There are two unsustainable and aggressive ideologies with Messianic mission, which seem to be on a confrontational course with each other: The liberal democracy-with its unsustainable consumerism and human rights as its flagship- and Islam which is demographic unsustainable with its emphasis on spreading its faith and fighting the infidels. And we are adherents of one of them, poor we. We seem to know much of the failings and shortcomings of Islamic ideology and praxis, but how much do we know of our own ideology` failings?
While the Muslims have their minarets calling them to pray five times daily and keep their habitual focus in check, we have our minarets in the form of our mass media telling us ceaselessly on the bliss of being us, on our freedom, human rights, enlightenment, wise debates, the value of our culture describing our mundane- and not seldom petty- lives, our open mindedness and uniqueness. Both keep our ritualistic thinking intact and compulsive…Both make us kneel down for them…

In a strange manner, the citizens in democratic societies, who are supposed to be the freest of them all, seem to be inclined on accepting doctrines , which claim that lots of events out in the world are steered and guided by external forces , which the citizens have no influence on. That is to say , that the citizen can determine to a great extent his personal life, but h is not free to influence of what goes around him and relates to his life like economic busts, military interventions, political failure to act etc. It seems as in this kind of political order, there is nobody who can or has the right to control his motives and focus in events which are steered by external forces. In this sense citizens of democracies feel too weak as to affect macro processes , which makes them adapt theories that confirm that they are weak in this sense, and that they cannot control and guide these external events. This, our sophisticated naivety, castrates us mentally and makes it impossible for us to understand motives of people like Churchill, who could rise up to the challenge and was sure in- and focused on- his actions. What really happens for people in democracy is that the decision making is blurred by compromises on the verge of pettiness, and they lack any encouragement to practice heroism and megalopsychia. This is why most of us feel doomed to complacency and mediocrity, and this is why our leaders lack the vigor and wisdom of statesmen and remind us of quarrelsome and sleek merchants…and why democracy decays. Fortunately, it seems that more and more people disfavor Capitalism (Economist 9.-15.4.2011), a trend which can revitalize the democratic process, as it becomes less dependent on this greedy ideology.
But how we survive so far on this nutrition of complacency and mediocrity?
There are three great lies promoted by our liberal capitalistic democracy, which sustain us:
1) You are unique or can become unique through self realization.
2) You are free and enjoy fully your freedom. And
3) You can make a lasting difference in the world and thereby leave behind you a memorable legacy.
The lies become self evident when you confront them with the facts from your mundane reality;
1) You cannot become unique partly because if everybody is unique, it is very ordinary to be unique, and partly because you are just a little, easily disposable ´speck` in a mass society.
2) Freedom can be defined by changing contexts but it degenerates and become self destructive unless it is bound to responsibility beyond ones´ own interests and has some farsighted, sustainable and heroic elements in it .The freedom we experience is characterized by a secure, privileged and comfortable ordinary life and a political/ideational passivity on the verge of submission to the existing order. This freedom undermines the ecology of the planet and the future of coming generations. The freedom to express our meaning is meaningless if nobody notices them or they cannot be transformed into enduring changes. So our freedom is rather forlorn and not as attractive as it is presented. Basically almost all people in our societies are complacent, conform, lack a sense of heroism (democracy castrates this motive) and basically ordinary.
3) We live in a society based on mass production which is entirely dependent on growing consumption and the presentation of new goodies in ever growing tempo, be it material or cultural. That is to say that the shelf life of all the goodies in the modern world is very short, be it a book, a song, a debate, electronics etc. There is only a fraction of what we produce, utter or write down which will have enduring meaning for the next generations. Most of it- 99,99%- is doomed to oblivion.
So what is the morale of all this:
Our culture has taught us to believe in bullshit, and we have become complacent and mediocre bull shitters. Do we deserve it or deserve better? We deserve what we accept, and if not, only by following another path we will deserve better!

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Klinisk psykolog

Benjamin Katz

Østerbrogade 142,1tv

Mobil -40767357

Gmail- katzbenja@gmail.com

Another big issue is to possibility to spread evil, which also follows the technical developement.It is possible today to corner the whole world market, with the consequences beyond our imagination.
We got 10 commandements when moving from nomadic to sedentary life. Obviously because it was NOT evident to the people at that time that the sins mentioned were wrongdoings.
I think we need a new set of rules covering the new possibilities of wrongdoings. Wrongdoings on a global scale. If a person commits a malfaisance that hurts many innocents to get personal gains, this person should be persecuted if it can be proven that there was an intent and it was possible to imagine the consequences. The acceptable punishment would be as a beginning to strip the person from all material goods.
Maybe an international court similar to one we already have for war crimes could be a solution.

