Listen to all sources

It is human nature to seek and repeat things that support our view of the world. It is also human nature to ignore things that are counter to our view. Usually this is a subconscious decision.

I highly suggest this episode of "Hacking Your Mind" on PBS. https://www.pbs.org/video/us-vs-them-2t0c0s/

When this becomes active and a conscious effort, we lose connection to the whole truth and block any movement to purple. We lean more to being right or affixing blame than trying to fix problems in the dynamics that divide us. We seek to protect our view over acknowledging the truth. If we value the sovereignty of the individual, but refuse to listen to information that is counter to our view, we not only devalue anyone who listens to or accepts such information, but we place association with a group over our own truest self and act counter to our belief about the sovereignty of the individual. The first step in finding your unique and truest self is to push your limits and seek what the universe offers you and find whatever enlightens you. Peel off the façade of self-image and find the beauty that lays behind it. You are unique. To be your truest and most unique self you must create a life lens that looks beyond the lens of the group you relate to. Otherwise you are simply one of the marbles in a jar. You can not create your truest life lens un less you become aware of your filters. One of the better ways to become aware of your filters is to listen to divergent opinions and sources of information WITH AN OPEN MIND. We you react to a divergent opinion of information, ask yourself why you are having that reaction. See if you can debate against the reaction versus defending it. In the process you might see what your filters are and then decide to change them to more inclusive.

When I described the journey to purple I talked about how everyone feels they are right. Our experience has each of us seeing things differently, sometimes on a conscious and sometimes of a subconscious level. We also see different things. We only see the reality we allow ourselves to see and think it is the only truth. This is the mind's way of protecting the self-image. There is a test you can see online that shows how we visually can not see something that is there. It can also be a tool to help us understand the lack of a complete view of the truth we have in developing our life vision. A group of people, some wearing white shirts and some wearing black shirts form a circle. There are equal amounts of white shirts and black shirts. One has a basketball. As they pass it around you are asked to count the times a person wearing a white shirt (or black shirt) touches the ball. Then you give your number. Then you are asked to look at the video again, but this time don't count, just observe. After a short time a person in a gorilla costume walks into the center of the circle, stops and waves, then exists the circle. It is the same video. A majority of the people do not see the gorilla the first time. When you limit your focus you see only what you want to see. If you just sat back and observed and exposed yourself to opposing sources of information, you might not only see the gorilla, but find your own truth.

Question: What do you have to lose if you listen to counter information and opinions?

It is a waste of time ____

It can solidify my opinion ___

Nothing ___

I may find places where I see the world differently and can gain a deeper understanding ____

Here is something I wrote about the power of being yourself ( Warning. This maybe a little "out there" for many of you):

