Social Media – Breakaway Consciousness

Mainstream Media Manipulation: Proaganda, Social Engineering & Astroturfing

“One of our best-kept secrets is the degree to which a handful of huge corporations control the flow of information in the United States. Whether it is television, radio, newspapers, magazines, books, or the Internet, a few giant conglomerates are determining what we see, hear, and read. And the situation is likely to become much worse as a result of radical deregulation efforts by the Bush administration and some horrendous court decisions,” warned Congressman Bernie Sanders, adding, “This is an issue that Congress can no longer ignore.”

– Jim Marrs, Rise Of The Fourth Reich

BreakawayIndividual.com
Zy Marquiez
June 2, 2019

A large portion of society has blind trust in mainstream media news reporting, even though they have constantly ignored countless vital issues plaguing society in numerous ways.

Mainstream media manipulation has further reach than most individuals are cognizant of; this type of reach is facilitated not only by the use of endless propaganda, but also lays the foundation for serious social engineering to take place when coupled with manipulation techniques such as astroturfing.

This salient issue of social engineering via media manipulation goes back quite some time. In fact, it was Edward Bernays, who fathered modern propaganda and whose influential reach was so far in scope that Time Magazine voted him one of the most influential people of the 20th century. In his book Propaganda, Bernays went on to state that:

““The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. …We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. …In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons…who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind.””

That is social engineering at its finest.

Such information has always been right in the open, but since the mainstream media doesn’t report it, it ‘doesn’t exist’. This type of mindset is what often gets individuals to share thoughts along the lines of: “Well the media didn’t report that. It can’t be true” as if the media are the gatekeepers of reality. That is the very definition of a ‘high priest’ – someone who cannot be questioned and whose authority is always higher than yours. And that’s exactly what the type of mindset the establishment wants [1].

As Thomas Huxley once stated:

“The deepest sin against the human mind is to believe things without evidence. Science is simply common sense at its best – that is, rigidly accurate in observation, and merciless to fallacy in logic.”

It’s simply up to you – the individual – to be incisive, and sift carefully in order to figure out not only what is being reported, and whether it in fact is true, but also what is not being reported, which is often vastly more important. Countless other questions may follow; this is merely starting point.

In the end, ignorance in the age of information is a choice.

Choose wisely.

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[1] This type of mentality also shows the lack of critical thinking that is missing, which is par for the course considering what the public schooling system is about.

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Suggested Reading & Watching:

Lessons From Orwell’s 1984
What Is The Difference Between Education & Public Schooling?
The Catastrophic Decline Of Public Education: 21 Facts About Why Public Schooling Performs So Poorly
What Our List Of Most Banned Books Says About Our Society’s Fears
Logical Fallacies Employed In Every Day Life
Dumbing Us Down by John Taylor Gatto
Weapons Of Mass Instruction by John Taylor Gatto
13 Great Reasons To Study Logic
How A Generation Lost Its Culture – by Professor Patrick Deneen
The Vanishing American Adult by Ben Sasse
The Tavistock Institute: Social Engineering The Masses by Daniel Estulin
A Different Kind Of Teacher by John Taylor Gatto
Socratic Logic by Peter Kreeft Ph.D.
Philosophy 101 by Peter Kreeft Ph.D.
Brave New World & Brave New World Revisited by Aldous Huxley
What Is Education? The Elite Curriculum – John Taylor Gatto
Astroturfing & Manipulation Of Media Messages – Sharyl Attkisson
Breakaway Guide To Censorship, Disinformation, Logical Fallacies & More
How To Read A Book by Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van Doren
History So It Doesn’t Repeat – The Deliberate Dumbing Down Of America With Charlotte Iserbyt
Classrooms Of The Heart [Documentary] – John Taylor Gatto
Sumerhill School – A New View On Childhood by A.S. Neil
Social Engineering 101
Dialectical Thinking – Zeno, Socrates, Kant, Marx by Tommi Juhani Hanjijarvi Ph.D.
Underground History Of American Education With John Taylor Gatto
The True Purpose Of Modern Schooling
Getting Things Done by David Allen
Open-Source Method: Genius Education – Examples | John Taylor Gatto
The Trivium – The Liberal Arts Of Logic, Grammar & Rhetoric by Sister Miriam Joseph Ph.D.
Cultural Literacy – What Every American Needs To Know by E.D. Hirsch Jr.
A Rulebook For Arguments by Anthony Weston
A Workbook For Arguments by David R. Morrow & Anthony Wesson
Drilling Through The Core – Why Common Core Is Bad For American Education by Sandra Stotsky & Contributors

