By Gabriel Curran
The unnatural waking state into the sound of cluttering plates
The pulling from the pillow into the weeping of the willow
The morning breath chill, the waking against your will
The 7:30am spill, of the coffee with no thrill
The removal from the dream into the madness of routine
The frost covered car and the barking dogs of Babylon
They want to keep us here forever until death do us part.
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By Gabriel Curran
The alarm clock rings and billions of people wake up then set off on their daily ritualistic journeys. Scurrying along, catching buses and trains, slurping coffee, reading papers, walking and eating, yawning and wiping the sleep from their weary eyes.
It all seems so harmless, normal and routine. After all, it’s been deeply rendered into our every lives and passed through generation after generation. So who would even stop to question it?
Who would you ever question such a frequent and common occurrence. All through our childhood, we have been preened and prepared for a structured life of mechanical regime, routine and relentless order.
Every governmental institution we ever passed through was getting us ready for this life. This seamlessly chaotic life of diligent busy workers, endlessly clocking in and clocking out.
Society seems to have been ingrained with this subservient attitude, of live for the weekend and hate Mondays. Well why can’t we live for the week and love Mondays like we love Saturdays? It’s been so normalized to feel this way. Everyone dreading this ugly foreboding day called Monday, and everyone counting down and urging the weekend to arrive with baited breath.
The weekend then becomes that one ray of hopeful light, that one bit of pleasure, play and freedom afforded to us by the working system – and governments wonder why so many people obliterate themselves every weekend with rampant hedonistic use of alcohol and drugs.
The weekend becomes this insatiable playpen of manic escapism and temporary relief. The weekdays are just tainted by everlasting drudgery, monotony, lethargy of spirit and soulless repetitiveness.
It’s a rarity to hear someone say they are looking forward to work next week. Instead you hear the same words of discontent, boredom, dissatisfaction and the rest of the other mundane Monday cliches.
Some people are mightily blessed with jobs they cherish and look forward to everyday with passion, verve and vigor. But I feel these people are few and far between and most of them are earning very generous salaries which allow them to have more fruitful existences. The rest of society are just clambering onto low wage pay, barely making ends meet with all their precious time taken up by a ferociously demanding and unforgiving working system.
I suspect most bankers, politicians, sportsman, celebrities love going to work. I bet they love Monday mornings with their expensive coffee and croissants. Well on their wages what do you expect? These people are the very fortunate minority. The majority are just tired and hapless cogs in the machinery. Endlessly turning the wheels of capitalism. Completely acquiescent to the ridiculous rules that are thrusted upon them.
My words may seem bigoted, melodramatic, ultra cynical and almost dis-utopian. But just maybe this is a glaring and painful truth, and we have all actually been fooled and schooled into believing this is actually the right way to live our daily lives. Just maybe we are so utterly credulous and indoctrinated beyond belief that we don’t even have the vision to know any different. Just passive humanoids relentlessly working and consuming. Never questioning this reality, but merely just playing along.
I myself have been lucky that I’ve been able to mostly avoid this insidious routine and actually do something I enjoy. I’ve had and the privilege of righteously practicing my art, and I have not been too bogged down with things that I don’t really want to do. Maybe I come across deluded and overtly utopian to think that everyone should be able to live like that. Waking up every Monday morning feeling happy, excited and full of joy for their daily tasks. Maybe that’s too much like a fantasy and that is just not possible. But what about more of a balance as a compromise? Where we have a choice of a life style which focuses less on money, attainment and rampant work ethic, but more on time for family, friends, creativity, leisure and spiritual growth. Is that too much to ask?
Well unfortunately in our society politicians would probably never dramatically raise the minimum wage and reduce the working hours to allow people more leisure time. That’s simply out of the question and nothing but a futile dream. So what next? How do we find a way to combat this oppressive way of living?
By Gabriel Curran
I often meet people who feel powerless, rejected and are generally disconcerted with their occupations, living situations and relationships. This I understand to be out of some people’s general control, but most often it’s quite the opposite.
In most cases that dis-empowerment, fragmentation and disconnection stems from a deep ignorance, seeded by a malevolent system that pulls them into a futile state of apathy and depression.
Time and time again you will witness these unfortunate and hapless souls doing jobs they hate, in abodes they despise, constantly failing in relationships, disconnected from fellow human beings. Always pointing the finger outside and blaming the World for their failings and unrelenting misery.
These people seem almost addicted to suffering in all its heinous forms, shapes and sizes. I think we have all experienced these characters, who always see the glass as half empty. This now seems to be fundamental problem that seethes beneath the fabric of our everyday living.
Big brother’s society has now become a festering breeding ground for a victim mentality and it’s really very hard to get away from it and its infectious energy.
