Of course we were not around in those days when we are asked to lay something on the line to defend our freedoms. It was a long time since we had anything to lose, perhaps the only time that as Englishmen we stood to lose anything was back in 1941 when we really had something to lose – our freedom. Those were the days of the blitz and the impending Nazi invasion that never came. I had always wondered what it was like to fight in world war II it was always a bit of a curiosity for me. 

Whenever I felt a little bit of fear I would always think back to what my granddad's life was like. When I was shoving drugs down my neck and dancing at illegal raves at the age of 22 in forests, barns, abandoned warehouses and the like, my granddad was probably sat in an underground bunker receiving his orders for the next bombing sortie. 

My granddad flew in the RAF over the Polestei oilfields of Romania - the most heavily defended airspace in the whole of Europe during WWII. It was the logistical engine of the Nazi war machine churning out virtually all of the oil that they needed for the war effort. As a result the average number of bombing sorties was four before you were shot down. If my granddad was alive today I would have asked him just one thing. How did you feel when you climbed in to that Wellington bomber knowing that the law of averages told you that you would likely lose your life? On your 12^th bombing run how did you feel when you stepped in to the plane knowing the law of averages told you that you would die? How did it actually feel, what was the experience like granddad?

I cannot comprehend what he did because I do not know what it is like to put my life on the line. I have nothing but admiration for what he did, the people he defended, the lives he saved, and the free world he played his part in saving. The fact that he climbed in to the plane knowing that he could die, his bravery leaves me in awe. He probably got back from a bombing run feeling relieved he had made it and then went to the operations room to look at which incoming planes made it home, hoping in the back of his mind that his comrades would return, waiting anxiously, sometimes knowing that after a while he would never see his friends again because they had perished fighting the evil of the fascists, and had laid down their lives so we could enjoy the freedoms we enjoy today. I salute you granddad you really are a hero in my eyes.

To put it in perspective my granddad was just one man. One of many who fought against the twisted evil of the Nazi war machine, so in that respect he is not unique, chances are every one of you is somehow related to someone who put their life on the line so we can enjoy these freedoms we take for granted everyday.

That was then though and this is now, back then some sacrifice from everyone was required as we were at war at the time, it was right that everyone stood up and did their part. Now we are left with the legacy, the absolute paragon of human civilisation through the ages. We live in a free global market economy that, barring certain dictatorships, has the most personal freedom that has ever been known, the greatest amount of prosperity at any time in history, and the greatest democracy that this money can buy us.

Stop for a minute and soak it up. Do you actually think about how bad it could of been, or perhaps how great, and what a wonderful place the world is right now? How we have no problems whatsoever and everything is perfect and right with the world as it is? Do you ever stop and think about this? Stop for a minute and reflect on what you really have. What do you have to show for the fruits of your life? Lets face it, without friends and family we would have nothing of value.

The best things in life are free.

But why is it that we can say this to ourselves like a mantra and it does not really seem to do much apart from divert our attention away from the fact that we are all struggling somehow? Why is that we are never completely content and why is it that there is something we can never quite put our finger on, that bugs us? It need not be all the time or it may even be a preoccupation for you, but all through your life there was something just that slight discontent, that little nagging doubt that you cannot quite put your finger on. Lets just outline it for you with an example. Perhaps you are about to get a new promotion and you get it and life is great. Then after the initial buzz you are left feeling some how a little hollow and empty. Not depressed or miserable, but slightly discontented like you did not feel as though you expected to feel. Like you expected a little more from this situation and now you are slightly dissatisfied again.

Appearances are a funny thing.

Appearances are what we seem to place most of our trust in but I am not talking about our visual capabilities as such, I am talking about the way we construe things, how we see them as in “I can see what he is saying” and “I can see how that would pose a problem”. There is a subset of appearances that we see everyday and this is built on top of a framework of concepts and assumptions. It is funny really, we can turn to look at the appearances of our lives but that is about as far we ever look.

