DON'T assume the advice that works
for you will work for those without
your privilege.Do keep it in mind if you want to read through.
These days, i.e. Late 2022, where the trauma of the previous years hangs over our collective selves like a dark and weary cloud, I believe our fundamental problem is not the external world and all the things happening in it, but a very internal and personal problem.
And I believe many are suffering from this internal problem of the mind and soul, whether we realize it or not. I see it clearly in others, and I can see it clearly in myself.
The problem is that we have forgotten how to listen to the other person. We have been misinterpreting the other person. And in doing so, we have been misinterpreting ourselves.
There is an almost hysterical portion of our minds, that snaps the very moment it hears the other person talk. There is no space in which our half-baked ideas can talk to each other and actually form into something beneficial. Something true. Instead, as soon as we hear something contradictory to our ideals, we blow up like a grenade with the pin already popped out.
This is the collective state of humanity:
Person A:
Hi
Person B:
Hello
Person A:
WHAT THE HELL DO YOU MEAN HELLO YOU
BLASPHEMOUS ILLITERATE IDIOT?
Okay, fine, maybe not as bad. But replace the Hello with something even remotely related to politics, belief systems, the state of the world etc etc, and people blow up upon just hearing a triggering phrase or sentiment. The only thing people want to hear and watch is something that either agrees with their already held beliefs, or something that gives them a reason to get more angry and upset.
This has now cycled into a place where people deliberately try to provoke one another. Social media encourages this, as polarity results in likes and hits, and this drive to divide and spread a weird kind of hatred seems to grow and grow.
And even without this, at some basic level, everyone fights and argues. I fight. You fight. Couples fight. Best friends fight. Parents and kids. Animals. Cain and Abel. Everyone.
The solution is quite simple. Everyone must build a capacity to just listen. That's it. Or at least, that's the first step. Everyone listens.
Listening means to pay attention, complete attention to what the other person is saying. Complete attention means to listen by first emptying your mind, so as it not let your own ideas interfere with what the other person is saying. This is the most important part of actually listening, to first realize that we are steeped in an ego/self/whatever you call it, that is centered around our past memories and conditioning. Only when we bypass that, can true listening take place. Without first carrying out this step, we are almost doomed to repeat the same mistakes we have always been making, the mistakes of history. Because we are History. That's all we are. That is all the self, the ego is. A mistake compounded over History.
And this is not easy. The human brain and the thought process is not flawless. It is actually deeply flawed. When inspired, and when total attention is given to it, the thought process can flow wonderfully, and we can make important, great discoveries.
But when there is a lack of attention, the same thought process can lead us to places that incorrectly follow one another, and ultimately lead us far from somewhere which has any sort of beneficial point. Here, this unobserved thought is probably more dangerous to humanity and the world than all of us reverting back to the cave-man state. At least the cave man could not create bombs.
A very simple example that might occur in daily life:
He looked at me. He wasn't smiling
when he looked at me. He hates me.
Or he's an unfriendly person. I
hate him. I won't talk to him, no.
Probably he's a racist bastard.compared to
He looked out towards the street
where I walked. He wasn't smiling or
doing anything in particular. Ah,
maybe I can buy some fries from
this other place I just saw now.Just a very simple example, but the essence of mis-thinking is there.
Now to place this concept of listening into practice, into really getting people to listen to one another, what we need is the practical-actual formal sitting-down-together of people from different backgrounds and ideals, and having them just talk and listen.
To not have an agenda. To not have something successful or concrete come out of it. Hell, to not even discuss any matter of importance at all, at least not in the beginning. Just to have people who seemingly hate each other sit down for an hour in a room, in some chairs that are less than six feet away from each other, and then if they want, to have them talk.
The framework that sounds the most helpful here is:
The wikipedia entry on the concept of the Bohm Dialogue describes it as
dialogue can be considered as
a free flow of meaning between
people in communication, in the
sense of a stream that flows
between banks.
These "banks" are understood as
representing the various points
of view of the participants.
...it may turn out that such a
form of free exchange of ideas
and information is of fundamental
relevance for transforming culture
and freeing it of destructive
misinformation, so that creativity
can be liberatedThis is fundamentally different from debates and discussions. Debates do not encourage thought anymore, at least not the debates you see online. They are instead a way for one side to establish dominance over the other side's thoughts. Debates are about a winning side and a losing side.
A dialogue means to have no agenda. No winning. Just, pure, simple listening.
For this to truly work, both "banks" of the river must realize that the water flowing between them is common water, and does not divide the two sides of land, but connects it.
Now in general, dialogue would be amongst normal, ordinary folk. But it should also work for people who directly influence world events.
