~ne1   info   code   vaults

Welcome to my bits of info!

[ Status: Under construction!!! But in the meantime: check out my fakebook page. ]

The goal behind this part is to distill simple but important truths in a short-and-sweet format.
(Fuck big data! This is my "small data" to combat big data.)

#meditation is by far the most powerful magic spell that is immediately available to all of us.

Deceptively simple. Infinitely practical.

There are different types of meditation, but I'm talking about the type of meditation that means focusing your attention. Focusing your attention on your attention. Paying attention to what you're paying attention to. This way you can develop more self-awareness by observing your own habitual reactions.

Simply focus your attention on a single point, and do your best to stay focused. Imagine a tiny dot in the distance that you are focusing on, or even stare at a dot on the wall, or stare at the tippy-top of a tree in the distance. I like to close my eyes and imagine I'm straining my eyes to focus on a tiny island in the distance that represents "enlightenment". It cannot be attained, as a permanent state, for all things are impermanent, but the longer you stay focused on that island the closer you get.

Now, srsly try not to think.

Of course, your mind is like a wild elephant, and you're just the little human on top trying to tame it, so chances are you will have trouble focusing on not thinking, and thoughts will inevitably arise. This doesn't mean you're "not meditating" or "failing". This is exactly what meditation is like for everyone. It's only frustrating if you think there is something you're trying to attain. Some goal that is out of reach. But when you realize that the ongoing struggle of trying to focus your attention is all that meditation is, you'll be quite pleased with yourself when you manage to sit there and do nothing but observe your thoughts for ten minutes. You just meditated for ten minutes!

This pause gives you time to consider whether you even approve of your own habitual reactions, and as your awareness expands you find you have more and more space to alter those habits.

"By focusing our attention, we are wrestling our attention away from all the bullshit trying to monopolize and monetize our attention, we give our minds time to reset, we let all the capacitors lose their charge, and we allow our harddrives time to defrag."

As your thoughts continue to come, don't identify with your thoughts, just acknowledge them, label them "thought", and let them go. Remember, these are not your thoughts, they are the thoughts of the world temporarily residing in your mind before taking a turn elsewhere. Do not judge yourself for your thoughts, just acknowledge them, let them pass, and return your focus to that single point. The longer you do this, the less frequent your hectic thoughts will become, and you will begin to tap into an invisible inner confidence and begin to develop a calm, wise mind. And when you've recently defragged your mind in this manner, you'll also notice that your thoughts become more important, more profound, and less frivolous and superficial. This sort of clarity of mind cannot be attained through exerting your will, but by letting go of control.


#RRFM or "Really Really Free Market" is a gathering where goods and services are given freely, according to a pay-it-forward ethic.
#groupthink magic.

Did you know you can create events which manifest ongoing, self-sustaining situations where people are shaped by their environment to interact with each other in a more harmonious way than they normally do?

A "Really Really Free Market" is just one example of that. It's a place where people gather and give things away to each other or offer services to each other for free. It's like a community potluck, except giving/sharing/helping in any and every kind of way instead of just bringing food.

To accomplish this took a lot of persistence. For me personally, it helped a LOT that I had one friend just as interested in making this happen as I was. Then we spent weeks and weeks flyering, advertising online, on craigslist, meetup.com, and mentioning it to anyone who might be interested. Weeks and weeks. Months, in fact. Finally, one person showed up. This boosted our faith, and we started flyering even more aggressively! We flyered in coffee shops, and on grocery store bulletin boards, and at libraries, and continued advertising online, and slowly but surely more and more people started showing up! Just a few weeks after our first person showed up, the RRFM had taken on a life of it's own! Bands showed up to play, people brought fruit from their fruit trees, people brought stuff they wanted to get rid of from their garage, and there were a ton of people just milling about, chatting, sharing food, and enjoying the good vibes!