There is a theory in the consumer electronics and stereo industry that says different frequencies of sound, notes, if given the choice will naturally choose different gauges of wire to travel down: The higher the note the thinner the wire. The more closely the gauge of the wire matches the frequency of the note, the clearer the sound that comes out the end of a speaker wire or inter-connect, or recording cable. If there is only one gauge available, say very thick, the base notes become very clear, but higher frequencies are muddled and lose some of their “musical quality”. Ambient information, subtle background music, is reduced. Staging, the 3D effect that allows you to picture where people and instruments are on the stage, right/left, forward/back, as though you were there live, is diminished. If the wire is thin, base is lost as well as once again the ambient information and staging. A wire or cable that is constructed with many gauges of wire creates another problem. While the different notes are drawn to the closest matching gauge of wire, the thinner the gauge the faster the sound moves, so you’d have the higher frequencies arriving at the end of the cable ahead of the lower frequencies and the sound would be distorted. The answer is to wrap the thinner wire around a thick straight wire. The thinner the wire, the more wrappings, so the higher the frequency, the longer the distance the note travels. If the wrappings are correct, the music arrives in tact at the end of the wire as it was in the beginning with all the frequencies living their full potential, all the beauty of the ambient information present, the staging clear and living, and the manifest sound exactly the same experience as the live creation. In other words, the perfect path for one note might be more circuitous than it is for another. This holds true, only because the notes follow physical laws and select the correct wire to travel down. The notes do not have free choice. Now what if God wrote music, and we are the notes? What if what we call destiny was a perfectly constructed cable that will leads us from thought in spirit to manifest music in the world? Picture it as the path our lives take in bringing the music in our spirits to the human experience of the world. But unlike the electronic musical notes above, we are given free choice to choose whatever gauge of wire we want. While we may be a musical note in God’s mind, and there is a wire or path uniquely and perfectly created for us, we are free to choose to ignore it and travel another, and in so doing, lessen the music of life. Knowing which wire is best for us might be as easy as being consciously connected to Spirit and listening to our memory. Guided by the joy of connection and the resultant clear and harmonious sound of our music, we are drawn to the correct wire. But because of our free choice, many of us might choose wires we see as more popular, or the choice of notes we see as more beautiful, or because it is a choice we learned from others we simply play follow the leader? We choose what we think we should and not what we know we must. In that choice, the music God wrote loses some of its life and comes out the end of the wire and into the world, less beautiful than it was written; some music replaced by noise. There are things in the world that make us sad. Maybe they are the result of notes simply choosing wires that are not true to their unique musical quality? One note arriving too soon or too late: The high note of a flute out of phase with the deep rich base note from the cello, the symbols clashing too soon, the tempo slightly off, the orchestra not quite operating together as one. We experience this noise as war, hunger, lack of compassion, divisiveness and pain that comes from a disconnect from the music and beauty that is us… the beauty that is life. What if we take this idea further and see that God the Writer gives the musicians, the very notes themselves, free reign to add their uniqueness to the music, to improvise, to create. But for all of it to fit together, to create beautiful music, the notes must follow the rules of music and harmony and tempo. There is not only the choice of wires or paths to bring the music of our spirits to manifestation, but the ability to create beautiful music by living in harmony with the note we are.. .or to create noise through the disharmony of trying to be something else, no matter the "goodness" of our intent. Imagine being free to create music, to add riffs and harmony, and fit into the symphony of life in as many ways as you can think. You can be the vibration of the string of a Stradivarius, the wind though a trumpet, the ring of a triangle. It is all your choice. There are more choices than you can count that are true to the note that is you as an individual expression of God. But there are also choices you can make that are not in harmony, again no matter the "goodness" of your intent. Now, what if you chose to be consciously connected and aware of the note that resonates inside you, and felt and heard the notes in all you came in contact with, and allowed your choices to be led by the joy of that connection to yourself, and to others, so that the music you created drew others to listen. Its beauty called out so that more and more people were drawn to their truest wire or path and hear the beauty of the musical note that vibrates inside of them? Imagine that. The sound of your music drawing more and more people to become conscious, to remember, so that more and more listened and created music moving along the path to manifestation…a snowball of abundantly credible sound, growing louder and louder, its vibrations calling to the music in every spirit, the sound of rain on the roof, a fire’s crackle, a stream rushing over the rocky river bed, the crash of an ocean wave, a child’s laugh, the darkness leaving a room in a swoosh as it is brightened by a smile, all in harmony, all coming together in one symphony that resonates to the deepest place of every creature. Imagine relationships, soul mates, as notes coming together to form harmonious cords. Every moment, every one we came in contact with as a chance to jam. Each note maintaining its uniqueness as well as its path or wire, but still joining together to create more and more music and bring it from mind to ear, thought to realization.: Each combination making more music than existed before, adding richness and depth, and wondrous possibility. Can you see where if some critical mass is reached, some mass where the music is so beautiful, that all the learned choices and "shoulds" fall away, all the desire to choose a wire because everyone else seems to be choosing it drifts from thought, and the most beautiful wire to each of us is the one created for us, the one that fits us, the most beautiful note is ours and the most beautiful sound the ones we make together? What if the music of the world got to a place where the notes inside even those who never knew they had such magic inside them suddenly felt their own note begin to play along as though the vibrations of the music manifest in the world began to draw sound from their spirit like the wind across a chime. The sound of our music waking the music long forgotten in others. The awakening of the music feeding their hunger to be the note, the texture, and the sound that is uniquely and individually theirs, to turn their individual notes into wonderful harmonious chords, to create more music along with the notes that have awakened them. Could there be a greater power? What world leader could stand against such music? And if world leaders are manifest from the noise or music we create, what kind of world leader would arise if we chose to create this crescendo of harmony? How could the noise of a million rifles raised in disharmony be heard above a 100 , 200, 300, 500 million piece orchestra playing in creation with spirit? Our energy, the day to day life we lead, being true to ourselves, might be the most powerful force there is. Being true to our spirit, creates the energy, creates the music of the world and overcomes the noise. It has been said God did not create war. We did, and we must fix it. What if all it took to fix even war, to bring peace on earth, was being true to the beauty that is you? When enough of us notes make that decision….What a wonderful symphony we will hear, we will create, We will be. God’s symphony.

I don’t know if any of this holds truth… but I ask…what if?”

Question: Is any of your resistance to listening to information from sources that are counter to your view come from your feelings of "should" and/or desire to being part of a group you value? Does being labeled a good or bad person play a role?

Not at all. I know all I need to know _____

I'm not sure _____

Maybe a little _____ Yes ___

Question: Would forming your unique opinion be scary and hold the potential of others, whose opinion you value, seeing you in a negative light?

No. Nothing would change my opinion____

I'll go with the group I identify with no matter what ____

Possibly ____

Yes and it scares me ____

Yes but it is worth it _____

As you can see. I believe deeply that the most powerful thing you can be is your truest, most unique self. To discover who and what that is one must expose themselves to as many facets of the world as they can. To limit yourself to one source of information, one opinion, one view, one narrative, limits who you are and labels you. One things cults do is limit members access to information and or bash information that does not fit its teachings. It labels things as good or bad. Asking questions is akin to disloyalty,.. and disloyalty means you are a bad person. It is how they brainwash their members and distort their lens. Any cult positions its members as doing good work. Cults and revolutionaries all promise a better world and claim to be for the people and the end to injustice. Yet none of them seem to deliver. Still, their members believe in their group passionately. The French revolution, Stalin's revolution, the Cuban/ Castro revolution, had as their motivation an end to injustice as they tore down the existing government and symbols of that government. I am not saying anyone reading this blog is in a cult and at least most are probably not participating in a revolution ( more on that in a latter post) at least not knowingly. But it is important to remember no one in a cult ever saw themselves as in cult. Instead they feel they are part of a movement and protect their lens at all cost. If you limit your sources of information, you limit the view of your lens.

So why do I even talk about cults and revolutions? It is because the same tactics that are being used today in marketing and politics, are the same ones used by cults. ( See this on PBS https://www.pbs.org/video/us-vs-them-2t0c0s/). Let's take marketing. In blind taste tests Pepsi is chosen over Coke by a huge margin, even people who say they like Coke better chose Pepsi in blind tests. However, Coke outsells Pepsi by a huge margin. Even people who chose Pepsi over Coke in the blind test, still stay with Coke when they make a purchase decision. Why? Coke has done a better job of tying its product to your emotions and positive self image. When a person who says they like Coke outside the blind test take a sip of Coke, they are not tasting Coke, they in effect are tasting their emotions and support for their self-image. The job of a marketer is to get you to relate their product to a positive emotion of yours. While we think we are making rational purchasing decisions, our internal effort is to justify our decision to make it align with the connection it has to our emotions and self-image. We give up our sovereignty over our own life. Now let's look at politics. Most of us want to be good people and do the right thing. Yet, few of us really do an in depth analyses to determine what that right thing is or the ripple effect that comes with it. Instead we rely on the media and groups we socialize in to tell us what is right. We see our actions as good or evil, black and white based on the reaction of our group who all tend to rely on the same sources. We resist living in the grey. When we rely on one source of biased information with its spin, and sorting of information as to what we see and don't see, partial videos of events and inundation of a narrative, we become conditioned to accept its information as THE TRUTH. We put blinders on ourselves. We become like a cult or a revolutionary, blocking out anything contrary and instead follow the group think. To get to purple we not only need to value the sovereignty of the individual but must take back the sovereignty over our own lives.

If you only listen to CNN, MSNBC and the main stream media you think Trump said that white supremacist are fine people. If you listen to OAN etc. you get the full clip and might come to see that is not the case. If you listen to CNN etc. you might think Trump wants to only abolish Obamacare and take away pre-existing conditions and leave people without healthcare. If you listen to OAN etc. you might come to believe he wants to replace (versus just eliminate) Obamacare with something less expensive, with no co-pays and make coverage of pre-existing conditions the top priority. The CNN group shows Harris clutching her heart after a visit with Jacob Blake's family saying she just wanted to see if they were OK and what a wonderful amazing family they are. This positions her as a caring loving person and anglicizes the family while creating an implied demonetization of the cops. The OAN group sees it as photo opportunity to see her as a wonderful human and focuses on the view that Blake was accused of digitally raping a woman, violating a restraining order resisting arrest including not being subdued by a taser twice then entering a car (not in a way to get in and drive away) with kids in it, reaching for something and brandishing a knife, the cop tried to pull him out by the shirt but was unable to do so, before shooting. The car is suspected to not be registered to him and the cops were not aware the kids were his and some speculate their greatest concern was for the safety of the kids. Also his Dad sent out anti-Semitic posts on social media up to the night before the shooting. The OAN view positions Harris as a phony opportunist who supports bad people. The main view I feel should be the tragedy of a young man becoming parallelized without any affixing of blame before we have all the facts from both sides... The list goes on and on. I recently had someone refuse to listen to You- tubes of well spoken black people (some of whom say they are going to vote for Biden) that disagree with the current racial narrative and see flaws in BLM. Her reasoning was that they were appearing on right winged shows. The logic or evidence supporting their opinions did not matter. The truth is both sides in all these few examples can be true at the same time. The problem is that with all tragedies and issues of deep passionate emotions we seek answers to affix blame. It gives us a sense of control. We anglicize one side while demonizing the other. By choosing one side we position ourselves as saviors. Our outrage is a scream that says, 'See me. I am a good person'. This is the definition of fighting for more of the circle and gets us away from purple.

It is our one sided lens that allows two grown woman to pull a MAGA hat off a 5 year old and step on his hand when he tries to retrieve it, and still feel they were doing the right thing.

We have to also be aware that frequency plays a role in our "blinders". The more frequently and more often you hear one side of any issue, the more deeply you might associate with its message. It almost becomes a subconscious trigger of emotion. If you hear something often enough the mind tends to categorize it as truth even in the face of facts that say it is not so. Advertisers and politicians know that if you hear something three times in a relatively short period of time you tend to believe it. The goal of most media, and even entertainment sources, has changed through the years. If has moved from providing information, to telling you how you should think about the information. I had one person actually tell me that the reason both sides are not presented is that most people are not intelligent enough to understand the information and will come to the wrong conclusion, we have to protect them from themselves. Even if you look at TV, talk shows, and comedians, our minds can be stolen. People are presented in ways on TV and in movies that serve a narrative, and are designed to grab and connect to our emotions. Comedians present their own biased opinions in a way that infers certain other opinions are so ridiculous they are funny. Because there is some truth we laugh or react by laughing along with others. I often think that just because something is funny, that does not make it the truth. When I watch such programs I ask myself, how accurately does what is being presented compare to reality. We are inundated with biased opinions constantly from many directions that tell us how a good person should react. Remember, these sources do not view you as a customer. Your attention and emotions are their commodity which they sell to advertisers. Especially social media utilizes algorithms to sort what you see, knowing if they send you something you agree with, the more passionately the better, the greater your attention and the more they can sell to advertisers. The only way to overcome it and find your truth is to consciously seek out counter opinions and information, see why those sources feel the way they do, sort through their bias, and take sovereignty over your life.