Yes, I know the following seems childish, purely hypothetical, theory, wildly optimistic, fantasy, and just stupid even, but still, it could happen. It is physically possible. The laws of physics do not stop it from happening. The laws of (false) humanity do.
Suppose the Dalai Lama, Putin, Zelenskyy and an ordinary school kid sit around a table.
They start by saying hello.
And then jump at each other's throats.
No, I joke.
Then the Dalai Lama starts talking about the nature of thought. What does it mean to think? Does it mean to automatically say the truth, or to form an understanding of something in our minds and to bring it out to the external world?
At some point, the school kid asks Putin what's all this Ukraine business.
Putin gives his explanation, and the kid and the Dalai Lama neither nod nor shake their head.
Zelenskyy tries not to kill Putin, and Putin tries not to kill Zelenskyy.
Zelenskyy doesn't accuse Putin of power hungriness and murdering people without reason. Putin doesn't accuse Zelenskyy of being a NATO stooge trying to undermine Russian sovereignty.
Maybe for the first day, they don't say anything at all but listen to the Dalai Lama talk to the school kid about life in general.
Then maybe the next day, they return to the chairs, and maybe the school kid asks, this war on ground with real soldiers and real people dying, if not this war can be talked about instead.
Both of them say no. It can't.
And the kid would ask, why not?
Are you sure the war is about something real, and not about lining up your own pockets with more money and your head with more power? For some global power play agenda with other actors and interests?
Would be a special kid who says this, but suppose the kid does.
And then suppose Putin talks for 15 minutes, and then Zelenskyy talks for 15 minutes, and then for the rest of the day, no one talks, but Putin and Zelenskyy must stay in each other's company for the rest of it.
And while staying in each other's company, the Dalai Lama would guide them on their thought process. Which is to say, make them aware of each thought coming into their mind. And to not let the thought take them over, but to realize, that perhaps this thought is not 100% right, and to let it be at that.
Perhaps he would make Putin realize that the Corona time was particularly hard for him. Putin's paranoia had him isolated, wearing a protective bubble suit, had his food tasted multiple times before being brought to him, and had disinfectant tunnels leading into his offices.
By the third day of this, the silence would be unbearable. At long last, they must agree to talk about something. About some issue. Some issue that does not hurt their ego. That does not make them feel this fear that is resulting in such havoc. Because it is fear that does this. That makes people do such stupid things.
Maybe from there, they can build on something. At the very least, after sitting together, face to face, their mutual hate, this water between the banks, would calm down. Still be there, but not overflowing into a flood.
Perhaps that results in a net of actions, that ultimately makes some difference to the state of the world.
We cannot be happy all the time. Things cannot be perfect all the time. But the one thing in our control, is to stop the active destruction of lives, physical and mental. Maybe that's where we can start, taking at least responsibility for ourselves, instead of worrying about what the next crazy mad man at the helm of some country or company is going to do.
Due to the nature of a Bohm Dialogue, all dialogues are carried out in an environment where people can listen.
Do our current social media platforms allow that to happen?
At least, unfortunately, in the way they are used by the majority of people, they cannot. They are designed for us to throw short comments at each other, to disagree with each other, or to congratulate and agree with each other.
Maybe someday things will improve on such platforms, or better platforms will come along. We are still in the infancy of this mass-information era, and our primitive brains are not designed for such an overload. But someday, we will be able to work around these platforms more or less harmoniously.
BUT for now, perhaps everyone should just to try to shut the hell up. Really, that's all we have to do online. Shut the hell up.
I do not talk about places where there is tyranny, and speaking up is justice. I do not know what one should or shouldn't do here. It depends on the situation. Sometimes simply speaking up is the right thing. Sometimes one needs a more complex strategy to deal with tyranny, when speaking up will only get you and your family killed. But at all times, one still needs to view whatever is happening without the lens of the conditioned self, otherwise, you will probably find yourself trapped in an emotional torrent, not think clearly, and end up doing more damage than good.
But what I'm talking about is more the day to day stuff. The celebrity news and opinions. The politicians throwing shit at each other, and huge hordes of populations chaining themselves into opinions and further mud-flinging.
Just, shut up. Have some tea. Do something real in your real life. Fold some clothes. Look at the sky. DO NOT add fuel to the fire by reacting to an online comment. Do not carry the momentum further.
Shut up, listen, or don't even listen, but if you do click on something by mistake or on purpose, then just listen, and let it sink in for a few hours or a day. After a day or two, maybe the comment won't trigger your mind's conditioning and habits and reactivity. Who knows, after a day or two, maybe our minds will have an original idea themselves, one that isn't meant to further hate, but instead, is an attempt to understand the other, and ourselves.