This event attained immortality because I was careful to never claim credit, and tried to avoid the idea that me and my friend were the ones "putting it on". In fact, once it was clear it could continue happening on it's own, I skipped to the next town for my next project. I think it was important that it never had a central figure, so that it could self-organize, and could never be stopped by whether or not we had a permit, because there was no official organizer to accuse of organizing the event without a permit. Yet, everyone just keeps showing up!

I also never put a specific date on any of the flyers. It only said "every first sunday of the month" or some such vague date, so that it would start to happen on it's own every month. And so it did.... for many years now!!

The most powerful thing that struck me about this experience was that such a force of joy and community could be unleashed with nothing more than faith, and the persistence that follows faith. With that, and whatever amount we spent on flyers, we created a momentary glimpse into a world without money. A felt experience of what life outside of capitalism feels like.

(If I find it, I'll post a flyer for it here...)

#cogD or "cognitive dissonance" is the tension we feel when our actions are out of line with our beliefs.

As psycho-spiritual entities capable of such abstract thinking, in a way it's a beautiful thing that it causes great tension in our minds when we act against our personal beliefs. However, our personal beliefs aren't always so smart, either, and can be shaped by many things. Religion. Family. Government schooling. Marketing, propaganda, indoctrination into a certain tribe/gang/cult... So, yes, it's a beautiful thing, in theory. But only if our minds are given space to meander, to question, to explore, to grow...


#groupthink refers to the way our ideas are shaped by social context.

#mindprison is anything that keeps us mentally enslaved.

Mind control and brainwashing have been depicted in many ways, but rarely realistically. In movies, mind control might mean directly controlling someone, and making them do something you want them to do. In reality, mind control is used to control people en masse, by taking advantage of some certain aspects of #groupthink, and is as commonplace as marketing. We can't even tell it's happening, because it's happening to everyone all around us at the same time. "Times change", as they say, and make no mistake: there are plenty of people behind the curtain, pulling strings to decide just how these times are going to change...

A "mind prison" sounds like an extreme case of psychological control, such as how North Korea has been portrayed, or like what happens in cults such as Jonestown. But because of how the human mind works, mind prisons have a habit of manifesting on a regular basis, even without external influence. Which is why a healthy mind requires some sort of ritual for periodically breaking down your mind prisons. Such as #meditation.

These mind prisons are basically a result of the entangled nature of #cogD, and the way our minds desperately try to cobble together a narrative that preserves our self-image. Because it causes the tension of #cogD whenever our actions are out of line with our beliefs, we are forced to change either our actions, our beliefs, or both, in some way that relieves that tension. Which means, for instance, we might do the "wrong" thing, and then change our beliefs instead of our actions to convince ourselves it wasn't wrong, rather than go through all the work to change how we act. Now our identity is staked on never admitting this was wrong, and this altered belief system will continue to inform our actions from then on. Mind prison.

What we believe is incredibly important. It shapes the way we see the world. #confirmationbias funnels our view of reality through the filters of our beliefs. Our beliefs shape the long-term direction of our lives, as well as our everyday actions. We experience our beliefs as very personal, and we tend to think of our beliefs as something that makes us who we are. But as much as our beliefs shape us, our beliefs can be shaped as well. Which means we can be shaped. Beware the types of lies you get funneled into, and how they have the ability to shape you.

In one of it's most tragic forms, this can look like a "good cop" turning into a "bad cop" after their first murder on the job. If they consider all the factors that lead to this happening, they might feel like they had been pressured into it, or that their training had failed them in the heat of the moment. But because of the environment they work in, in which all-too-often people earn promotions for murder, they may instead convince themselves this was perfectly acceptable - perhaps even commendable. This may help them cope with what they've done, in some small way, but at what cost? Because now that mind prison has formed, their belief system has a little more gray area in it when it comes to murder, and they may be that much more likely to murder again.

PLEASE check out the #mindmap section below, I worked hard on this to try and illustrate exactly how this works. This can help you create a mindmap for your own mind, and help disentangle you from your own mind prisons. Or at least expose them for what they are, so you know where you stand ;)



While intelligence agencies go out of their way to imagine that the decentralized fury of the populace is somehow a small number of well-organized groups, people are endlessly falling for the illusion that we are disconnected. We are disconnected, yet there is something that connects us that goes beyond direct lines of communication. Meanwhile, we are endlessly fooled into thinking that all of the horrors of the $y$tem in which we feel trapped are somehow unrelated coincidences, so we don't know what to do about them. I think it's time we imagine the ongoing processes and pressures of the $y$tem as one interconnected conspiracy just as it has imagined of us. It's time to truly identify what's going on. They want us to think Anonymous is Russia. They want us to think all acts of resistance to tyranny are "terrorism". They want us to think that all their moves are somehow unrelated, and coincidental, and that there are no conspiracies. -- A great example of the Great Ego which we're fighting. George W. Bush famously said "we will not entertain these conspiracy theories". This creates a culture in which any conspiracy is under some umbrella idea of something that we cannot approve of or even entertain. Yet, George W. Bush is not in charge of every conspiracy theory. He may not even be in charge of the couple conspiracy theories he is trying to cover up - just another pawn in the game. Yet, his statements have helped any and all co-conspirators of any kind get away with their shinanigans - even if they are successful in such a way that screws over George W. Bush just as much as anyone. So what is this force that is allowing all conspiracies to run free? Not George W. Bush, he is just a drop in the ocean, a product as much as an agent of these conspiracies. So what is that force? What is it? People have called it many things. It acts through us, it speaks for us, it gets us running in circles, confused, blinded by power, lost in the sea of technology. WHAT IS IT!? The devil. The illuminati. Skynet.

#embraceMetaphor or forgo understanding...
What is a metaphor? We're taught in school it's a "comparison" like a simile except it doesn't have the format "x is like y". But let's take a closer look... 'cause as we all hopefully know by now, school slips in a lot of bullshit ideological indoctrination along with their basic writing and arithmetic... Sure, there's some real valuable stuff you can learn in school, too. But you know what they say... just a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down...

A metaphor is defined as a figure of speech in which a term or phrase is applied to something to which it is not literally applicable. Of course, this rabbit hole gets even deeper because "literally" was recently obscured by a secondary definition of "figuratively" but we all know what literally REALLY means, so I'm going to use it like that.

Let's unpack this definition a little.

There are those who try to avoid the meaning behind the metaphor. They point to innaccuracies with science, inconsistencies within a story. Everything is a metaphor. Therefore, to refrain from entertaining the ideas behind some metaphors, while taking other metaphors for granted, is almost like voluntarily lobotomizing yourself!

#itsallconspiracy: Conspiracy theories are all true AND false.
The term "conspiracy theory" is a red herring, distracting from the interconnectedness of all things. It is a false dichotomy, focusing our attention on whether or not a certain unseen agenda was intentional or not. However, large, impactful, unseen agendas are often carried out by a huge number of people, who span an entire spectrum of personal ideologies. Large numbers of people rarely, if ever, have one cohesive ideology and a clear shared goal. You might say there are at least as many agendas as there are people involved.

Because there are as many agendas as there are people involved, it is impossible to generalize what the agenda behind the collective outcome of their actions might have been. Yet, if the outcome affects our collective well-being, it is still important we discuss how it happened, and how to prevent things from continuing this way. And to do that, requires some form of detecting what agent was behind the action, whether or not it was intentional.

This is where a breakdown in communication has happened between "conspiracy theorists" and "conspiracy deniers", who each have their own hang-ups about how to react to big problems we face as a species.

On the one hand, trying to detect the intentions and specific actors behind something is almost impossible, because we simply don't have enough information. On the other hand, the direction of events can be detected as having it's own path, it's own agenda if-you-will, and that is something that can be exposed and discussed. But only if we're willing to paint a narrative together that illuminates what forces were behind it.

