We all eat lies when our hearts are hungry...

Try as I might, I could not find the original author of this wonderful little quote:

 I only stumbled across it recently, but I stumbled across it after seeing a few related topics:

Then while reading my Google+ feed I found

and

so what does it all mean?

Years ago I started writing a book. It was mostly finished, over 100,000 words. Here is an excerpt from the book:

12 Steps for America

A Canadian Intervention into US Addiction Problems

I really cherish and love my American cousins to the south; they are family to me. While we have different parents, our parents are brothers and sisters and that unites all of us cousins in a special bond. While I am proud of our common heritage over the centuries, of late I am deeply disturbed by the dysfunctional and pathological behaviour of a nation, a people, and a culture I care about. From nation to nation, cousin to cousin, I feel I must propose an intervention of reality to save a beloved family member.

In the classic sense of dealing with people who have succumbed to addiction problems or other destructive behaviours, it is often necessary for loved ones to ‘intervene’ and practice ‘tough love’ for the benefit the people we care about most. I have done this in real life and I know the routine; you have to ambush someone you love and explain in plain and painful detail their actions, behaviours, judgments and choices, and how those dysfunctions have affected your personal life and the lives of others they are damaging. If you are successful, they may pay enough attention to what you say to realize they need help, they need serious help, and (you hope) they will trust that you will be there to help them with all the love that is possible when they decide to get help.

For many years, I have watched in horror, pain and frustration as I have seen America slide deeper and deeper into self-harming pathological dysfunctional behaviours; and for a long time I have not fully understood the severity of the problem, until now. I always thought the United States was mature and responsible enough to solve its own problems, but I now see that the US is past the point of self-reflection, accountability and responsibility, on a downward spiral similar to the fate of the Rome. The US can get well again, I am sure of that, but the way things are going America could hit rock bottom and that would be a tragedy beyond belief.

As nations go in the industrialized world, we are largely adults now, and often-competitive ones at that. If the United States really hits rock bottom just who is going to bail them out; China, Russia, Europe, India, Australia? In many ways, the American Empire is similar to the Roman Empire – they were both democratic republics once with enviable histories of accomplishments – but when Rome started falling who was there to catch it? I suggest you explore

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decline_of_the_Roman_Empire

So what is this major crisis of American addiction and dependency?

Simply said the United States as a nation, society and culture
is just addicted to bullshit!

While this may seem smug or condescending, I cannot be more serious about how bad this problem is. We are all familiar with many forms of addictive and co-dependent issues; substance abuse, internet addiction, pornography, gambling, etc. Bullshit abuse and dependency is just not one of the things we hear about that often. However, this is simply the only explanation I can think of that adequately articulates the nature of the problem.

Smile and laugh all you will (for the moment) this is no joke, but I will tend to use humour when I may soften the abrasiveness of the message, in the hope that people may realize that often in humour we touch the nature of dealing with inconsistent logic so that it is not so shocking and alien.

What I am proposing is a 12-Step program similar to those used by such famous and respected institutions as Alcoholics Anonymous. I do not promise that these steps will cure America (who am I to cure America) but I sincerely believe that if enough of America works on these issues then America will get well enough to solve the rest of the problems on its own.

No matter what artistic gains I get, or gold records, if I can’t make a success out of my relationship with the people I love, then everything else is bullshit. —John Lennon

The book ends roughly around the time of the 2012 American Presidential Election, where Barak Obama was elected for a second term. Never before had I seen so much pure bullshit in politics at that time. Admittedly, the book is often over the top, but it was also intended to be a genre of humor too. Now in 2016, the era of Donald J Trump, my over-the-top book seems tame by comparison.


We come full circle back to

We all eat lies when our hearts are hungry...

which is really what my book is about, or should have more clearly been about. Simply put, Americans, and the rest of us, are typically addicted to bullshit simply because our hearts are hungry, our spirits are thirsty, and our souls are malnourished.