It’s really incredible how we have been so profoundly indoctrinated and conditioned to think all the answers are on the outside but not on the inside. It’s staring us in the face but still we see the same mistakes repeated over and over again. Blinded and deluded in an everlasting miasma of entertainment, distraction and instant gratification.
This pernicious deception seems to have gripped some souls more than others. Either way, it’s rife in society and damn the control system loves to provide us with an abundance of comforting solutions to get away from our endless list of troubles.
I firmly believe we have choice, and a boundless array of them if we just open our eyes and then take some control back. We are only under control by our passive consent.
By simply removing the things that have detrimental effect on our consciousness will allow us to grow and be what we really should be. Free and happy human beings with massive sense of possibility and opportunity.
But the fundamental problem is that so many people don’t seem to know what is really bad for them, and they seem to continuously attract these demonic forces into their lives.
They seem to have no awareness of what drives their souls to such low depths of misfortune and depravity. They continuously surround themselves with malevolent physical and mental energies that affect their psychic state and keep them in a constant flux of lethargy and overwhelming suffering.
People seem to have forgotten that the bad company you keep, the festering house where you dwell, the vapid music that you listen to, the vacuous TV that you watch, the books that you don’t read, the good food that you don’t eat, the humor that you do not possess, the exercise that you avoid, and the general conspiratorial fear mongering will all contribute to your overall mental and physical dysfunction.
These are such simple things, yet they still continue to be at the forefront of vices that take people down to the depths of despair. Thus seeing countless people being medicated, under the watchful eye of big brother’s profitable medical establishment.
All these things can be changed, when changed inside the mind. All these things are both outside and inside. All these things are choices to be made.
We generally have the choice whether to live in squalor, to keep unsavory company, or to work in a terrible job. We generally have the choice whether to live a positive or negative life. But you will see the same unfathomable and glaring mistakes time and time again.
For example, you will meet that person who’s always dour, acrimonious, complaining, joyless, depressed, jobless, hypochondriac, got no relationship. And that person just happens to be always residing in a total festering cesspit of a home. Why is that?
Well simply because one vice reflects another vice, one foe breeds another foe, one negative thought manifests another negative thought. Having one negative thing in your life attracts another negative thing in your life and then the unforgiving cycle begins.
It then becomes habitual to live in a fettered stink hole of a home. It then becomes habitual to feel down and depressed. It then becomes habitual to repel good people and attract bad people. It then becomes habitual to feel hopeless and joyless. It just becomes this foreboding, endless, perpetual habit, and it is totally normalized through its continuous pattern and routine.
Over time our brains are then wired to pain and our default setting becomes sadness.
Of course, nothing’s ever black and white and there are exceptions. I know that some people are actually melancholic because they are deficient in brain chemicals like serotonin, dopamine or maybe vitamin deficient in B and D, or maybe they have had a long run of bad luck and trauma. But very often in our society it’s just a case of self inflicted psychic damage from poor decision making and lack of understanding.
If people were more aware, lucid and optimistic, they could remove themselves from these constant diabolical situations and see dramatic and unquestionable change. Change inside would be change outside, and change outside would be change inside. This simple and ancient equation is so profoundly powerful if practiced and used wisely. Yet so many seem blind to its magic and almost instant transformation. The status quo have done an impeccable job in keeping people away from their true and pure nature. Keeping people feeling inadequate, fearful, narcissistic, detached, frustrated, depressed. Endlessly beckoning people to chase and desire material and superficial dreams until the day they die.
Every now and then you will meet a complete polar opposite to these dour spirits. A light but radiant energy, full of zest, humor, positivity and relentless rebellious passion. These characters can be sometimes bashful and diffident or sometimes loud and ostentatious but still positive and always with a spring in their step. Even when they are in a bad situation they can remain upbeat and optimistic. You could put them in the same bleak setting as the dour spirit but still they are more happy and more vibrant.
This is because it comes from within. This may also be because they are more pure, aware and more centered as human beings.
These are the people to learn from, because these are joyous mavericks in any circumstance. They know that being pessimistic and morose is not good for a rebellious and noble free spirit. But by being optimistic, vivacious and energetic is far more true to our natural state of being.
We might even envy and be frustrated by these types of people, but something can be gained from their miraculous and gracious ways of moving through the universe.
I am not trying to condemn or vilify people who are having a bad time, but I am trying to point out something which may bring hope and self empowerment. I am trying to say that there is always a way if the will is strong and all is never lost. Simple steps will yield huge results.
The system wants us dependent on it. It creates the problem then it gives the solution. The system wants depression, fear, anxiety, bleak conspiracy theories, anger, pseudo happiness and a whole catalog of psychological disorders to keep us fragmented.
The system doesn’t want joyous, humorous, centered, harmonious, free thinking, rebellious and creative people full of ideas and exuberance. No why would it want that?
