Celebrities don't have much interest for me, unless they are doing something worth having interest in, and I don't mean tax-dodging, power and influence veiling 'foundation-work'.

Few become famous unless media execs feel they can manipulate them. And BOY did they manipulate them. I am not supposed to take science and health advice from MD's and PhD's who dare to question and safeguard against corruption, but I am suppose to take if from the likes Ariana Grande and James Cordon. That's comical.

Maybe I am jaded, but I don't feel that way. I laugh and joke a lot and am often blissed out with nature. Other than film and long-form serial narrative, where a whole lot of nuance can be worked in, I am suspicious of anything the MSM promotes, left or right.

34 of 81

Intelligence does not end in opinions
Opinions lead to strife

Intelligence pursues understanding
Understanding leads to peace

Mastering others strengthens the ego
Understanding others strengthens all

The fear of losing
Is the fear of death

Death cannot be defeated
You make yourself foolish in the effort

Opinions are not riches
But impoverishments
Let them go

Realize you have enough
Realize you are enough
Embrace what comes and prosper

Yes, I know I am continually expressing opinions on my learning journey but trust me, I am also thankful when I let one go that does not serve my contentment. There is some real freedom for you.

The mainstream media more like the MAINSTREAM MAFIA.

It seeks to control you and not strengthen you, weigh you down to a side and with virtue-based opinions, and now with social media keep you in line with the ever-present threat of public shaming and cancelling; and if you like to be part of this kind of thing, give you a scapegoat to take out your anger and frustration that you might otherwise aim their way.

Seeing the president of Brazil whip off his mask and lambaste a member of the media, opened my eyes to something.

https://twitter.com/LegendaryEnergy/status/1419544092787105794

- LegendaryEnergy

They haven't just manipulated the people but have hamstrung and manipulated our politicians and prevented those would do good from doing it. He who controls the flow of information really does control the world.

I personally offer full amnesty to any politician or jouranlist who is willing to try to turn this thing around.

I understand how they got you; I doubt it would have been any different for me in your position.

          

We need to be very suspicious of myth and narrative (especially those in a position of power) and spend more time unpacking them then spreading them. There are lessons to be learned but not a world to be recreated within them. Language and translation, artistic expression, can make an everyday mundane event seem mythical.

I do wonder sometimes how my own poetry is received. In literal literal land, I imagine it sounds pretty nutty. Forgive me, I enjoy a good enigma.

Time, ignorance, and a lack of understanding that we should be interpreting and not believing or rejecting turns myth and narrative into something that is then fought over.

I have a Russian friend. (He is not a spy or an operative to my knowledge. LOL.) He explains his understanding of the world in what to me seems like fanciful terms, magical-like, and so I tend to initially reject what he has said. I share my understanding in more scientific terms, and he rejects what I say. A day or two later, my mind processes what he has said into something more psychological and I go ... okay, now I understand what he meant.

The movie Arrival covers this rather well. The structure of language dictates a great deal how we see and describe the world. Again pointing to the importance of listening and interpreting and not simply believing or rejecting.

There is real beauty and love in the world; we know this; myth and narrative require contrast, protagonists, and antagonists, and as such they do not offer lasting contentment if you attach to strongly to any one of them.

Understanding and our ability to incorporate more nuance can develop indefinitely, but if we insist on concrete meaning, we are likely to engage in cognitive shortcuts and become incredibly easy to fool.

39

It is known even with the material
There is more space than matter

With opinion …
There is only space
No matter

Grasp at concepts
Power, fame, virtue

Hold onto opinions
Ideas and ideologies

Raise an arm for ritual
Get a taut fist full of nothing

There is the Tao
There is faith
Then there is kindness
Then there is virtue
Next comes morality
Then comes ideology and ritual

The master cares naught for opinion
The master cares naught for power and fame
She holds onto no illusion of thought
After they have served their purpose
She lets them go to the ether

The proper place for phantoms

The master raises her sleeves
Not her fists

Go ahead and share your opinions; my mind is changeable.

***

Words and Images are my own.

Click on any title below to further explore and support my writing.