Log in

View Full Version : The "awareness effect": Remedies?



aworldsman
10th September 2011, 04:49
I've spent the past three months on focused studying. Marx, Hegel, Chomsky, Zinn, Griffin, Orwell, Huxley, Ridley, Lazere, Goldman, and so many others have totally opened my eyes to the tragedy that we're stuck in.

I feel disgusted with myself for participating in this mess. I drive my car to work and I feel like I've committed hundreds of crimes against humanity. The manufacturing of my car, the consumption of oil, the preoccupation with a job to pay off loans I naively signed into, the consumption of poisonous air, water, food, and information, the total inability to act in accordance with my true nature.

I hear news of terrorist threats... someone, somewhere might do something. I understand that this is a product of the propaganda machine that thrives on fear. I understand that the media and the government and the banking and the corporations are all intertwined in this horrible mess that's sucking the humanity out of what could be so beautiful.

I understand that the US was founded on the presumption that an elite few should control the "bewildered herds." I understand that the paper money that I earn to pay off my inflated loans is worthless. I understand that my vote means nothing. I understand that the president is just a megaphone of those behind the curtains. I understand that the majority of people around me are emotionally underdeveloped.

I understand that public education was engineered to instill obedience, and that there's no place for authoritarian education in a truly free society.

I understand that a state of anarchy - a state of self-supporting egalitarian social order - seems to be a wonderful option. I see humanity inching towards that, but I'm worried that the clutches of fascism will destroy us before we see the light of communal freedom.

I'm obligated to menial preoccupations that define practicality. If I step towards what I see as natural and right, I'm punished.

I participate in conversations that ridicule and insult others around me because I need to if I want to survive in the corporate world. I write code that supports massive expenditure on the perpetuation of enterprise inefficiencies because it would be impractical for me to sacrifice my paycheck for my dignity. My paycheck is unfortunately and intimately married to the little freedom I do recognize.


Six months ago I was busy drinking beers in college, buying plasma TVs, enjoying leisure time, chasing emotionally vacant relationships with intellectually vacant girls.

Now I'm just... lost.

The digger I deep, the more I want to know, and the more helpless I feel.


Anyone else ever feel like this? Not haughty or "better" than anyone, but just enlightened, terrified, alone? What have you done to overcome the daunting reality of "life"?

DeBon
11th September 2011, 06:40
Comrade, I feel you. I know exactly what you are experiencing.

Just have hope. And don't let the system render you weak. Don't give in. Don't buy the latest and greatest whatever because TV told you to. Find solutions. If you ever want to talk, feel free to message me. Sometimes with truth follows unbearable stress.

In the end, have hope for tomorrow. And don't give in. Ever.

o well this is ok I guess
11th September 2011, 06:56
Well OP it sounds like you need to drop out of society and join an insurrectionist commune.
Or go back to college, read Adorno, and savour the feeling of being back in the academic womb.

But on a serious note, this is the sort of feeling that you'll simply have to get used to. Nothing other than revolution can relieve it.
There is no adaption, there is simply a constant discontent, constantly gnawing at our heads, convincing us more and more of the necessity of revolution.

aworldsman
11th September 2011, 07:57
Thank you guys. I figure this is just a transition... like weaning off of an addiction. I sorta went cold-turkey here and my mind is scared shitless. I'm going to try to make some connections, get more active.