Does it make sense to focus on relatively trivial issues that will never see agreement?

This difficult approach results in very little long term progress for anyone. What is gained today is taken tomorrow, with an extra measure of contempt.

If you feel trapped in the monotony of a simplistic, binary framework, know that there is something beyond.

Do your inputs sound like an endless “He said” and “She said”? While mindless entertainment is a valuable distraction, consider there is something of much greater importance going on; search for what is not being said.

It is what it is.

Yah, but what is it? Understanding what is is a challenge. But you cannot make effective choices without this knowledge.

You can start with self knowledge.

How do you feel about what you “know” ? Feeling is at least equally important as thinking, yet many of us receive little to no training.

Emotions are super-powerful, having the ability to distort thinking or even eliminate thinking altogether. While a state of bliss may sometimes be desirable, strong emotions can lead to disaster. It’s no accident this important area of knowledge is rarely directly focused on.

Often, people feel that just living life is the best teacher of emotions, others try to avoid emotion. Unfortunately, intentionally suppressing this powerful knowledge creates a perverse short-term advantage to those with some.

Does it still make sense to not include emotional training as part of every young person’s studies?

What’s your intention?

When we have bettered our understanding of what is, we may want to act. Before we act, we set our intention, watching closely for any response. If the response is not favorable, we may want to modify our intention until it feels right.

When intention is solid, you can act with confidence.

When someone’s behavior causes others to suffer, what is the intention? Is the result what’s intended?

Those who do not state their intention deserve scrutiny. Look for deception, selfish intention, and fear.

Cultivate curiosity.

If you are not asking lots of questions, you are asleep, your connection is blurry, and you are exactly what perverse power wants you to be – asleep.

Don’t believe everything you think.

Human perception is notoriously inaccurate, biases run rampant, and misinformation spreads like an out of control forest fire.

On top of the misinformation, rivers of disinformation pose a drowning risk. Intentional manipulation forces it’s way through every available channel, declaring to be truth, pushing, manipulating. “I am powerful, I am ancient, I am rich, I am the truth”

According to the god of the christian faith, I am an “abomination”. Not just a sinner, like the murderers and adulterers, but an abomination. This is god’s word. I know this is god’s word because it says it is god’s word.

What kind of god calls a young child an abomination? A child who is hoping to grow a relationship with god, a child who believes what he hears in church, but then discovers god apparently hates him, and the wound festers and affects every aspect of his life. His creator sees him as an abomination, and now he believes it, for this is the word of god.

And now others have biblical justification to look down on this pathetic boy, to hate him and to mock him, if only by way of never accepting him. This destructive and hateful god creeps into even the most intimate moments, threatening eternal hell, wrecking nearly every relationship, trampling confidence and self worth into the dirt. The boy believed he was an evil, inferior human, not deserving of anything good in life.

It’s a sick, sick world; if you claim to be “well-adjusted” to a sick world, what does that say?

Much of what is is built on illusion.

Illusion is everywhere. It can be created with a simple lack of knowledge. Those who believe in inequality may believe it advantageous to use disinformation to create illusion.

Take the illusion of race for example. Yes, there is amazing human variation seen in the world. There is no biological basis to support the idea of race. There is no characteristic that belongs solely to one “race”. No genes belong exclusively to one “race”. Who belongs to what race has changed over time. “Race” may be an attempt to understand what is, but attached to this is the intention to declare superiority.

The strength and power of the US dollar is illusion. It’s value depends on belief. The moment we believe it to be worthless – poof – it’s gone!

Does our existence depend on the belief in illusion?