't work that way, just that you shouldn't place a great deal of importance on them), when you truly understand concepts like impermanence you get that "moment of clarity" that Jules experienced in Pulp Fiction. Zazen certainly seems to have a positive effect, you start to see that you are, in fact, not your thoughts. You can sit back and observe how your thoughts will carry on without you interfering. Once you can see this you are no longer bound by the constant stream of thoughts rattling around in your head, you become less bound my idiosyncratic, habitual constraints. It is almost like a bullshit filter... as soon as something enters your mind like anger or you become self conscious about something you subconsciously know that it is a thought (leading to an emotion) that is not worth clinging too, so it simply passes by. I guess Zazen could be seen as a method for breaking down the ego, taking away your self absorbed concerns and providing a cleaner slate to experience mindfulness in your daily life. It is of course not always that easy! Like anything it requires constant practice.

So if you read this and decide that you feel "stuck in the matrix" so to speak, what do you do? How do you shift gears and start to ditch the hive mentality? I have created change in my own mind by exposing myself to a lot of new information, I listen to a lot of Podcast's and follow up on any interviewees that interest me by chasing down their books or websites and studying their ideas. If you keep an open mind and consider many different philosophies then your brain never gets locked into one system of thought, this is a very good thing as ideologies can be dangerous. Exploring these Podcasts is also a great way to see how the mainstream media is blatantly lying to you and trying to tilt your perspective on certain issues.

Podcasts that I highly recommend are The C-Realm, Red Ice Creations, Psychedelic Salon, Black Light in the Attic, The Disinformation Podcast, The Mystic Mind, Gnostic Media. These can all be subscribed to via iTunes. There are a few more in this family of Podcasts but if you take the time to listen to the ones I have mentioned you will hear references to the others that you can pursue.

Look into Zazen, see if you can find space in your life to "sit down and shut up" for about 30 minutes a day, if it all seems like some weird eastern hippy crap to you then just try taking a moment out of your day to enjoy a cup of tea in a nice quiet place, just set the daily brain junk (e.g. What am I going to do for dinner? I wonder what's on TV tonight? Am I going to make this deadline?) aside for 10 minutes and clear your mind, be mindful in that moment.

Here are a couple of quotes that seem relevant to what I have been talking about, I dropped the term "neophobe" earlier so here is an explanation of that term. The Terence McKenna quote is from a Psychedelic Salon podcast, I am currently turning the audio version into a mash-up with some music, I will upload this to the site in the next few days.

From Neil Kramer...

"A neophobe is someone who resists new ideas and chooses to suspend their own conscious evolution. Neophobia often sets in with the perceived responsibilities and social expectations of adulthood and parenting. Robert Anton Wilson employed the word in his book ‘Prometheus Rising’ to classify this ubiquitous phenomenon of self-imposed cerebral short-circuiting. The deep rooted compulsion to trudge and slave within the industrial matrix factory tends to induce an internal spiritual vacuum that arrests emotional, intellectual and spiritual development. Despite the explicable nature of such a psychic malaise, the neophobe is nevertheless consenting to a distinct and conscious disavowal of authentic being. It is a choice to sleep."

From Terence McKenna...

"The Culture has all the answers. You want to know where people came from? Well "when the sky God got out of his canoe at the first waterfall and took a leak then we, the true people, appeared like ants and we've been living here ever since" - oh, gee thanks, I'm glad I asked. This is what culture does for you.

But now technology throws a curve, and the curve is that we live so long that we figure out what a scam this is. We figure out that what you are supposed to work for isn't worth having, we figure out that our politicians are bufoons, we figure out that professional scientists are reputation building grab tailing weasels, we discover that all organisations are corrupted by ambition. We figure it out.

Then as intellectuals, and anybody who figures it out is an intellectual, believe me, because they are slinging the programming to push you the other way, discover that you are alienated. That's what figuring it out means, it means that you understand that the BMW, the Harvard degree, the whatever it is, that this is all baloney, and manipulated, and hyped, and that mostly you have a bunch of clueless people trying to figure out which fork they should use.

But this position is presented as alienation and therefore somehow tinged with the potential for pathology, it's a bad thing to be alienated."