Mirrors

We are constantly bombarded with information from the television, the internet, newspaper, text messages, etc. There is no way to escape it; we live in an age where information is essential to existence. However essential information is, we do not receive raw information. By this I mean, that when we get a piece of information it is usually censored or biased.

What is more amazing though is that the pieces of information that are usually tempered with are those concerning the larger collective and not the smaller ones. For example, a piece about a recent robbery will be given in full detail; how it happened, why it happened, what will happen next. But when a multimillionaire embezzles money there will be two sides to this story. One, in which the news are told in a way that lessen the impact of embezzlement; or two, in which the embezzler is chastised and tarnished. What is the difference here? In both cases, people were hurt. Why doesn’t the information get released similarly? That is something you must ask yourself as an individual. What do you want to hear?

This question is important to be asked because media networks have been constantly bombarded with allegations of bias. Now, these are all very valid, of course. Any news organization that covers a story and laces their opinion in it is bias. But, people have failed to look at the larger perspective of things; and to look at the spectrum correctly, the aforementioned question must be answered: what do you want to hear?

Organizations cater to niches. Their job in to supply to peoples demand. News organizations are a prime example of this.  Let’s analyze the big three American news organization: Fox News, CNN, MSNBC. It is common sense by now that Fox and MSNBC cater to conservatives and liberals, respectively, while CNN caters to a more-or-less center-left audience. To be fair, Fox and MSNBC both have bigots working for their corporation; while CNN doesn’t necessarily have bigots but bolster a roster full of nincompoops with idiosyncrasies that just doesn’t make sense. And that is exactly what they want; because it makes them money; because they know that there are people watching this.

Fox, CNN and MSNBC are mirrors of society. They wouldn’t have a niche if there weren’t people like them out there. No one would pay attention to O’Reilly if they really didn’t believe that “Muslims attacked us on 9/11” (as he said on the View in 08/14/2010). By the same token, no one would pay attention to Chris Matthews if they didn’t believe that the country needs to be saved from conservative sabotage. Finally, CNN wouldn’t discard new stories if they didn’t believe that their viewers don’t want to watch distressing ones. Basically, news organizations present what viewers want to watch and hear, not necessarily what they think.

It is fair to say the media is bias. It is unfair to say the media brainwashes people; or that their views have corrupted America. The media didn’t corrupt America; America corrupted America. The cancer is not the people; the cancer is the society.

Welcoming the Darkness

In the face of uncertainty, our bodies become afraid; we fear that the unknown will hurt us, consume us, replace us, etc. When our eyes cannot understand the picture that is in front of us we get anxious, the mind racing to try and figure out what it is that is out there. The input and output of the data is what creates fear.

Our eyes are always inputting data. Light enters the eye with encrypted images that are then in turn, decrypted by the brain, allowing us to process information. Vision is a primary sentence that we rely upon to make judgment. We fear darkness because we cannot process it; there is no way to understand it other than as complex, uncertain and dangerous.

We associate things that do not accord to our beliefs with the darkness. In religion, people associate the most evil and vile character to the darkness. As kids we are told of monsters that come out at night unless we are sleeping (many kids then prompting parents to get them night lights, for extra security). As teenagers we are told to stay away from dark alleys because we could get hurt by bandits.

If we look at the natural world, it is understandable why the darkness is feared. Many predators, like lions and hyenas in Africa, come out to hunt at night. When everyone and everything is vulnerable to attack: at night. In order to avoid such vulnerability we have created many systems of keeping ourselves alit. Metropolises have thousands upon thousands of streetlights and lampposts. We created highways to avoid the dark back-roads. We sleep with the TV on, etc. And while this may protect us from dangers, in reality, we are doing more danger to ourselves than to the uncertainty of darkness.

We have to look at ourselves as creative, yet laborious people. Our bodies are meant to do things; we use our physical energy to work. We build roads, teach people, cram hours and hours of classwork for a test, etc. Yet, we would not do any of these things if we weren’t creative. It is our creativity that makes us efficient workers because a stale mind leads to stale projects. And how do we get this creativity? We get it from sleeping.

Yes, a natural, simple process that rests our bodies and minds. But, this society has forgotten how to sleep. They are too worried about tomorrow’s work than the amount of sleep they will get. They rather go party nightly, have fun, and exhaust themselves without a break. All of this because we are afraid of the darkness; because we are afraid of what will happen to the world if we slept. Because we are afraid that by sleeping we will not make a difference in this world.

This kind of thinking keeps us awake at night—given other problems—and we become exhausted. We try to nap during the day; give the brain a break to no avail because daylight makes our brain process information. If man went to bed normally and slept eight hours, this would be a wonderful world. A person’s creativity and productivity peaks when they have slept eight hours than when they have slept four or five. And what allows rest? The darkness.

Nevertheless, over generations, we have made the darkness our mortal enemy. We are afraid of sleeping because we will get hurt during the darkness. Because we understand that the brain process all that it study during the day and we fear the moment we wake up. We fear that maybe we acted rudely towards someone and we feel arrogant; or that we missed our chance to speak up for ourselves and we feel like cowards.