At the end. my environmentally conscientous behaviour is modest, I try to save water, energy, try to buy durable goods, avoid buyng plastic bags etc etc. My biggest sin is, that I did not cut down on travels. Anybody willing to throw the first stone?

Regards to all,

Albert

Thanks, Benjamin, Arun and Mario for reflecting upon the past, present and the possible future. Great we share the need to reflect.
It is also common now days as before, to reflect on the state of Humanity and come with solutions and models for diverting the “total extinction” course we have taken (?). Truthfulness is important when observing the trail we have found our selves on. As I choose to observe, we live in a total accidental manner. A question to be answered is : can one develop to a state where he or she are not governed by semi conscious behavior ? We can all observe that we act in contradiction to our knowledge.
It seems that in nature the same thing function differently on different levels, so to say, on a given level things can not be different than the way they are. Think of the different states water can manifest at. As Mr. A once pointed out – energy is needed for water to shift between states. Man can not act differently, walking through Life in a poor conscious state. All is left to accident and coincidence. The out come might turn to be in his favour, but as often, not. Looking at the results of the actions we take in our poor conscious level, one should not be disillusioned but only use that to understand the limitations that govern our present state. Acknowledgment and verification of the different states of consciousness is essential for further development. I think we do not develop as a whole but as individuals.
Upgrading our consciousness will open the possibility for Harmonious development for others too.
For many, the idea concerning the possibility of different levels of consciousness sounds odd, one can be conscious or not, with nothing in between, they might say- for them the gate is closed. They will stay in the imaginary sphere they cultivate day after day and no real change will ever take place.Sorry, no apps are available on iTunes.
Our energy should be used to shift from our semi-conscious state.
All the best to you all
shai

Hi all,

Thanks Benjamin for your summary answer to the question of whether we
have become better thinkers and implementers.

My immediate response was to wonder to what extent we, in our little
group, have taken actions that reflect our knowledge? How many have
implemented changes in their lifestyles?

Perhaps not as large or grand as our awareness is. The implementers in
us lag far behind the thinkers. Or not?

For our precious, wonderful planet the answer to both questions is an
unequivocal yes.
And certainly in comparison with those who have come before.

Most every movie going child and adult knows the wisdom in the
Buddhist thinking of ‘fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate and
hate leads to suffering.’ Only they would start with ‘Fear leads to
the dark side.’ as they quote Yoda in Star Wars.

Or the messages embedded in Avatar, Wall.E, Star Trek, maybe even 2001.

Since WW II we’ve increased food production and distribution capacity
enormously. These days there’s lots of fine tuning going on. For
example Carrefours and Sainsbury’s building supermarket networks in
India. Field to market spoilage of fruits & vegetables has
traditionally been 35-40%. Supply chain supermarkets reduce it to 5%
increasing enormously the availability of produce.

Supply chains, started during the war ensured that every American
soldier in Europe could be supplied with daily rations of M&M’s and
Coca Cola. One might argue the moral benefits and expense but the
point is that The Flying Tigers picked up on supply chains after the
war. Corporations like Macdonald’s refined and fine tuned them.

Assembly lines started with Springfield rifles and Chicago’s slaughter
houses. The Model T drove the ideas to incredible development.

We do these things as a matter of routine today. Increasing
implementation and penetration? Well perhaps a matter of precious
time.

Another cute idea is that no two countries both having Macdonald’s
have ever engaged in a conflict. Gotta check this one out, seems there
might be something to it.

Who will make the decisions necessary? Neither politicians nor
consumers seem to be likely candidates.

My hunch is that it will be corporate leaders and those close to them.
They are, on the whole, fairly smart, wise and powerful. Also more
spiritual than we think.

Not dictators perhaps but they certainly can influence our lifestyles
and the degrees of freedom we perceive ourselves as having.

Hmm, how to illustrate this? Mads Øvlivsen is an excellent example.
They are around although we hear mostly about the rapacious. That’s
what gets ink in a business driven media.

There are so many business leaders who go about doing mitzvahs and
working for the greater common good. Many more than we like to
think… a group think in and of itself, darn.
I’m not saying that Wrigley’s chewing gum or Toyota cars will do it. I
am saying they have a pretty good chance of trying.

Kids are readily influenced by the brilliance of marketing. Yes. But
there are also many bright kids who are not. I don’t think that pep
talked group thinkers are as prevalent as all that. Could be wrong
though.

For me the question is not of whether we think or implement better. We do.

The question is not whether we can solve what may fly into our faces.
The answer could be yes. It won’t be Cop 17, 18 or 19 but through
corporate initiatives.

Their efforts will be catalyzed and enhanced by the global cortex
we’ve built ourselves since ARPA put together the first internets and
the world wide web kicked in with html.

A fantastic invention this global cortex, it generates diversity and
is acted upon by selective forces that drive the development of the
social media among more profound things. Its been breathtaking in its’
takeovers & makeovers of our behaviors.

The question is more on the order of whether or not we can see
ourselves as a whole earth. Whether we can know and practice the idea
that whatever we do affects the rest of us.

The butterfly effect if you will. Or Rumi’s wonderful, ‘All know that
the drop becomes a part of the oceans. Few understand that the oceans
become a part of the drop.’

Will the sun rise or set on us? The answer, for now, is yes

Which yes?

Wonder, if you will, along with me, to what extent we, in our little
group, have taken actions that reflect our knowledge?

How many have implemented changes in their lifestyles?

Hugs,

Dear Arun
I appreciate your angle on things.
I always get suspicious, when I am presented with the notion that the past was better and the future bleak. Not so says I. Just a few decades ago we were on the brink of atomic annihilation, forests were suffering the consequences of acid rain and the seas around us were heavily polluted. Not so any more in western Europe. Wealth and education tend to clean things up. The rest of the world is fast catching up with us. Yes the world is changing, evolving. North African political change largely due to electronic and mobile communication and media.
Good leadership points the way, but transformation depends on the movement of the masses. Large well educated middle classes seems to help. Elitist leadership, the wise knowing best and leading the stupid masses invariably gets corrupted and fails.
Will humanity succeed in avoiding extinction in the coming centuries? I am pretty optimistic in spite of climate changes, tectonic upheavals, overpopulation etc. etc. Of course a large meteor may be on collision course with Earth this very moment. It was nice knowing you guys!

Like Benjamin I am convinced that our future lies in the stars, like Arun I am certain that science is necessary to get us there.
Mentally we are not capable evolving enough in time. Perhaps when we start interfacing with the coming generations of super computers. However that will probably create as much grief as joy and innovation. Did anyone see Terminator?
We may suffer, but we will persevere (I hope) and we may as well enjoy ourselves while we can.

Mario

This crucial question will be fully answered only if Homo sapiens can create and maintain a sustainable global civilization in essential areas like demography, economy, ecology and lifestyle and values or … if he fails. If we succeed, the answer is self evident; we have proven to be both good thinkers and executioners. If we fail-we are not just bad thinkers and executioners, but we risk bringing doom upon most of us.
All these elements-demography, economy, ecology and lifestyle and values- are interdependent and are unsustainable in our era. If we imagine that we can sustain a population of over 9 billion people in 2050, it implies much greater food production and safer distribution than we have today. Agriculture is one of the greatest pollutants in the world, causing many indirect deaths already now. Cheap energy is a precondition for transportation, distribution and fertilization of fields(oil` byproducts), but cheap energy is running out. And on top of all these, climate change will affect severely the output from agriculture through natural catastrophes like draughts, over flooding etc. So there is no way out of forcing population control and some kind restricted consumption in almost every material aspect, if we are to escape the “bottle neck” of oncoming catastrophes..
Have we become better thinkers, viewing this oncoming situation ´before the storm?`
Better education, nutrition and access to information support the contention that we have become better thinkers.
On the other hand:
- Pollution which affects our children and youngsters, massive brainwashing (BBB-bullshit baffles brains) pep talk and debilitating groupthink in the form of senseless consumption, self realization and political passivity among citizens (lack of political courage to change the current order).
- specialization(which often results that one cannot see the forest, focusing on the trees)
- and the immense growing numbers of people with emotional disturbances in the modern world- a condition which interferes with clear thinking,  as people use much energy on circular reflections, negative introjections and projections- lends support to the latter, that we have not become wiser and better thinkers.
Therefore the next 40 years will deliver the evidence of whether we were wise enough to resolve our entanglements or dumb enough as to doom most of ourselves. The trial is clear: Either we enforce sustainability or fail to do so with the inevitable consequences for Homo sapiens.

Mobil- 40767357

The ultimate meaning and purpose with new intelligent life, which will be wiser and more farsighted than us must be;
-To establish and maintain a sustainable environment regarding population, economy, ecology, lifestyle and other life forms.
-To work for the species` further evolvement and transcending of its physical and mental constraints. Homo sapiens brain has not evolved since the time, our forefathers roamed the African savanna, and it cannot go on like this since this duality we contain in our minds, of the beast and the human, will one day destroy us.
- To become creators and take on the journey; to “the stars with difficulties”.

7.Megalopsychia (The greatness of the spirit) can be attained by living up to the criteria`s of Life value; sustainability, evolvement and becoming Creators and thereby opens an escape door away from human oblivion.

8. ´The Jew` is the creator and bearer of ideas which bring intelligent beings further in their journey toward sustainable evolvement and the creation of more advanced civilizations. He introduces these ideas to perceptive and suitable people and energizes them to act on them.
9. The evolving Bustan and the three special instructions.
In a blooming Bustan, there are many different trees and one has to
water them. Trees need manure. There must be reasonable distance
between the trees; otherwise, they cannot get enough nourishment and sunlight and would wither. If you plant them very close, only the strongest will survive, and their fruits will be tasteless. In a Bustan, the gardener has to uproot the weeds all the time; otherwise, they would strangulate the trees. A good gardener would do this weeding all the time if he wished for a healthy and prosperous Bustan.
A gardener has to care for the trees, heal them if it can be done, but when there is no hope, he has to uproot them and plant new ones instead. This is important in order to keep a Bustan healthy and ever-evolving.
If a Bustan is to evolve, the first thing to do is to introduce into it new and better fruit trees all the time. As the science of genetics expands, entirely new trees will be available and the gardener will inhabit his Bustan with them.

The second thing is to use the insights of genetics, space travel and hibernation; to supply the trees or what can become a tree, nutrients and moisture that can sustain them without soil, bring them in suspended hibernation, wherever you wish to plant them, even on a spaceship on its way to new worlds where they will germinate.

The third and last thing is: A Bustan becomes ever evolving when the gardeners become the trees and the trees become the gardeners. It is imperative- that all the trees in it evolve as to become gardeners- in order to generate the fluid, mutable permanence state of creators.
10. The Last, Ultimate Hymn is the melody one hears upon mutating and becoming a Creator.
11. The fluid, mutable permanence is the state creators eventually achieve in order to secure the evolvement of intelligent life by averting and neutralizing the forces of randomness, entropy and atrophy.

12. Moria is the goddess of human folly.
She is the most cherished goddess of mankind and the best wired into their silly brains. She forms and maintains their frame of mind; self interest, ´the short term gain- the long term pain, the short term resurrection- the long term self destruction`, the confounding of wisdom by illusions and delusions and the derailing of sublime, evolving wisdom by replacing its aspiration for megalopsychia, with megalomania and monomania.

13.Random is the force of randomness and meaninglessness in Nature and in the Universe. In its most extreme expression, Random is the messenger of both chaos and entropy.

14. The Evolver is an intelligent life` force which promotes the paradigm of Megalopyschia in intelligent life: sustainability, evolvement and of becoming Creators. His motto is: Wisdom first appears, when our illusions disappear. For sublime wisdom on us to descend, Megalopsychia must first in us ascend!

15. The fusion of the Four and the creation of a new Creator: Only by fusing and forging together with folly, randomness, and the evolving force in us, fighting and opposing them, yet complementing and accommodating them, we can become Creators on our own right.

16.Exodus- The journey from one state of mind and reality ( often characterized by some kind of pacifying slavery) to new ones, which release the highest and noblest motives of intelligent life.

Haaretz -3.3.2011

“Every hour around the world 4000 people die of hunger and poor nutrition, of whom 700 are children, and in 2050 will die three billion people for these same reasons. In 15 years from now there will be no clean drinking water available for 50% of the global population,” said today the former dean of the Faculty Agriculture at the Hebrew University, Prof. Haim Rabinowitch. These facts and predictions were expressed by Rabinowitz in a special debate on the global food crisis, held in the international agricultural exhibition “Agro – Feedback”.

Professor Rabinowitz, who guided the discussion on global food crisis, added that in 20 years will the population between the Mediterranean Sea and Jordan count 17 million people, of whom 6 million Palestinians, and there will not be enough food for everyone.

Now, you may reject this grim assessment or be cautious about predicting the strain on food production 40 years from now, but you will be stupid not to take into consideration the state of current hunger in the world and the food shortage already visible today , with a population of 6.8 while the projections for 2050 are 9- 9.5 billions

In my view, about Homo sapiens is cursed by his inborn short sighted horizons, perspectives and overwhelming self interest. This makes it not just difficult to assess such a danger, but to face it appropriately as well.

We know four ways to change people either to the best or worse or to make them invest all their energies in a mental immutable suspension.
1) The personal experiences one is exposed to
2) The social, religious and ideological experiences, norms, values and habits of thinking one is exposed to.
3) Technological and scientific innovations and progress they are exposed to and which they acquire.
4) Impending necessities which force them to change their behavior.