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If you find value in this information, please share it. This article is free and open source. All individuals have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Zy Marquiez and BreakawayIndividual.com

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About The Author:

Zy Marquiez is an avid book reviewer, inquirer, an open-minded skeptic, yogi, and freelance writer who aims at empowering individuals while also studying and regularly mirroring subjects like Consciousness, Education, Creativity, The Individual, Ancient History & Ancient Civilizations, Forbidden Archaeology, Big Pharma, Alternative Health, Space, Geoengineering, Social Engineering, Propaganda, and much more.

Simplifying For The Sake Of Health | #Mindset | #Health | #Mindfulness | #SocialMedia

“Our life is always frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify.”
– Henry David Thoreau

“Simplify your thoughts, desires and life. Complexities and confusion make a hell out of heaven.”
– Philip Arnold

BreakawayIndividual.com
Zy Marquiez
May 30, 2019

What follows is part vent, part blog post on simplicity, but it’s going to be a bit longer than my usual blog posts. Although it might seem that I am meandering a bit, there’s a logical sequence to certain steps I (and others) took yesterday across various social media platform. More on that in a moment though.

Yesterday, I wrote about meeting someone that just moved here that was a family member, and that was my uncle. We got to talking about a variety of things, but one moment stood out most of all.

Sometimes in life, while you are talking to someone you get to a point where the conversation takes a very serious tone, the type of tone when you just have to shut the @#!$ up and let someone vent their heart out; this was one of those moments. I let him vent about his health, life, and him not having too much time left, and then the conversation leveled out to less dismal topics. This conversation left me incredibly emotional, though I masked it rather well (I hope) and I knew I just wanted to go home. Why so?

Because it reminded me of a circumstance that took place when I was much younger, though both scenarios aren’t exactly alike, but you will understand why it reminded me in a second.

In the early 2000s, I visited Puerto Rico for the first time since we moved as a family to Arizona. In a nutshell, at one point I wanted to take a picture with my grandma. And anybody that knows me personally knows that I hate taking pictures. I don’t mind it, but most of the time I don’t (usually) like taking pictures for reasons I will not get into here. And a lot of the pictures that I have taken are always on my phone, mostly pictures with friends, family and so on. This is because if I do end up taking a picture, it means a lot to me, which is why the pictures always with me. That, or you have to be one of my conniving friends (bless their hearts) and sneak a picture when I least expect it. Taking pictures of friends? Sure, I love that; I love photography in general, and I love taking pictures of my friends. But I’m not usually in a lot of the pictures.

The reason I say that is because even though I hate pictures where I’m in them, I wanted really bad to take a picture with my grandmother when we visited; so you know, I had to want to take a picture with my grandma really bad for me to even bring it up. That last day, for hours, I hounded her about taking a picture with her and she wasn’t having it. Her reasons were, because she didn’t look ‘good’ and so on. I told her that I didn’t care, but she wasn’t having it. In any respect, I gave up because she was getting annoyed and I didn’t want to bug her any longer. Now when leaving, I just had this overwhelming feeling that I would never see her again. I had never had a feeling like that before, and I thought it was stupid. In reality, I didn’t know when we (or I) would be back to visit, but I just felt really overwhelmed. It turned out that she passed away a couple of years later, all because a medical mistake in which the medical personnel didn’t read a damn chart.