The darkness doesn’t hurt. Fear of it does, however. We are more alert and awake during the night than the day; because during the day we are oblivious because we feel safe. We should not be alacritous during the night; because in reality, the darkness is your true protector.

Doubt and Intuition

Doubt and intuition are a powerful tools our minds created in order to protect itself and us. Doubt and intuition causes us to question our thinking and actions. Doubt is the, more or less, complex tool out of the two because aside from being a feeling, it is a verb; an action one takes when we are uncertain of the facts presented to us by reality. Doubt leads to logical solutions of problems, to creation of ideas and to the betterment of the mind. Intuition is the complete opposite of doubt. It is much simpler as it relies on “gut feeling” to solve the puzzles of reality; it can backlash against those who rely upon because a bad solution can lead to guilt. Intuition is a fallacy of the mind; a drug, if you will. It doesn’t necessarily give you the right answer—only a solution for the moment. Though, there have been cases in which intuition has solved puzzles eternally; those are called flukes because intuition does not rely on facts and logic rather it feeds on emotions and clouded minds. The question then is, why has the mind created two tools that are complete opposites?

The mind allows doubt and intuition because they allow us the benefit of humanity. If we lose our instincts we’d become automatons who look for an answer to everything. By the same token, if we lost the ability to question everything we’d be animals who only function on instinct. They complement each other. Neither is always correct but always wrong. This paradox arises from the fact that reality, our lives, provides us with puzzles that do not have a solution that can be answered by either. Why? Because in life there are things more important than the solution of problem. That is called perspective. Having perspective provides the mind new ways of looking at things.

There are four kinds of people in this world: 1). the kind that avoids all problems, 2). The kind that questions all problems, 3). The kind the attacks all the problems, 4). The kind that understands the problem. The first kind lacks complete perspective of society, the world, the universe and themselves. They exists for one simple fact, and that is to live. Usually these kinds of people do not care much about what happens and go with the flow. They’re not stupid, or unknowledgeable, rather, they just rather not worry about the problems. The second kind is the one that uses doubt whenever possible. They need to have an answer to everything before they can tackle the problem; all variables need to be accounted for. Forget trial and error, everything must be precise. These kind of people are the ones who lack human touch; they do not feel for others, even when trying to help them. They do not see the soul and, though, bright, cannot sympathize. The third kind are the ones who rely too much on intuition. They feel as if the problems they face are better to be tackled down when they originate than wait for the whole thing to come out. They rather solve traces of the problems, and forget about them without taking into consideration the root of the problem. They feel like they have to help everyone, and usually forget about helping themselves. The first three kind are the ones who lack perspective. The aforementioned perspective is the one that allows comprehension and the evolution of the mind: the fourth kind of person. They understand the problem in the sense that they can logically comprehend it and still make decisions laced with feelings. These are the kind of people who understands that sometimes the sacrifice of one person for the benefit of millions is more important than that life. They can be sturdy and hypocritical at times because they feel like they know the answer but must act like one of the first three kinds. The nature of the fourth person esteems from the fact that prior to transcending to a mind with perspective they had to go through one (or all) of the aforementioned three.

Doubt and intuition are the tools the mind created to evolve. The mind reacts to reality when stimulated; it gives reality a malleable nature. However, this is risky because once it begins to harden it is very hard to make it malleable again; that is why people can be pragmatic about things. Nevertheless, the combined effort of all the minds is what truly counts, and what will answer the secrets of our world.

I Remember

Image via Wikipedia

I remember when as a kid, I dreamed of going to the moon and taking my mom with me. That dream kept me going through elementary school. My daily life revolved around astronomy, mathematics and facts. I learned that the Earth is 93 million miles from the Sun. I also learned that Venus is the hottest planet on the Solar System even though Mercury is closer to the Sun. I learned about the Cold War and how technology exponentially grew over 50 years. My perspective on the world changed quickly after finding out all these facts about nature and space. Everything had an explanation

I remember when death was the noun of the verb die, and not a philosophical idea. That was when a family member would die and they would get buried three days later. I went to funerals and burials without any thought in regards to what happens after they die. After all, my age had not reached the “decade” yet. Everything was so much easier back then.

I remember when waking up meant having a light breakfast, usually a sandwich, with Hi-C juice and, sometimes, some coffee. It meant walking towards the kindergarten classroom in my yellow shirt and blue plants, carefree of everything. A little too carefree at times, actually, as I almost got run over by a car. Regardless, I didn’t have to care about anything; adults did that.

I remember when I was dying to grow up. To finally do grown up things. Have a job, go to college, raise a family. Having responsibilities and other people to look after. A white picket fence home in a random suburb where everyone dressed the same, smiled creepily similarly and owned the same car. Ala Cat in the Hat. Yeah, that would’ve been the life.

I remember how I still long for all of these things. I remember how I gave them up to grow up. I remember how they no longer hold a meaning but cling to my heart. I remember how I remember them. Seems like a lot of time wasted. It definitely was a lot of time wasted.

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