Civilization: normally unconscious

I just love a good commercial that illustrates (and sometimes exaggerates) something contained therein. Though the commercial below is a Bing.com (a Microsoft company) advertisement, I am in no way a Microsoft fan and prefer Linux for my desktops, laptops, and servers. Yet, with that said, this is a great commercial to illustrate how civilized folks are just not connected and conscious to the world these days. Everything seems to be reactionary based on input. Very little original thought and/or critical thinking.



There's a phrase used for people these days, sheeple (sheep-people .. people that just follow for the sake of following), which I think is attempted to be used for everybody but I think it's more correctly used for unconscious folks that go through life that never originate a critical original thought on their own. These people, listen to their input (can be of any political flavor they like, any religion they like, any anything they are part of) and react accordingly.

Dog Whisperer, Cesar Millan, calls being connected: Being in the Now. When he works his canine-magic, his typical routine has him arriving at the house of the problem owner (which happens to have a pet dog) to see what they (the pet owners) think the problem is. And without a doubt and variance, the problem stems from the behavior of the owner. A dog will only reflect back the energy that the owner puts off. If the owner is showing a messed up garbage can of energy, their dog will also exhibit that garbage can of energy as well. Let Cesar Millan take the leash of a dog he's never walked, because Ceasar doesn't put off bad energy, the dog behaves differently .. because Cesar is plugged into the NOW of the moment.

People with bad behaving dogs, are going through their life unconscious. They aren't thinking (or more likely) or are numb to what's going on around them because of the overload of the world.

This kind of unconsciousness really causes a lot of problems for everybody. This kind of unconsciousness causes topics of conversation to be polarized among groups. Everything is either a heaven / hell issue, good / bad, black / white, on / off, sweet / bitter, hot / cold, beautiful / ugly, fast / slow, whatever one way / the opposite the other way for everything that comes your way. This does nobody any good.

It's important to have opinions. It's most important to have YOUR OWN OPINIONS. If someone is asked about one of these particular subjects that are traditionally polarized, and they are prompted as to why they think that way and the response is .. "Because ___fill_in_the_blank__ my __whatever_relationship__ said so." Means that person has never critically thought of the topic and they don't own that position. They are only echoing the opinion of someone else and are giving the lazy answer.

In general, man is lazy. Yep. I hate that to be a revelation to you. Man is lazy. There's a reason why the cliche says "80% of the work is done by 20% of the people." That implies that for every 5 people, one is a doer / thinker and the remaining 4 are sheeple. If I had to point the finger of blame for how civilization got this way, I'd have to indict the whole general system that is striving for efficiencies, cutting corners, and stretched for time not to do the right thing. Whether it's parents, teachers, ministers, etc. there's a long line of people serving people that people are only doing enough to perform the task at hand.

Parents these days don't take the time to sit down with their kids.. so there are things they don't even know about their kids. There are even some public service announcements putting forth the idea that all of the things of life are known by the parents, yet the name of the child's history teacher is unknown. The presses of today's world has the parents in a survival mode that hopefully allows them and their family to reach an age where the children can go out on their own. If parents can manage to bring their children to adult age of voting and moving out and the kids end up not being criminals .. that's good enough to get by.

Teachers, can only go so far in the education they provide. Though I believe the public educational system is engineered to NOT produce a critical thinking body of students. It serves politicians well that the public [as it matures] be less challenging to the politicians in order for the politicians to get things they want done to serve their agenda. I believe the mental development of students are geared towards becoming an average member of a larger pack by teaching students how to fit into the body of an average society. Though there are great public school teachers, I think that's occurs far fewer than what should be and those that are not taught by these great teachers are shortchanged. Teaching kids how to fit in and go with the flow, continues and guarantees them to be an unconscious member of society. Teachers (and coaches) probably would do well to teach kids not to be satisfied with an average performance. Always do better than their previous time before. If you get knocked down, get back up. Never be happy with mediocrity and always terrified of stagnation. If you're not growing, you are dying.

Ministers, are in much the same arena as teachers. Of the kinds of servants mentioned so far are likely the most closed-minded to new thoughts and notions. Their business relies upon what they say is regarded as truth and undoubted and solid in it's roots. By itself, religion / spirituality is just one (or few) feathers from the peacocks beautiful tail that make up the person. Yet, the religion / spirituality part is put forth as the only important part. I believe it can help as a good moral compass. Even for those that are still unconscious members of society, a good moral compass can keep people from getting into trouble for decades and decades of life. So, it's not a bad thing. The problem with the ministry (which is a lot like the way politicians are as well) is that they often don't like being challenged. Challenges are regarded as a threat to what they know to be true and many do not ask for challenges and criticism. Because what they say is regarded as unchallengeable people ingest fully what is said and do not internalize those things to be topics they own. It's always "because the pastor said." Which will work as a reason when other unconscious people challenge other unconscious people. When someone in the NOW challenges someone with these different unconscious thoughts, they can't give a reason for themselves as to why they think that way. Ministers would do well to welcome challenges at all times even when it's inconvenient. That will show how well a minister can think on his/her feet and show the foundation of thought by which the have an opinion. If all a minister can say is "That's what the bible says... I believe it .. it is so." .. I'm sorry, that's not enough. That doesn't tell me how/why the minister connects his thought to what is written in the bible. Citing scripture requires context and interpretation in order to find out what it says (and preferably in more than two places as well that agree).

If people can start to connect to the NOW, then people will start to see that not everything that is a polar opposite to what they hold as good .. is completely bad. They'll start to see different elements of others opinions are also correct as well. Those that are regarded as enemies won't be the idiots/beasts of the past as previously thought. They'll start to regard people in a different way as they start to feel the energy others radiate. It may not be enough to engage in a beer summit from one person to another, but good common ground can be found whereby a foundation of good between them can be laid to find and coach the best out of people.