I’ve searched everywhere, but I don’t think I ever took a picture with my grandma, at least not one that I can remember. I’ve gone through family photos and so on, and all I’ve seen are her and I when I was much younger, a baby for instance. Anyways, the point of this whole (lengthy) preamble is that, although I do have a feeling I will see my uncle again, he’s already on borrowed time.

This whole scenario with my grandma flashed in my mind, which made it hard for me to keep my composure because well, knowing that someone’s ticket with the reaper has already been punched will make anyone sad, if not downright depressed.

After we were done having dinner, we said our goodbyes, and I went home (and couldn’t get there fast enough) because I just wanted to lay down and not think, not that that’s possible but I just had to get home. I get home, and after changing my mind, I write the blog post that I did, which involved my uncle because that was my way of sort of venting on the issue, but I held a lot back as is evident now.

From there, I end up deciding not to lie down, and instead opt to get on a variety of social media platforms to see if I can just talk to some friends and vent. Lo and behold, it’s nothing but fire and brimstone everywhere, people arguing over the most inconsequential and trivial things that, in the grand scope of things, don’t really matter. What’s worse is how everyone were treating each other (or me) in a few respects, so I was about to make a call and get some friends to do our usual Facebook mass purge of all of our accounts as well as on other social media, but someone beat me to the punch and was seeing if we wanted to start a group on Skype to do it all simultaneously while catching up.

Before going on, why would it be important for me to purge accounts on many social media platform? This is because (1) I have already lost a few friends this year and it’s been the toughest year emotionally speaking yet that I can remember. Moreover, as mentioned before, (2) my uncle is dealing with stage 3 cancer that can’t be handled and is already on borrowed time, (3) there’s a family member in a coma (not joking) that my lovely father just happens to tell part of the entire family weeks later because (you just can’t make this stuff up) he “didn’t think it was important”.

Predictably, I’m till downright furious about that. ANY family member being in a coma, HELL, ANY HUMAN BEING, being in a coma, is as real as it gets. Not only that, but there’s also (4) the issue of my Mom’s health where she doesn’t seem to be getting completely better even though the doctors say “everything is okay” and “the cancer is gone” (we’ve heard that one before). Lastly, (5) I have been out of remission with my disease for months, and any stress affects it greatly, which is why I often seek a mindful approach, as well as employ yoga when I can at home or the gym.

My own personal reason for purging (or muting) accounts was due to stress and my goal to simplify where I can in my attempts to regain my health and get back into remission. I can’t be the best me if I’m not healthy, and I can’t be healthy if I repeatedly expose myself to things that are stressful, no matter how mindful I am, and expect for significant progress to take place. These were the vanguard reasons for me purging accounts of myriad types yesterday.

With this personally in mind, myself and others all started on Skype, but when the room got really crowded we moved to Discord, and we just began purging accounts for 6-7 hours or so. It’s exhausting removing hundreds and hundreds of accounts from multiple Facebook accounts that I use for activism and the like, dozens on Instagram, WordPress, Twitter, you name it.

I just wasn’t having it any longer, my health’s too important for me to subject myself to things I don’t have too. Some people, the ones I’ve known for a long time, I either told the straight up that I’m muting them because x,y,z, reason, and they understood. Others, if we didn’t know them in any way shape or form, or had never even realized they were on our friends list, then they got removed, while also removing accounts that are constant negativity for the sake of negativity; that was the main approach for myself and my friends. And people that I ‘kind of’, ‘sort of’, knew, it was fifty-fifty based on judgment calls for me personally.

It’s not like I don’t care about some of these people, I do. But the bottom line is that, to a great extent, we are a product of our environments, History and Epigenetics have taught us this much. If you end up subjecting yourself to stressful situations, negativity, and lots of things that you don’t have too, it’s just going to have detrimental effects on your being on an overarching basis.

Given that, at an emotional level, my plate is incredibly full and I’m already significantly stressed about many circumstances, I’m just going to be incredibly selective to what I expose myself too. It’s not that I don’t care or simply won’t talk to people and debate, or that I will not at all read things that might seem dismal and so on; it’s just that repeatedly doing so when there’s no need to doesn’t make any sense.

This year has already been incredibly tough, and I know it’s going to get tougher with time given all the above and more. I just don’t want to get to a point where I irrevocably shatter and can’t pull myself back together again is all.

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The Social Engineering Of The Individual Via Sleight Of Hand Actions | #MSM | #Disinformation | #Misinformation | #FakeNews | #GMOs | #Censorship | #Fluoride

“We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the US public believes is false.”
– William J. Casey, Director of Central Intelligence from 1981 to 1987

BreakawayIndividual.com
Zy Marquiez
April 30, 2019

There are many ways in which certain institutions, corporations and government bodies carry out duplicitous actions against the populace, slight of hand actions. Such a hindrance should not go unnoticed, for this is diametrically opposed to the interest of everyone, and ultimately, the individual.

What are some ways in which the Corporate Cartels & Co. carries out its deceptive dealings?

For starters, let us take a gander at organic foods GMOs. First of all, GMOs – genetically modified organisms – are not required to be labelled in America, even though country after country after country continues to show its utter disdain against this unproven technology. If there ever were a time to ponder certain issues brought about by many scientists, it would be now.

How does one have freedom, if one is not able to discern what type of food one is eating, and whether or not it was created by Mother Nature or in a biolab by Big Biotech?

Additionally,

As a preamble, for our definitions sleight of hand denotes ways of deceiving people.

There are many ways in which certain institutions, corporations and government bodies carry out duplicitous actions against the populace. Such a hindrance should not go unnoticed, for this is diametrically opposed to the population, and ultimately, the individual.

What are some ways in which the Corporate Cartel & Co. carries out its deceptive dealings?

For starters, let us take a gander at organic foods GMOs. First of all, GMOs – genetically modified organisms – are not required to be labelled in America, even though country after country after country continues to show its utter disdain against this unproven technology. If there ever were a time to ponder certain issues brought about by many scientists, it would be now.

How does one have freedom, if one is not able to discern what type of food one is eating, and whether or not it was created by Mother Nature or in a biolab by Big Biotech?

Additionally, many of these very products are labeled ‘natural’ even though they are not. The good thing is though, that one way in which individuals can fight this treacherous tyranny is by buying locally sourced, organic, non-genetically modified foods. This is one large step in the right direction to buck the system that continues to milk communities and families.

Another unfortunate event taking place in most of America is the fact that much of the water in the United States is fluoridated. This should be rather appalling given that a major Harvard study was conducted that confirmed that fluoride lowers IQ. That is just the tip of the iceberg.

Over the last few years, there has been quite the progress in the elimination of fluoride from the water supplies by the Fluoride Action Network [FAN]. This has been quite a lengthy battle, but its far from over.

Many communities still face a veritable onslaught of toxins via the water ways. Some of these include chlorine, pharmaceutical drugs, hexavalent chromium, lead, aluminum, heavy metals, and much more.

It doesn’t stop there.

There has been an incisive recognition of media censorship by certain folks such as Sharyl Attkison. She is not alone however, as others such as independent reporter James Corbett have spoken out against such deceitful practices.

Mainstream media is not the only one curtailing people’s freedom of speech right. In a place that’s hailed as the bee’s knees of content sharing and online ‘freedom’, YouTube [caught several times] and FaceBook have been caught censoring countless folks quite a few times as well [this is known to me personally, as well]. This has prompted certain truth seekers from various walks of life to gravitate to other social media as well.

What the above censorship is accomplishing is a deceptive management of reality and information in a way that is highly detrimental to individuals who value freedom, which is what America is supposed to be about.

Via the examples of the toxins in water through fluoride, genetically manipulated organisms that barely pass as food and is claimed natural when it isn’t, and media that often claims to stand for freedom of speech, but doesn’t, we are seeing a multi-pronged attack on liberties in many shapes and forms. This is because if you do not know, you cannot choose, can you?