How do we know if a source or narrative is biased or flawed? One way I have found helpful is to look for double standards or look for hypocrisy. When I hear an opinion on an event I ask myself, if the opposite was the case, would there still be agreement. Let's take a simple low emotional example first. A football player has a five year contract. He plays better than expected in year 3 and 4. He refuses to honor the 5th year unless he gets a new contract for more money that reflects his current performance. Now I look to see if the reverse would be OK. Let's say the same player has poor years in years 3 and 4. Would it be OK for the team to not honor year 5? Lets take something of more importance. Trump is blasted by the CNN group when he calls others degrading names, and rightfully so when not taken out of context. But when a black congress woman says all Trump supports are either racist or just plain stupid, you hear no judgement from CNN or expression about how that view divides us. OAN was all over it and down plays his derogatory comments about others. The CNN group is currently focused on how Trump initially downplayed the pandemic to avoid panic without equal focus on the things he put out in place prior ( More on this in a post specifically on COVID-19 and since Trump tested positive). For unspecified reasons they say if he had more urgency in his initial message it would have saved tens of thousands of lives ( remember he already started things like getting more respirators and stopping flights from countries with high infection rates to the objections of the same people who say he did not do enough). I ask if he had been more urgent and created a panic in his initial speeches on the subject, would that have been OK? I look at a comedy on TV where a black man gets out of prison and looks up his old girlfriend who is black. He hears there is a new man in her life. He finds her walking down the street as he hides behind a car. She walks up and kisses a white man. He says, "No not with a white man." If it had been reversed and it was a white man hiding behind the car and seeing his white wife go up and kiss a black man and said," No not with a black man." the show would have lost sponsors and been taken off the air. I often hear how the police should be focused on big issues and not harass petty criminals. Yet when a homeless man defecates on Pelosi's sidewalk in San Francisco and records and streams it, capital police are brought in and investigate the video, relay their findings to port police in SF who then pass it on to local police who then find and arrest the man, there is no comment on CNN about the huge use of law enforcement resources. The OAN group who push for law and order focused on what they perceive as Pelosi's hypocrisy and not on the quick protection of a public figure, thus ignoring their own hypocrisy. I encourage you to look for double standards and/or hypocrisy in any narrative or event that supports it. Then piece it together to find the truth for you in both and develop your own view and accept it even if it is a shade of grey.

Question: If you viewed a source with the opposite narrative to your view do you think you might find areas where you can say to yourself, 'That might have some truth' or even 'I don't agree but I can understand why someone might feel that way'?

No ___

Maybe ___

Yes ___

If no, why? __________________________________

Another thing that prevents us from seeking and considering information from alternative sources is our investment in being right. It seems strange to suggest, but watch the low level TV show "Maury". Ever notice that if a man is accused of cheating, whenever the woman accusing him of walks out she is applauded and when the man comes out he is booed. No no one knows if he is guilty or not yet. But sides have been chosen even though a significant percentage of the time the lie detector test proves he is innocent. Judgement has been passed. Now usually the test asks several questions. If the man passes the first one, the woman usually remains angry and says " That's one you have to pass ALL of them" and looks at him with anger and a sense of judgement in her eyes. My feeling is that she is not hoping he passes. There might be several reasons for this, and it is probably a combination of all of them:

1) She is invested in being right.

2) It would be embarrassing to be wrong in front of all these people.

3) She really wants out of the relationship.

Let's say you heard there was going to be a big breaking news story latter in the day that would be devastating to a national politician. Ask yourself how you would feel if you thought it might be against someone you admire:

1) You are sure it is not against that person because you are sure your person is perfect.

2) Hoping it is not against that person because it would hurt your causes.

3) Hoping it is not because it may show you are wrong about a lot of things.

4) Open to the truth so we can see things more clearly and move forward toward purple.

Ask yourself, what is my motivation. What is the world I want to live in. Are my actions in-line with what I want to see happen in the world. Do I think the end justifies the mean.

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