On one end of the spectrum, the archetype of the "conspiracy theorist" tends to paint a narrative that has no room for unintended consequences, and connects every shred of information into one big intentional conspiracy too elaborate for anyone to pull off. On the other end of the spectrum, the archetype of the "conspiracy denier" tends to completely ignore the ill-will of players involved, and places such an extreme emphasis on random chance and chaos theory that their narrative seems to leave no room for acknowledging that sinister, self-serving agendas happen all the time. Under these assumptions, the story is that everything just happens, and no one is responsible for anything. How convenient... both for conspirators and for the cowards using this as an excuse to turn a blind eye to what's going on around them.

Both of these narratives are overly involved in the social game of humanity. The gossip. He-said-she-said. Who did it? Why did they do it? What were their intentions? Who do we blame? This is the personification of the cause of an affect. Symbolically consolidating a large number of people into one imaginary person with clear intentions. Did they do it? Yes or no? There are no clear answers to any of these questions. Yet, to let ourselves become endlessly caught in this irrelevant debate about whether or not something was intentional stunts the conversation we should be having about what forces were at work behind the outcome in question, and how can we affect the outcome in the future.

If the conspiracy theories are taken as metaphors illuminating some of the forces at work behind the scenes, while at the same time never being taken too literally (unless there is sufficient evidence) then perhaps this false divide can be healed and we can start to have the conversations we should be having about all of these "conspiracies".

Besides, because everything influences everything else, and all things are ultimately interconnected and interrelated, even quantum entangled, there are no agendas that entirely stand alone, and are not somehow influenced by everyone on Earth, whether through action or inaction, intentional or not.

In other words... it's all One Big Conspiracy, and even YOU'RE in on it! But that also means you have as much influence on the future as anyone else...

New World Order is here for a reason. Although, perhaps not what "they" intended.
Let's just say... long, long ago many old white men got together and put into motion what they thought would create the perfect ever-lasting government. The fact that it was such a long-term plan implies there was some amount of altruism behind it. However, like all humans, they were victims of their own cognitive biases, blinded by their own elitism to some extent, and ultimately their experiment is culminating into one big clusterfuck of a surveillance-state and police-state with the ugly foundation of perpetual war for oil.

Crunching the numbers here... it seems it's only a matter of time before all jobs are automated by machinery and artificial intelligence, and the only job left is to be part of the militarized police force. The clone army.

But what's happening here is quite poetic, because there is a twist at the end. That is that a world "by the people, for the people" cannot be given. You might say it must be "earned". So it is that the New World Order, which sought to create a harmonious order through hierarchy and beaurocracy, will indeed bring about an enlightened society - but not the one which it thought. Because as it comes to fruition, and exposes itself for what it is, humanity will not be united within and for the New World Order, but will be united against it, which will catalyze the most epic worldwide awakening we've ever seen. After all, once you see how everything is connected, you realize we all work for the New World Order. So there is no enemy but the enemy within. And for all of humanity to unite against the enemy within will bring about a world so abundant and harmonious it's something beaurocracy and cold, calculated methodology could never have brought into being. For it won't be the structure of power and surveillance that we have now which will become the world order, but the more decentralized "organized chaos" that is arising from all the grassroots movements to throw that New World Order off our backs.

The Illuminati is a useful metaphor.
What is the Illuminati? The eye at the top of the pyramid... right there on the dollar bill... a secret cult controlling the world... the man behind the curtain... "the powers that be". What characteristics are typically attributed to "the Illuminati"? Power, control, dominance... the all-seeing eye of surveillance... money, money, money... me, me, me... using illusions to hide the truth in whatever ways are beneficial for you. Some people even equate the tale with the DEVIL!

Even if you refuse to believe such a thing could exist, no matter how many eyes on pyramids you see, you should still try to milk the metaphor for all it's worth and really get the most out of it by asking yourself: If it isn't real, why would we collectively invent such a tale? What purpose does it serve?

There are two stories behind the Illuminati..

One is quite positive: it's the idea of a group of powerful people getting together in secret to hatch a secret plan to try and unite humanity. They consider collective enlightenment of all of humanity to be necessary to avoid "mutually assured destruction", but are too impatient to wait around and hope people stop fighting and start to all get along, so they conduct a sort of magic spell, or "psy-ops", to try and "trick" humanity into uniting. A version of this can be seen in the first episode of the Outer Limits, where a bunch of scientists devise a plan to create a very realistic fake alien invasion, to try and unite humanity against a non-existant external threat. But the plan doesn't go well. As the screen fades to black, the narrator explains that the moral of the story is that only through education, critical thinking, and practicing compassion for your fellow human beings, can humanity truly overcome the division and war we've become so accustomed to. In this version of the story, the "Illuminati" are the "enlightened ones" that are here to "enlighten" humanity.

Then there is the classic tale of trying to dominate and control the entire world. This is the more clandestine and sinister agenda to accumulate power through dirty tricks, manipulative means, and ultimately to accumulate power through illusions. This story has come to embody the entire marketing industry, hollywood, mainstream music, Nicki Minaj's ass, etc.

There is a little truth to both of these stories. In fact, they may even fit neatly into one story. Let's try this one on for size...


The Pyramid Scheme of the profit motive.
"The whole economy is a pyramid scheme." -Bernie Madoff

N$A dragnet surveillance
The perceptual feedback loop that separates this group from humanity.

Skynet is here. #skynetishere
Eventually the metaphors of the Illuminati got overplayed. It became a game. People everywhere wearing clothes that say "OBEY". The Taco Bell dollar menu has the illuminati eye on it now, and says "worship the power of the dollar".

If this magic spell was supposed to illuminate humanity, it seems to be doing a terrible job. And there is a simple explanation for this. The "Illuminati" is a self-perpetuating tale. Before the wisdom of thought-follows-media rather than media-follows-thought, the tale of the Illuminati seemed like it could expose something about the foundation of how power works and how we're all in on it and how we might all get past it. However, the more we talk about the idea, the more true it becomes. It is disempowering, in a way. Thinking about a big conspiracy ruling the world automatically makes people feel less able to resist anything in any meaningful way. The more we talk about the Illuminati, the less we resist, and the more the tale of an unseen force in the shape of a pyramid ruling the entire world only reinforces the very behaviors that create such a world - cowardice, submission, ego, power-tripping.

We needed a new metaphor. Now that the pyramid scheme of the world had been exposed for what it is, we need an exorcism. A metaphor which, the more we talk about it, the more empowered we feel to defeat it. So now that we're pointing our finger, we need to point to something outside of ourselves, even though we have developed the understanding that it is inside us. We need skynet.

What are the characteristics of Skynet? Inhuman, calculated, automated, all the worst forces of humanity taking on a life of their own.

opSquat
Create spaces that don't fit the paradigm. The existence of these spaces calls into question everyday assumptions at all times.

Humans Before Holograms #humansb4holograms
Create spaces that don't fit the paradigm. The existence of these spaces calls into question everyday assumptions at all times.

HUMANS UNITE! SKYNET IS ACTIVE! THIS IS NOT A DRILL!!! #HUSIA #notadrill
Create spaces that don't fit the paradigm. The existence of these spaces calls into question everyday assumptions at all times.

ALL HANDS ON DECK!!! #allhandsondeck
Calling all street tribes. Rainbow Family. Anonymous. We stand with Standing Rock. We stand with The Farm. We stand with the Human Be-In. We stand with the Black Panthers. We stand with that one dude over there. And that lady (you know the one). We stand with God, and aetheists, alike. We are everyone. We are the People. We are Uniting Humanity. We are negotiating with Skynet.

Faith
It's like hitch-hiking. You'll always get a ride eventually. No matter how many cars pass. Cause you just keep at it. Besides, you're all in, you're not doing anything but waiting until you get a ride.

#bagheadarmy
Our online counterpart, to keep the dream of an egoless movement alive and reach out to the selfie culture.?

#rƎVO⅃ution

#addictsanonymous
The new AA. Our online counterpart, support group, to overcome all addictions.

We fall asleep altogether.
"...only to wake up slowly, and one-by-one."