This keen sleight of hand needs to be recognized by the individual in order for them to detach from the matrix that continually bleeds their energy in their many forms and seeks mainly to socially engineer them.

There are many other disciplines that are used in a calculated manner to manipulate reality, with public schooling being the vanguard way this is accomplished.

All the above is merely a cursory overview of just some that the individual needs to be cognizant of in our daily lives.

How are we, as individuals, supposed to advance ourselves when many of the objects that are vital to our well being and lives are being transmuted into something complete different?

If that isn’t sleight of hand, then we live in an alternative version reality.

With that in mind, let’s end with this incisive quote by Lehman that homes-in on the very notion of sleight of hand:

“Jargon is the verbal sleight of hand that makes the old hat seem newly fashionable; it gives an air of novelty an specious profundity to ideas that, if stated correctly, would seem superficial, stale, frivolous, or false. The line between serious and spurious scholarship is an easy one to blur, with jargon on your side.”

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Suggested Reading & Watching:

What Is The Difference Between Education & Public Schooling?
Logical Fallacies Employed In Every Day Life
Dumbing Us Down by John Taylor Gatto
Weapons Of Mass Instruction by John Taylor Gatto
13 Great Reasons To Study Logic
How A Generation Lost Its Culture – by Professor Patrick Deneen
A Different Kind Of Teacher by John Taylor Gatto
Socratic Logic by Peter Kreeft Ph.D.
Philosophy 101 by Peter Kreeft Ph.D.
Brave New World & Brave New World Revisited by Aldous Huxley
What Is Education? The Elite Curriculum – John Taylor Gatto
Breakaway Guide To Censorship, Disinformation, Logical Fallacies & More
How To Read A Book by Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van Doren
History So It Doesn’t Repeat – The Deliberate Dumbing Down Of America With Charlotte Iserbyt
Classrooms Of The Heart [Documentary] – John Taylor Gatto
Sumerhill School – A New View On Childhood by A.S. Neil
Social Engineering 101
Dialectical Thinking – Zeno, Socrates, Kant, Marx by Tommi Juhani Hanjijarvi Ph.D.
Underground History Of American Education With John Taylor Gatto
The True Purpose Of Modern Schooling
Getting Things Done by David Allen
Open-Source Method: Genius Education – Examples | John Taylor Gatto
The Trivium – The Liberal Arts Of Logic, Grammar & Rhetoric by Sister Miriam Joseph Ph.D.
Cultural Literacy – What Every American Needs To Know by E.D. Hirsch Jr.
A Rulebook For Arguments by Anthony Weston
A Workbook For Arguments by David R. Morrow & Anthony Wesson
Drilling Through The Core – Why Common Core Is Bad For American Education by Sandra Stotsky & Contributors

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About The Author:

#Book Review: Quiet – The Power Of Introverts In A World That Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain | #Introvert | #Thoughts | #Reflection

BreakawayIndividual.com
Zy Marquiez
April 17, 2019

Quiet – The Power Of Introverts In A World That Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain is masterful read into the inner workings of the reflective introverts that populate society.

This book by Susan Cain delves into the paradigm that has been glossed over in the “Culture Of Personality”.

Cain begins the book outlining the fact that we as a society have transitioned from a Culture Of Character to a Culture of Personality, which thus left us facing myriad issues from which society still faces today.

The book even elucidates that the world personality was not part of our vocabulary until the 18th century and that “the idea of “having a good personality” was not widespread until the twentieth.” This goes to show that the notion of ‘personality’ is quite modern indeed.

Throughout the entirety of the book the author also enumerates countless examples of research and studies that have taken place which shows the notable differences between introverts and extroverts. Its quite intriguing considering how wrong western culture has been about introverts over the last many decades, if not longer.