I am not sure that these four agents of change- for good or worse- can save us- or most of us most of us-from the catastrophes which await us around the corner, in this century and the next one, due to our short sight and folly. I am not sure that we are far sighted and wise enough to deal adequately and preventive in regard to these threats, in the macro dimension of our lives, as the food crisis and water shortage and the prognosis of them consequences indicate.

Therefore I opt for a fifth engine for change directed on changing ourselves as Homo sapiens , as to face better the challenges in our macro reality , because I do not believe that the other four will save us from our folly and distortion of reality.
5) This engine of change constitute the transcendence of a group among us, away from the biological and mental limitations of Homo sapiens, as to make a new start and guide the remaining Homo sapiens into this direction; of sustainable evolvement of intelligent life.

Man thinks many things. He thinks he is One. He is usually several. Until he becomes One, he cannot have a fair idea of what he is at all.
—Samasi, Sufi master

People have always been fascinated by the workings of the mind. The human brain is the crown jewel of evolution—perhaps the most complex biological entity on the planet. Anatomically speaking, the brain is nothing more than a collection of interconnected nerve cells, a coordinating hub for the body’s electrical system. Yet these 100 billion neurons govern everything we do, from breathing to directing how we think and feel. These 1400 grams of wrinkled grey white matter holds the key to our consciousness, the way we think and feel, and the very same organ also oversees our physical selves.
Many people experience that the blessings of our human brain—our highly developed consciousness and self-awareness—also implicate many hardships, confusing choices, and even curses for us. Being aware of the way we humans are means running the risk of becoming burdened, even intimidated, by all we get to know or assume to know, anticipate, and fear. The simplicity so often envied in dogs or other animals does not fall natural to us. We are easy prey of human conceit, deception and self-deception, manipulation, and seduction. Many of us brood, contemplate, and doubt excessively, so we come to view life as very difficult and, as a result, often lose our focus, determination, and fighting spirits.
Yet the potential blessings of this brain—in the form of curiosity; our capacity to innovate, create, explore and our ability to exert a great deal of free will even to modify the way our brain functions and perceives the world—exceeds its frailties.
In this chapter, I present six grand mental programs—metaphorically, a kind of software—that operate in our brain and three driving motivators or drives—metaphorically, a kind of hardware—that energize our brain. These mental programs and drives are included in my MAPIL (meaning-attaining psychology for intelligent life), which I present in part 2 of this book.
Becoming aware of how these six mental programs color our view of life and determine our consciousness is very crucial if we are to exercise our free will at all. Although slavery has been banished from most countries in the world, most people are, in a mental sense, enslaved by some of these programs. It can be the fear of social exclusion that makes people sacrifice themselves and their health and act in ways I consider as institutionalized stupidity, without reflecting on why they do what they do. Excessive pleasure seeking, which is a mental program endowed in all of us, often results in reckless behavior and addiction and thus destroys the lives of many people. Our inclination to act obsessively, compulsively, and shortsightedly, which is another mental program operating within us, afflict and harm the lives of many millions of people.
In my practice and in my life, I encounter everyday people who command a very meager portion of their potential free will because of their enslavement to some of the following mental programs.

The six grand mental programs that operate in your brain are the following:

• Pleasure seeking and pain avoidance, which I in this book call the sirens of pleasure, borrowed from Odysseus’ travel

• The fight-flight circuit, which deals with fear and aggression

• Social dependency and the fear of social exclusion, which create and maintain groupthink

• Instinctual obsessive-compulsive behavior, which results in shortsightedness, short perspectives, and “tunnel vision”

• Incessant aspiration for transcendent meaning and significance. The mental program that emerged when Homo sapiens had, through evolution, gained his unique awareness of himself, the world, and his ultimate destiny—death

• The capacity to be creative, innovative, and engage in things ranging from the most trivial, petty, and insignificant to down-to-earth subjects and engulfing challenges as to become masters of our destiny

Pleasure Seeking and Pain Avoidance: The Sirens

Have you read or heard the beautiful story about Odysseus and the Sirens? In Greek mythology, the Sirens or Seirenes were sea nymphs who lived on the islands called Sirenum scopuli, which were surrounded by cliffs and rocks. Approaching sailors were drawn to them by their enchanting singing, causing them to sail into the cliffs and drown. They tempted sailors passing their islands to jump into the water because they sang so beautifully, making the sailors crazy with love and lust. Odysseus, knowing their treacherous nature and being very wise and shrewd, asked his sailors to fasten him to the ship’s mast and not let him free, even if he pleaded, before they had safely passed the Sirens’ islands. The sailors were ordered to stuff their ears with wax so they would not hear the Sirens’ singing or Odysseus’ pleadings or curses. Odysseus got intoxicated by their songs and pleaded his sailors to set him free, but they kept their word and refused. He survived the experience of being out of his mind of lust and passion through cunning, realizing that his free will to resist was not as strong as the ropes that fastened him to the mast.