We never scratch beneath the surface and on the level of appearances we are happy to ponder over superficial things, take moral postures on issues, criticise peoples actions, lay down our insights, or have a bit of banter and make light of things. However, something is always lost here and whilst we can be accused of taking life too seriously the truth of the matter is that we seem to be more engaged in this level of appearances rather than the actual substance that underpins these appearances. 

Style over substance every time.

The way you view everything is inside a predetermined conceptual framework, every facet of your life is within a framework of right and wrong, should do and should not do, have to , must nots and various other constraints which can take many different forms. There are social expectations imposed by your friends, there are different social constraints imposed by your family, your grandparents etc... Your work place behaviour is different again, you probably feel that you hold back at work and some of you may even feel like you live a double life as such.

From this we can already see that we, at least to some varying degrees, conform to other peoples expectations of us and in a sense there is a societal code that we are obeying. We restrict our behaviour in that respect and this is one of the things that is just below the surface of our lives that does not get a look unless it is bought to your attention. This is trivial though and you could find it in any sociology text book, this really is not a new level of insight in life, however, it does represent a glimpse of the white rabbit scurrying towards the hole. Only, you never dared to follow it you always turned a blind eye.

There are certain patterns at play in your life.

We all know someone who is struggling to get by and forgive me for being so forward, but I know that you are probably not particularly happy either. Lets have a look at your life, all we have to do is scratch beneath the surface and we can see how shallow it really is. So here goes, this is what you do with your life and it is pretty obvious to anyone looking in from the outside. You believe that by buying certain products or waiting for certain events to happen, whatever they maybe, they will make you somehow complete and happy.

This is a simple as we can boil it down this is pretty much the core pattern of your life.

You actually have the beliefs deep down that you actually need these things and your happiness depends on them. Deep down underneath it all, you are bouncing from one thing to the next expecting to find happiness but instead you are finding fleeting feelings of happiness. Then you become disgruntled and try to find the next big thing that is going to make you happy. 

Then you simply rinse and repeat.

You cannot win and the fact that you tell yourself I can't wait until X, or I'll be better when Y happens is self evident. If you are stuck in the same space you become unhappy, if you keep moving you are trying hard to find the next thing that will make you happy and when you get it - be it a new promotion, a relationship, a car, whatever your focus is on, you find that once you get it the buzz wears off and you are left yearning for more. You are trying to fill a gaping void with material goods and validation and you do not even know why.

If you can drop your jumped up pretentious little ego for a minute this is actually your life isn't it?

Even when you look back as a child you used to bug your parents for the latest toy and then a few weeks later you would be bored of it and cast it aside, once you were sucked in to the next advertising campaign for the next hot product. This pattern was started when you were younger and the tragic thing is you did not choose to do this you were simply manipulated in to it. Fast forward a few years and you probably think to yourself that you are above this mentality and likely some of you are even conscious of this but just stop for a minute.

Just stop and look at your life for a minute. 

I want you to be honest here not with me, but with yourself. Just look at your life right now and look at the goals you want to achieve. Try to visualise them and ask yourself will I be perfectly contented once I achieve these goals? If this is the case then what is stopping you from being contented right now? 

How do you expect to be contented then in the future if you cannot be contented right now? Do you think you can just flick a switch?

You are still going to be the same flawed person with more more trivial goods. You have the mind set of a consumer because even though you are above yearning for mummy to buy you the latest thing, you still have this goal orientated attitude to life. Even now you are following the same predictable pattern but you have just lied to yourself and replaced the toys with something more tangible. Really, you are just clinging to hope blindly aren't you?

You actually think everything is going to work out for you eventually don't you?

You actually believe that once things calm down you will just be able to chill out in a few years, be comfortable, life will be calm and relaxed, you will have more time to do those things you wanted to do and more time to spend with your family. You keep clinging to this blind bit of hope like a lifeboat instead of facing up to the reality you live in now, right at this moment. You do everything you can to avoid facing up to this reality right this second. It is never going to work out any differently for you, even if it does you will be the same flawed person you always have been.

I know what you really want, deep down, lurking inside that disturbing little mind of yours.

I know that what you really want is to have the admiration of your peers. