Topic: Resist the Click
Okay...so there's this running joke between NR poster Once & Future and myself regarding "resisting the click." O&F came up with it, and it pertains to resisting the urge to click on all those internet gossip news blogs and stories. My excuse has been "I'm bored, so I click!" And we've tried off and on to stop, but inevitably, we seem to cave back in.
Well, no more!
Last night was the final straw for me....not just for silly gossip stuff, but ALL NEWS. That's it, I'm done. NO MORE MEDIA.
We already don't own a TV here on this end, don't read the newspaper and I personally don't listen to the radio. So I'm 3/4 of the way there. The final hurdle has been the internet. And when you're bored at work with spare time to kill between long stretches of no work with the phone not ringing, then hopping online and going through all the standby internet news and junk sites is practically a given.
Well, no more! That's it!!
It seems silly but the final straw for me was the big gasp! shocking! "scandal" that Paul McCartney's soon to be ex, Heather, posed for "explicit sex photos!" in a "hardcore German sex book!"....like, ten years before she ever met Paul, back when she was a model. They're holding her up to the light, with a big TSK TSK! Shame shame! You're so scandalous and naughty! You should be embarassed and shamed!
I read the story with all that it was implying and my head whirled back, like HUH?? Wait a minute......let me get this straight here.......on the one hand the media is force feeding us SEX SEX SEX at every turn.....presenting it as titalating and tantalizing, even sexing up 12 and 13 year olds and using sex to sell everything from shampoo to alcohol. On the other hand, they turn around and attempt to shamefully crucify those embroiled in what THEY deem to be "sex scandals!" and tell us that it's embarassing and shameful.
Talk about mixed signals. What an understatement. So yeah, that didn't sit too well with me last night, at all. I'm tired of it. I'm tired of the media, I'm tired of the way "the powers that be" (TPTB) have used it for decades to program people, and do so by using "conflict conditioning" - telling the public that something (in this case sex) is good, then slapping people's hands, saying it's evil. I know this is old hat to most NR'ers.......I "intellectually" knew it until last night, but something about that story was the straw that broke the camel's back for me. It was like 31 years of seeing the deliberate, schizophrenic, mindf*** mixed messages of the media just made me snap inside. That, and I'm just tired of seeing the media getting into everybody's lives, judging everybody.
For myself, I'm resisting the click....for ALL media, from here on out. That's it. I'll check my emails, run my website and do the occasional post at NR, but NO MORE NEWS, of ANY kind. And if this is throwing out babies with bathwater.....then let those babies fly.
There's so much to be said about the news and media anyway, more than just this starting post. But I'll leave that for additional posts. This is just to put the idea out there of media boycotting. For me, it goes hand in hand with the internal changes that seem to be growing more pronounced with every passing month. Not being able to tolerate mundane fake conversation full of filler lingo. Being unable and unwilling to commit myself to working for any company permanently long term (and instead just temping forever). The illusory folly of movies has also been nagging at me for about two weeks. We only watch "good" movies, usually ones that are meaningful and intelligent in some way, mostly pertaining to concepts talked about here at NR. But even that is nagging at me. It's still distraction and escapism. I've also had the idea about "bread and circuses" in my head since reading a quote about that recently. The idea that "TPTB" see us as a herd that needs to be managed with bread and circuses makes me want to run as far from the herd as possible.
So if I can do the media thing, then I can make other productive changes as well. it's the first step towards eliminating the last of the society ball and chain issues that are keeping me tethered to the herd in some way.
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"I get by with a little help from my (higher density) friends."
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