Our yearning for the “sirens” is expressed in our desire to fulfill our lust, our fantasies and dreams of pleasures of all kinds, and it is a very strong motivating power indeed. It is so powerful that it can make people behave like “puppets on a string” and make many of us lose our senses by following our impulses to the point of shattering our own and other’s lives. In our time, more than in any other historical time, the voices of the sirens have grown dramatically in force. These voices invade all aspects of our lives because of mass information, infotainment, and the massive seductiveness that modern societies bombard us with—we call it the free market forces.
This mental program that can make us destroy the conditions of our own lives can be restrained in us only when we face the abyss or impending necessities backed up by massive pressure from huge masses of people. You will find more on this subject later in the book.

This mental program is probably the most powerful of them all, stronger than the aspiration for transcendental meaning (“the religious program”). No wonder that capitalism, whose base is this mental program that is so strong and vibrant regardless of its shortsighted and unsustainable character.

I once talked with a good man, about forty years old. He was blessed with a good health, great looks, good wife, three fine children, flourishing business, good and loyal friends, and lots of activities out in nature, which he cherished. But he was not content. He drank too much, brooded way too much on the meaning of life, and went to bed with other women. But even with this “underground” life, he kept being dissatisfied.
He desired all the “goodies” our modern time could offer and got almost all of them, but still he was not satisfied with his own life. Sounds familiar? Sure, because it is a description of contemporary middle class people. They are very often dissatisfied.
This man was dissatisfied for a quite obvious reason: He did not know who he was, what his priorities should be, and how a man becomes satisfied because the sirens’ incessant songs became his false guide most of his life. He did not know how to make choices, stick to them, and make the best of them. He had not developed the voice of self-determination, free will, and hard work bound to creating meaning because he grew up in an emotionally cold home.
Not experiencing being loved and nurtured, he did not trust and love himself and was not taught how to make decisions and commitments and stick to them. So even with all the gifts of “the good life” he was granted, adding to it promiscuity and heavy drinking in order to sedate his mind, he kept hearing a voice causing doubt and anxiety. “You must get all the pleasure you wish; otherwise, you are going to lose in the game of life. If you do not savor all these pleasures, you will regret it for the rest of your life” was the essence of this underlying voice—the voice of the sirens.

He said to me, “I want to feel fulfilled and at peace with myself!”
“How do you think you can reach this state of mind if you are consumed by the idea that life passes by without you being able to grab it? How does a person like you grab life?” I asked him.
“How do you grab life, Benjamin?” he echoed.
“By making priorities in my life, making choices, engaging myself in carrying them out, and thereby accepting that I cannot get all that I wish in the world. If I wish a good marriage and a loving wife, I cannot fuck around with other women even though the sirens [he knew what I meant by this] may try to seduce me. If I am to become of some help to you and others, I have to keep learning, being open, and absorbing. I have to be in good form and in mental balance. This is a priority for me. If I wish to write this book, I have to make some sacrifices in the time and energy I allocate to other interests. I cannot drink my brains away if I am to write something sensible for the readers. This is the principle of making priorities and getting committed and proactively engaged.”
“And messing around with other women is of no interest when you make these priorities?” he teased me.
“It is, but I made up my mind and this sensual distraction is not included in my choices. And you know why? Because it is for me the most accessible escape from my responsibility to my life and the world! Nature had built this immense drive into our brains, and becoming totally enslaved by this as so many people are make people forget that there is higher purposes in life and this . . . this is what it means to become mature and self-determined. This is, anyway, the first necessary step to learn how to be at peace with yourself.
Hopefully you will find out one day that your own narrow sphere and your own pleasures are far from being enough to bear a worthy life. If your life amounts to nothing but a hedonistic tour de force, you will keep suffering.
If you wish, on the other hand, to make your children thrive in this world, you have to invest your time and energy in them in a long, protracted, and life-affirming effort. If you want your partner to thrive, you have to do the same. If you wish to engage in endeavors that make a difference in this world, it implies long, enduring, and protracted efforts where your impulses and instant gratification are not first priority. Through this engagement in others and hard work to benefit others than yourself, you may come to experience “flow” in your life. You may become, at least partly, free of doubt and anxiety by viewing your life as something greater than your narrow impulses and ordinary existence.
“What am I supposed to do?” he asked.

“You can start by making your own priorities, but not in an infantile manner, like “I want all the candies in the glass.” You cannot get them all, only some, but becoming content with some of them is a good start. It is a universal truism: when you choose something, you exclude something at the same time. It is not that hard once you understand the long-lasting benefit of doing just this. Not choosing at all, or attempting at choosing all, destroys us.
So my question to you is, Why do you need three lovers when you have your three children and a lovely wife? Is it not an addiction? Drinking excessively is addiction too. Not having faith in something without raising questions and doubts is also an addiction. Addictions destroy you!
Addiction is the opposite of choosing, excluding, and making priorities, of being self-determined and having a free will. Addiction is when the choice one has made disqualifies itself by destroying him and inflicting suffering on his environment.
I told him that having three lovers is a very time-consuming task, including the amount of energy and lying demanded to cover himself up. I told him that as long as he “chose” his “addiction,” he could not find time and energy for other significant commitments that might make him more satisfied. He retorted that he could not let go of these girls and his lifestyle.

“Well, it is up to you,” I said to him. “I cannot help you with your pursuit for a better life if you wish to be loyal to your addictions and thereby avoid making priorities and choices. Choosing to destroy your liver, shortening your life, and risking not seeing your children grow up is not exactly what gives people peace of mind and the lifestyle you insist on. This is not the focus of my work.”

This was in fact a discrete threat or “choose the right path or quit” if you wish.

“You could choose to go to bed with all the women you wish and who are available to you, but you have to accept this as your choice—and the price tag of it! The problem you have presented to me shows that you do not accept it and you dread the consequences of your lifestyle. Well, when you pull yourself together and become a man who makes priorities and choices of the right kind, not as an addiction, you can call me again.”

A month later on, when he came to see me in my office, he was very cheerful. He had stopped drinking and had told the three lovers that he was out of business. And he felt great about it. “What had happened to me?” he asked me. “Well,” I said, “you became a grown-up man, that is what happened to you. For years and years, your greed, lust, and anxiety over losing something essential in life forced you to dance this destructive dance. Now, it seems that you are the one who navigates your own life and determines your own choices and preferences. That is what happened to you.”

More than five years have passed and he has done very well ever since. This true story reflects how countless people in our time are being brainwashed by the sirens of our society: our pseudo psychological, commercial, and entertainment industry that whispers in their ears, “Grasp the moment! Do not let an opportunity pass by! Fulfill all your desires.” In a confusing, desperate pursuit for an elusive happiness and fulfilled living, people become more and more disoriented and unhappy.

You may already have identified the sirens: They tell you that the main purpose of your life is to indulge yourself (eat, drink, shop, and fuck), invest in your personal growth and development through self-realization (which is, for the most part, nothing more than self-preoccupation), and pursue happiness! The pursuit of happiness is an absurdity as it is logically impossible. Happiness is a transitory state; it is a by-product of genuine involvement and engagement, and it comes when it comes, not by command. The obsessive attitude of Westerners to pursue happiness and self-realization brings often forward its negation: mental misery and doubt. That is why you see so many people in a constant search for the ultimate love, sex, excitement, drugs, booze, and attention, without ever becoming content or fulfilled.

The songs of the sirens can also play a role in our religious devotion, although most people may consider this mental process as working on a higher level than satiating our lust, greed, and pleasure hunger.
I view religious devotion as partly based on relief from pain, misery, frustration, and meaninglessness. It grants the believer the transcendental meaning and significance and some sort of imagined immortality. Holding at bay the fear from the existential void and generating ecstasy and human bonding through ritual and prayer elicit feelings of pleasure and joy. This, granting us pleasures, I suspect is why religion is so effective in forming or affecting our minds.
The power of the sirens is based on our tendency to regress into infantile pleasure seeking, to seek immediate satisfactions and pleasures, and keep away from pursuits that demand protracted efforts. The sirens disqualify everything that implies “sweat, blood, and hardship”—unless it concerns making money. Our time “sirens” are constantly targeting the primitive logic of our limbic system, which cannot postpone its gratifications or resist immediate temptations. The logic of the limbic system says, “You are restless so you need some specific gratification. Go on a spree of eating, drinking, shopping, gambling, erotic explorations, drug trips, or whatever as to stop your restlessness. Our limbic system does all it can, in our modern-day safe life, to flee away from boredom, restlessness, and meaninglessness. Our self-indulgent culture shows that it does quite well indeed.

In the following chapters, this powerful mental program will manifest itself time and again in different disguises. Watch out for it!