I do not preach the spreading of love either. I am just basically preaching shutting the hell up. It just cannot be that we are all at such an extreme level of genius, that right after hearing or reading something, we can have a completely true and justified opinion or counter to it. I'm sorry, but the first step in improving the state of humanity is to realize that we are all dumb. DUMB. Stupid. Heavily, heavily, deeply sunk in false traditions and conditionings.
And the problem is not simply stepping away from social media, because the people you interact with, they will still, most probably, be heavily influenced by their digital feeds. So even if you yourself are not affected by it, the people you care about and want to communicate with, might be. And interacting with them comes down to the same basic thing as interacting with people online. Interacting with people in general. Just listen, for a while. And then, instead of getting angry, address their point after your pure listening. You may be surprised yourself by what you say, because what one says after actually, attentively listening is usually very different from what one intended or "thought" to say at the beginning of a conversation.
Perhaps your listening and talking will not make a difference, but it will at least encourage a discussion. But if it only seems to be making matters worse, then it's probably better to simply stop talking. Again, to shut up. Some people just want to feel upset, just want more drama. It's okay, you can't change them, but it is very, very easy to get swept along with them in the drama and then get angry. So just shut up yourself, and not expect the other person to shut up.
The important thing is connecting with other people over the little things. Saying hello etc. Asking how they are doing. Not to make points. Not to prove that you are right about something that you probably aren't right about or even if you are right about, who the hell cares? Why do we care that we are right?
And for me, at least, I would rather not interact with people than interact with them just to have arguments. But I definitely do not recommend people be like I am, that is also not the way to live for most people. All this is perhaps a guide for me to interact with the world, and is not your problem. Perhaps you are a flower that gets along supremely with everyone you meet. You can give the rest of us some advice then.
After everyone shuts the hell up online, there will be a mass period of boredom. People won't know what to do with themselves. Then they will start collecting outside, and probably want to say angry things to each other there. But without the fuel of constant bickering digitally, this desire to be angry would quickly run out. They will start seeing people for who they are... People. They will see a kid's face, or someone who reminds them of their Mom or Dad, or their brother, or they will see the fear or the kindness in someone's eyes, or see someone look away in shyness, and they will automatically shut the hell up.
Yes, the internet and our connectivity has brought with it many good things, such as a much greater awareness on the many different facets of inequality. But people do not focus too long on the positive aspects of it. And Yes, people fought before phones and the internet, but it was relatively short lived fighting and at a much smaller scale, much more personal, rather than fighting with a collective. And it was real, at least. Nowadays, people have illusions of living in parallel societies, and that illusion is enough to create real differences.
Once we all calm down, and disconnect for a bit, maybe our brains will actually have the peace and the capacity to work on the important problems of the world. But they won't, if we all say and do the first things that come to our pre-loaded, pre-programmed minds of opinions.
Basically, my point is, that the tired, over-stimulated brain can be utterly dangerous and stupid, but the same brain, after it has had a moment's peace from the insanity of the world, can step away from a state of reaction to a state of listening, and in the process heal itself, and perhaps others around it. It can chill.
Maybe because that moment's peace lets us connect to something higher than mere thought.
10
We should all fight even more.
Should jump at each other's
throats whenever we disagree. I kind of also agree with him, even though it is the complete opposite of what I say.
Because the point here is also not to force yourself into shutting up. It is not to put a control over yourself. That is denying who we are, and that will result in further inner conflict. The point is to listen(by bypassing your opinions for a second) first, and then maybe you don't feel the need to jump at the other person's throat.
But maybe if we keep on fighting, we will reach an equilibrium of sorts where all major issues are figured out in some way. But I do not know if those issues are then resolved in a way where all sides come to some common agreement. And something tells me that we will never solve all of our issues. Solving them in this way will create some further issue down the line. Is this then the only way, or can we step out of the stream of issues completely?
I feel like conflict is the
only way to fight injustice.
Inaction is a privilege for
those who have never been
denied a fundamental human right.Much better words than the drivel I wrote up. Perhaps you cannot sit down with people who are so unconscious that they actively indulge and spread brutality. But that is a different issue, a different point. A point where your lives are at stake. My point about trying to listen is for the people you want to maintain a relationship with... But even then, hiding how you feel will probably result in some kind of further conflict down the line.
DON'T assume the advice that works for
you will work for those without
your privilege.Actually, a toilet at Google pointed that out, not him. I will put this at the top of the article.
But yes, the chance to listen without feeling threatened is itself a privilege.