Dreamer’s World June 08 2017 – Preserving My Sanity

After a good night of sleep, I start my day with the resolve to not pay attention to the news still in place. The few glimpses that I have had offer nothing but a view of the desperation that those in power want us to feel as we go about our daily business. I am reminded of the image from George Orwell’s 1984 where the gray, nondescript workers trudge along performing their daily tasks without love or enthusiasm as a huge screen blares on and on about how important they supposedly are to some greater purpose that is never achieved. This bleak vision of the future, written nearly 70 years ago has come to pass.

    We are constantly being reminded that we are at WAR with some group of people that cannot be seen or identified. The “enemy” can change its name or location without any logic because that suits the purpose of those in power. Whenever the population starts to show a semblance of self-awareness, to realize that we are being duped and exploited, the enemy changes and the FEAR level is ramped even higher. There are people today who live in actual fear of their little piss-ant town being subjected to some type of global terror attack. This warped view proves that the propaganda is working. When enough people become too fearful of the world outside their own little micro-environment, those in power have won.

    I always find it interesting that those who live in FEAR the most are those who have never traveled, those who have never seen other countries or other cultures, those who have only the images of FEAR INC about the evil people that live “somewhere else”. They live in fear that those “others” are going to hurt them, and that their only defense is to keep them out at all costs. The town that I grew up in is one of those towns. People I knew growing up in my Kentucky hometown are now terrified and ready to be led by the nose like lambs to the slaughter. Those are the people who never ventured more than 200 miles from our hometown. They are trapped there and feel that it must be “someone else’s fault”. The people that I grew up with who, like myself, truly got away and have seen the world are all well-adjusted and informed, and I am happy for them.

    I have traveled to many parts of the nation and the world and it has left me with a sense of wonder at how great people are. It has also given me the perspective to see the sinister manipulation that has been used on those who never ventured outside their little protective cocoons. My sanity is preserved and nourished by my experiences, just as theirs is preserved and nourished by theirs. The difference is that my experiences have been much more varied and inclusive than theirs. So many of the people I grew up with have died young, those that never left the hometown. They sought solace for the vacuum in their lives through alcohol, or drugs, or religion yet so many of them are now gone forever. I look younger than most of the people I graduated high school with because I got away from there.

    My sanity is preserved because I carefully choose what to focus my attention on. The information age has its wonders, but it also has its dangers. We cannot allow ourselves to be so saturated with useless information that we lose sight of the bigger picture. The information overload is just another tool that those in power use to keep control, never forget that. The world is just as wonderful as it has always been, just don’t let all the negatives that are being forced upon you wash away that fact. The key to preserving my sanity is to be as happy as possible, go through the rough times, and then recover and keep moving forward.