I hate to come across overtly preachy and conceited, but I see this demotivated and embittered spirit so much now in our society. It deeply saddens and frustrates me to see people in this persistently feckless state. It makes me angry at the system for breeding this insidious mentality, and it makes me angry at its victims for passively allowing it to happen.
By Gabriel Curran
The world we now live in is a vast and profound myriad of inter-connectivity and boundless reach. A melting pot of exchanged ideas, opinions and creativity, all pumped through this extraordinarily powerful, trusted and sophisticated technology called the internet. This has been at the forefront of a mass awakening, radical new spiritual movements and has allowed a rip roaring deluge of counter culture information to pour into the consciousness of the masses. This is a momentous achievement and has been incredible for a free democratic society and the liberation of information. It has allowed a vast array of artists, musicians, writers, filmmakers and activists to propagate their work to a potential huge audience which would never normally be achieved through the traditional and mainstream ways of distribution. This is clearly very positive and it must be acknowledged for all its growth and technological evolution.
In particular, I am interested in the development and progression of the counter culture, conspiracy and new age movements with their vast and colorful array of gurus, philosophers, shamans, researchers, scholars and spiritual teachers, all proliferating their radical and aw-inspiring ideas out to the populace. I’ve examined many cogent, empowering and enlightening documentaries, internet radio shows, pod casts, blogs, books and music. It’s all been very optimistic and I think it has ultimately helped to raise the overall awareness and consciousness of the globe.
Unfortunately with every pro there is often a con, and I strongly feel this applies to this situation. I think that we are always in grave danger of being misled, misinformed and deceived by information that is skewed, co-opted and fictitious. We have the pseudo new age spiritualists, the fear mongering conspiracy theorists and the morbid foreboding doom and gloom forums. There seems to be this insidious and malignant undercurrent of inauthenticity, a plethora of disingenuous infiltrators who are just doing more harm than good. A collective of under qualified, under researched charlatans who masquerade wisdom and truth.
The counterfeits and ill equipped really need to be weeded out as they are undoubtedly casting spells on their credulous and naive followers. They are also undermining the genuine and authentic practitioners who have carried out such noble and cogent research.
Disseminating dogmatic and sometimes stupendous un-provable information does nothing for the growth of consciousness or any radical movement. It just debases it, makes a mockery of it, and gives the mainstream establishment a perfect excuse to ridicule it to death. You now see fear mongering Hollywood films being made about 2012 and the occult. You see these cheesy, tacky and overtly dramatized US news programs which warn us of devastating cataclysms, surveillance societies and a microchip population.
It’s clearly now got the hype, street cred and wow factor, but does that mean it’s any good for seeking the truth? It’s clearly more popularized and common place now in the mainstream, with even high profile celebrities talking of occult rituals, new world order, symbolism and the various other facets of the conspiracy movement. It’s become a kind of cheap media circus full of bright lights, bravado and fearful melodrama.
Does this actually increase awareness or just help to undermine it?
Many of these movements have now become like hip, sub-terrain trends and cliques. Where it’s more about the cool factor than finding out the real truth. Yes, it’s actually become cool and interesting to believe and talk of something radical, esoteric, conspiratorial or fantastical. And yes, just like music sub cultures it’s been infiltrated by the mainstream and it’s become about the alternative bohemian identity, and about the juicy cosmic lingo and amassing of buzz word triggers and interesting phrases.
We know that there is spin, double speak, propaganda, deception, misinformation coming from the mainstream machine, but that also applies to the counter culture. It is not immune to corruption, lies, and should be questioned and deconstructed always. Critical thinking should apply to everything. All should be tested, investigated, cross referenced and researched. Otherwise we are just a bunch of new age sheep just blindly following the flock.
Another important point is the way this information is delivered. I see a lot of depressive fear mongering and hopeless complaining. A lot of draining anger and frustration spewing from the mouths of the many conspiracy theorists and researchers.
I’m not saying don’t be angry at the system’s injustices. No, I’m saying be fucking angry, but do it in a way that’s vibrant, inspiring and motivating. Turn anger into a more effective and positive energy that is more beneficial.
This can be achieved and it’s far more productive for everyone involved. By simply remaining acrimonious all the time in your state of being is nothing but completely draining and debilitating. Our way of (being) is as vital. Our way of communicating, our energy and vibration, our warmness of character all assist in something more evolved and powerful.
People don’t want to listen to the trite doom and gloom. This is ineffective a lot of the time and sometimes does more harm than good.
We must try to demonstrate great being through our poise and conduct, play and humour, expression and creativity, laughter and vibrancy. If that is not there then something is fundamentally wrong and must be fixed. Look at the late great Alan Watt. A great example of a guy who could educate and fight against oppression in the most amazing harmonious way. So full of zest, creativity, charisma and purity. So unhinged, unique, original and warm. Now that’s a guy. As Neil Kramer said, let’s merge knowledge with (being) and see that they are both equally as important.
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