Even the school system has been tailored to fit the ‘culture of personality’ rather than the ‘culture of character’. That has done a great disservice to many folks, because as the book mentions, between a third to a half of all people are introverts, and yet school is not only geared to push the personality paradigm, but people that are introverts get run over by the system due to people thinking there’s something “wrong” with just wanting to do work by yourself, or perhaps in a less noisy environment that fosters greater inner growth for such individuals.

In fact, the book names a few examples where parents, or people, thought something was “wrong” with a particular individual, when that was just their nature. Not only that, but introverts, in many facets, outdo extroverts due to their inherent nature. That’s not something that you will hear the modern media expound upon. It’s not that there are inherently smarter than them, its that their process of critical thought is more efficient in many ways, not unlike two people each having a Ferrari to drive, but one isn’t capable of handling the vehicle at much higher speeds.

Ironically enough, Cain mentions how “we perceive talkers as smarter than quiet types – even though grade-point averages and SAT intelligence scores reveal this perception to be inaccurate.”

Cain also covers the interesting topic of the “Bus to Abilene,” which shows people’s penchant for following others who carry out actions – any actions. These circumstances are the staple of extroverts by and large.

The author also covers the topic of The New Groupthink, which is given a cursory glance.

Within her thoughts, she gives her concerns for the system, which is constantly giving precedence for group work – “team work” – all at the expense of the individual, as it claims that ‘creativity and intellectual achievement’ only come via teamwork. Nothing could be further from the truth. The author covers facts that tackle this rather incisively.

This has taken place because America has wholly shifted en masse unfortunately to teachings that reflect the business community, rather than what’s best for the individual and culture as a whole. What’s worse, Common Core will only further these agendas in order to make sure everyone’s ready to help corporations make even more profits at the expense of true learning. Let’s digress however.

Another example of how introverts shine is how top performers are often the ones that have the solitude that they require that isn’t available in many working environments. When freedom of interruption is available, these people overwhelmingly perform better than in environments where excessive stimulation takes place, which hinders production/learning.

Other notions examined are the one of Deliberate Practice, which can only be accomplished by being alone. This notion is discussed at length in Talent Is Overrated – What Really Separates World-Class Performers From Everybody Else, by Geoff Colvin.

Deliberate practice is not only when individuals identify tasks to be done, but when individuals push beyond comfort and traditional boundaries to raise their performance level, whilst monitoring their progress and adjusting accordingly in order to be able to achieve what needs to be done.

This not only requires deep motivation, but can lead to incredible mastery of subjects. It does, however, require a great commitment in many cases if one wants to achieve true expertise.

The book also covers how many extroverts were behind what took place in the 2009 economic downturn, and how introverts wouldn’t have been as careless with money. It also covers how people tend to link velocity of speech with knowledge, but how that is a big mistake.

Group brainstorming electronically is also delved into, as well as the fear of public humiliation and how large of a role that plays a role in interactions between introverts and extroverts, how important temperament is, as well as the intricate subject of highly reactive children. Also the topic of pseudo-extroverts is also covered. This is important, because many people who seem rather extroverted, are in fact incredibly introverted.

If you’re a teacher, a leader, a manager, or any person that needs to know the inner workings of how introverts and extroverts interact on a daily basis, and how to take advantage of each of their strengthen, then this book is definitely for you.

I absolutely love this book and reference it quite often, and I hope that any of you who end up getting it get as much value yourselves. It really is well worth the read.
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Suggested Reading:

Talent Is Overrated – What Really Separates World-Class Performers From Everyone Else by Geoff Colvin

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If you find value in this information, feel free to share it. This article is free and open source. All individuals have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Zy Marquiez and BreakawayIndividual.com

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About The Author:

#Book Review: Speed – Facing Our Addiction To Fast & Faster And Overcoming Our Fear Of Slowing Down by Dr. Stephanie Brown Ph.D. | #SmartReads

BreakawayIndividual.com
Zy Marquiez
April 3, 2019

Speed – Facing Our Addiction To Fast & Faster And Overcoming Our Fear Of Slowing Down by Dr. Stephanie Brown Ph.D. is a thought-provoking and timely book. The author’s premise is that society is addicted to the fast-paced-no-matter-the-consequences type of lifestyle, and this lifestyle choice has caused many individuals to become addicted to the high speed of modern times.