My sense is that Republicans are vastly better propagandists than Democrats because they put into practice more powerful psychological tools. To understand some facet of this, watch the Veritasium video. To understand more facets, you'd have to read my book. Case in point, "Mind Control Lesson 1" - Hillary Clinton's low favourabily ratings are due in large part to many years of powerful Republican messaging to the public the same messages over and over and over again; Benghazi being a prime example, as well as e-mail.

My point: there are good explanations for why are hearts are hungry. A society can only exist so long on an economy (diet) of lies.

My prescription: the words of Andrew Carnegie

The older I get the less I listen to what people say and the more I look at what they do

As a final thought, the older I get, the more my body is wearing out, the more I have to be cognizant of my physical diet; pragmatically, wisdom comes from being cognizant of your intellectual diet...

Inner Voices of Doubt

Why Do We Doubt?

The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt. -- Bertrand Russel

Often paraphrased as "The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts."

My hypothesis is that 'doubt' is an evolutionary adaptation that keeps us safe from making really stupid mistakes.

I come to this conclusion after numerous discussion with people about the psychology of doubt. Usually this comes from people who have treated others, or been treated for dealing with the 'inner voices of doubt,' 'the committee,' or other terms, for example: Conquer Your Critical Inner Voice, by Robert Firestone, Lisa Firestone, Joyce Catlett, talks about 'the inner critic.'

People often talk about these battles of doubt as some sort of weakness or disability, but I think they have it backwards. I took a course in 'Resilience Training' a couple of years ago from the Sue Drinnan of the Wisdom Collective. One of the things we did was a self inventory of our strengths and over used strengths. Note, she called them 'over used strengths' not weaknesses.

An interesting branch of psychology is Evolutionary Psychology where we look at various psychological issues not as disabilities as conventional psychology and psychiatry do, but as evolutionary adaptations that do not serve as as well in a modern environment. For example, if we look at various 'attention disorders' in the light of early hunter/gathers living on the African plains, then hyper alertness may have been a benefit: constantly alert to prey or other predators--Squirrel!

I suspect that in a normal healthy mind doubt and confidence are in healthy balance. Indeed, there should be an inner turmoil, especially over important issues and decisions, between the perspectives of doubt and confidence. Sadly I know many people who struggle with self doubt, who feel disabled by it at times, and I do not want to invalidate such important feelings, to be sure they are very real and valid feelings, as I have struggled passionately with this at times. My perspective is that if we think about disabling doubt as an overused strength rather than a weakness, then our approach should be to harness that strength rather than eliminate a weakness.

In harnessing this strength, perhaps it is better to recognize, acknowledge, validate, and support it. I have said before, "the path to love is recognition, acknowledgement, validation, and support;" therefore to use this path on our doubts is to learn to love ourselves more, for who we are. Just as being able to 'speak the truth' is a great strength, there are times when it is not appropriate, it must be harnessed, and moderated with tact.

When I was a young child I used to be afraid to go to sleep at night because of the terrible nightmares I would have that would wake me in the middle of the night. The anxiety was ferocious. Somehow over time my dreams did not change, but they went from being frightening to simply entertaining. Perhaps this is a good way to thing about doubts or any 'disabling thoughts' is to accept them and be able to stand back from them as useful, but not crippling or dire.

To be sure, an important insight of Bertrand Russel is "that in the modern world" because it is the modern world that separates the intelligent from the stupid and cocksure. In the modern world we do not live an existence on the plains of Africa, where evolution quickly sorted out the stupid and cocksure. For example, in the 2016 American Presidential Election, one wonders how many of the myriad candidates would not have been eaten by lions and tigers first, before they had a chance live long enough to earn the merit for such an important role. For their supporters, one again wonders how many of them would have survived long enough in a dangerous world, while having little or no self doubt.

Just because the modern world seems to define confidence as success does not mean that confidence is a more important strength than doubt, it only means we are out of balance. For the most part, I would rather err on the side of doubt, as that is generally less dangerous to yourself and others, than errors on the side of the confident and cocksure.

As an aside, why do we say 'cocksure' and not 'pussysure' - or does pussysure simply mean to be sure some overconfident cock is talking nonsense. :-)

Just thinking out loud...