Do you know how does the rule of the Spinning Carousel affect people? It does so by offering them some kind of ´cotton candy`, ´fortune tellers` amusement and music, so they can be freed of their mental encasement. It offers them the hypnotic of rituals or the thrill of ´faster –faster motion´, Hazy horizons, diminishing perspectives and strong sensations and nausea, all wrapped up in some kind of festivities. The Spinning Carousal always precedes, when it becomes a political instrument to control people, the Babel Tower Cacophony, which can result in suffering and eventually humanity` doom.
Jacque Brel, described this in his famous song; ´Carousel`.
Carnivals and cotton candy
Carousels and calliopes
Fortune-tellers in glass cases
We will always remember these
Merry-go-rounds quickly turning
Quickly turning for you and me
And the whole world madly turning
Turning, turning ’till you can’t see
We’re on a carousel
A crazy carousel
And now we go around
Again we go around
And now we spin around
We’re high above the ground
And down again around
And up again around
So high above the ground
We feel we’ve got to yell
We’re on a carousel
A crazy carousel
We’re on a ferris wheel
A crazy ferris wheel
A wheel within a wheel
And suddenly we feel
The stars begin to reel
And down again around
And up again around
And up again around
So high above the ground
We feel we’ve got to yell
We’re on a carousel
A crazy carousel…
The mantra of modern society is:
Faster -faster, overwhelming and ceaseless floods of actuality, triviality, banality enveloping us, sent by our cherished and stupefying mass media. And the ever playing music we are exposed to and bite oriented communications we absorb and send out, form slowly but surely our minds. The shorter the range of our attention, the shallower the depth of our reflections become, the shorter our horizons and perspectives, the dumber and more fragile we become. And in fact, when you look at the American society- which has spread in the world this ´faster –faster`, Cotton candy and Carousal culture, it seems to develops backwards regarding its educational level and… yes, intelligence and overview.
The other culprit: Us
The carousel is spinning around, our focus fades away, but we won´t stop the carousel, since we wish to be entertained, to become for a while just a may fly, engulfed by the shiny moment, which goes on and on. We won´t stop the carousal, because we wish to escape our own mental encasement and our tyrannical habitual thinking and convictions, our dung beetle` perspectives, We keep on spinning because we wish to come away from our own disturbing , merry –go -round focus, to lock out the lingering feelings of ´what is it all about?`
Who are the masters of the Carousal?
Every insightful caretaker of ideological- political or religious system knows that in order to make people follow their conviction, they have to promise them some personal significance which transcends daily life, and since this promise is but a fake, an accepted social lie, they have to create another framework to either enforce it, like rituals in religion, the glory of the heroes against enemies or, in our case, the promise of Disney land, which makes our insignificant life, bearable.
The activators of the carousal are the masters of mass societies, and they won´t stop either, because if they do, they will expose the lie of the carousal. On the carousal, with its hazy horizons their talk about your potential self realization, of your uniqueness sounds so right and enticing, but it is a lie. We can´t achieve neither the first one nor the second, because we are sandy corns in a mass society and these goals are not achievable for most individuals. Only in the framework of collective projects which promote a great cause for humanity, we can become unique.
So here we are, on the Spinning Carousel of modern life, being entertained, forgetting that we are conditioned dung beetles, absorbed by the exhilarating, nauseated motion, which goes faster and faster. You become dumber, your world becomes Babylon tower, but that feels real swell…

 Homo sapiens, who existed some 200,000 years, and was preceded by other Homo`s, is- in my view- on his way out of the historical arena, within 10,000 years. Our guest free, inhabitable Earth, will become lifeless and sterile one day. What we can learn of this disheartening insight? Only one essential thing; That this transformative process of destruction and new beginning is, in itself, not safeguarded from the same iron rule, and unless we – transcended, and within this transformative process, succeed in building enduring civilization and projects, in utter defiance of this rule- will all what we worked and lived for be doomed to oblivion. The fluid, mutable permanence is the state creators eventually achieve in order to secure the evolvement of intelligent life by averting and neutralizing the forces of randomness, entropy and atrophy.

This is the kernel of my paradigm.

What I am to become:

If I am to become a servile servant of God,

How good are my odds to find an evolving road?

If I am to pursue mammon and greed,

will they always misfortune breed?

If I am to choose the dung beetle` role,

Sustaining myself on my dung balls,

what kind of mission, will nurture my soul?

If I am to become a flurry May fly,

unaware that tomorrow I am going to die,

how will I manage the ´what for` and ´why?

If I am to become a comfort seeker,

why my sweet life becomes  bitter?

Or I can become a love seeker!

Alas, I became to an illusion worshipper.

I chose to become ´foolish` visionary,

Rather an evolving one than evolutionary,

because of all choices , it´s the least scary.