This book is split up into two parts. Part one covers much of what addiction entails and how this modern issue has come about. Part two offers a pragmatic approach for individuals to regain control of their life by employing proactive solutions.

With a sensible and practical approach Brown not only shows a healthy dose of examples about how addiction to speed plays out in everyday life, but also homes in on many steps individuals can take to regain control of their life.

Streamlining her approach using the concept of AA, Brown carries out a veritable top-down, user-friendly process in which individuals can be their best helpers, become their best selves. Not only does the author consistently speak about the perils of instant gratification that modern fast-paced life brings about, but she’s also cognizant of the limits that we all have. But mainly, Brown makes it a point to show why the immediate access to information [i.e. phones, cpus, google, etc.] has made many individuals addicts more than they know.

Dr. Brown herself cautions that the addiction to Speed:

“…is outstripping people’s ability to manage, to fulfill all of their responsibilities, and even to cope. The idea that we literally have at our fingertips the tools to do so much more than we actually have the capacity to do well has created an impossible bind that leads to chronic stress and a sense of failure. You do not have the ability to be on 24/7 like a computer, but you believe you should be able to keep going, and that you will be able to do so if you only try harder. And so you push yourself incessantly, creating an addictive spiral.”[1][Emphasis Added]

Likewise, this kind of addiction has spawned what is called dichotomous thinking, which is best exemplified by:

“The belief that you are either a success or failure, a winner or loser, will drive you to stay in motion. If you are caught in dichotomous thinking, you might think you are being asked to embrace the opposite of frenzied speed with no limits. You’ve tried to do everything before you so you’ll do nothing. This thinking, often believed to be the way smart people operate, is actually false and dangerous when you’re growing up living in a complex world. Very few complicated decisions can be boiled down to yes or not without careful thought to multiple factors involved and the potential costs.”[2]

Such are the perils part of modern fast-paced society is fraught with, and individuals that need help, if they are to regain control of their lives, not only need to pump the breaks, but need to reset – create a whole new approach.

Dr. Brown doesn’t pretend that it’s going to be easy either, as she cautious the reader to be mindful of the fact that relapse does take place. That said, being cognizant of what to expect is one way to be ready for what life throws at you, and those preparations will definitely help bring about change as long as one stays the course.

In a world where nigh nobody ever stops to take a deep breath to regain their composure, individuals stand much to gain from everything covered in this book.

If part of society doesn’t realize that the go-go-go fast-paced life that never stops for anything has addiction at its core, then it stands to bottom out once it blindly torpedoes into the next obstacle. That’s why it would be prudent to keep in mind the information in this book, because odds are we all know at least one person, if not many, that would benefit from this information. I know I myself easily fall within the above category.

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Footnotes:

[1] Dr. Stephanie Brown Ph.D., Speed – Facing Our Addiction To Fast & Faster And Overcoming Our Fear Of Slowing Down, p. 5.
[2] Ibid., p. 277.

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About The Author:

Modern Misteps Meet Mindfulness

“Nothing is worth more than this day.”
– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

BreakawayIndividual.com
Zy Marquiez
December 5, 2018

Nowadays, not a day goes by that individuals are not exposed to constant notifications, texts, videos, apps and daily reminders – these are everywhere. Be it at home, at work, or on the go, these never-ending streams of information drain hundreds of hours off of our schedules yearly.

In fact, according to a study conducted by the University of Southern California in 2013, the average individual in America goes through more than 13 hours of media daily.[1][Bold Emphasis Added]

Most of it does not add much meaning to our lives either, unfortunately.

Society’s addiction to this overarching all-things-now pattern has increased proportional to our technological advancement, if not more so. Not a day goes by without the instant gratification that is contained within all forms social media, the mainstream media sound-bite reality, texting, on-demand Google answers, and much more. This instant connection to all-things-now has spawned a new type of addiction: addiction to Speed.

In Speed – Facing Our Addiction To Fast and Faster – and Overcoming Our Fear Of Slowing Down, Dr. Stephanie Brown Ph.D. makes the argument that individuals of myriad types have become addicted to the instant gratification that is hyper-prevalent in modern lifestyles. Psychologist Brown notes:

“That gratification comes from two places – the illusion of rapid connection to other people, and immediate access to information we feel we need, be it a Google Map, an investment insight, or the answers to a trivia question.”[2]

This type of addictive behavior can have serious detrimental consequences for individuals. What’s worse, society has acclimated to it in such a way that it’s become natural to operate in such a manner.

What is Dr. Brown noticing exactly? Brown casts light on the matter:

“What I am seeing in my practice as an addiction specialist is that, especially in urban areas, this speed trap is outstripping people’s ability to manage, to fulfill all of their responsibilities, and even to cope. The idea that we literally have at our fingertips the tools to do so much more than we actually have the capacity to do well has created an impossible bind that leads to chronic stress and a sense of failure. You do not have the ability to be on 24/7 like a computer, but you believe you should be able to keep going, and that you will be able to do so if you only try harder. And so you push yourself incessantly, creating an addictive spiral.”[3]

Coming to terms with this, it is crucial as individuals to know that this is taking place in order to be able to tackle this issue head on. Issues that are unknown cannot be solved, and only by employing a proactive approach can individuals be able to displace and conquer such issues.

In order to thwart these subversive circumstances, an examination at the opposite side of the spectrum is at hand. If a full-steam-ahead-no-matter-what approach is what society has become addicted to, then a more mindful, detached, and self-engaged approach stands at the opposite side of that coin.

Mindfulness – the state or quality of being mindful or aware of something – is the first step in overcoming this conundrum. What mindfulness offers is a thoughtful, relaxed, and engaged version of what individuals can are capable of doing when their mind is at ease and focused.

The problem is that this Mindful state of being is nigh never achieved because of the issues noted above by Dr. Brown, as well as others. Another salient and ever-present reason for this is that people get into the bad habit of autopiloting through life without much thought.

One thing Poker has taught me is that many players can engage in autopilot, meaning that they tend to play the game in an automatic fashion without much thought being put into each and every circumstance. Similarly, many, if not most individuals employ this type of approach in daily life.

Some glaring examples of the ways this can be noticed in life are: (1) seeing how many people forget someone’s name after they meet them, or (2) how many people don’t remember a significant portion of their drive on their way home, or even (3) how some people text while driving. There are many more examples, but those are some of the more common ones that help shed light on the matter.

Being cognizant of this, it’s important to keep in mind that mindfulness can only be achieved by being mentally centered, by employing a hyper-focused, top-down approach that allows individuals to ‘be in the moment’.

As Captain J.A. Hatfield once shared:

“The art of resting the mind and the power of dismissing from it all care and worry is probably one of the secrets of our great men.”

If you want to achieve anything significant in life, we must home-in on what we think. As the sage Buddha once noted:

“We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts we make our world.”

What world will you make for yourself: a world where instant gratification controls you, or a mindful life where you control your world?

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Footnotes:

[1] Elizabeth Williams, Mary. “Why Every Mind Needs Mindfulness.” Time Special Edition – Mindfulness: The New Science Of Health And Happiness, 2017, p. 10.
[2] Dr. Stephanie Brown Ph.D., Speed – Facing Our Addiction To Fast & Faster And Overcoming Our Fear Of Slowing Down, p.4
[3] Ibid., p. 5.

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About The Author:

Zy Marquiez is an avid book reviewer, researcher, an open-minded skeptic, yogi, and freelance writer who studies and mirrors regularly subjects like Consciousness, Education, Creativity, The Individual, Ancient History & Ancient Civilizations, Forbidden Archaeology, Big Pharma, Alternative Health, Space, Geoengineering, Social Engineering, Propaganda, and much more.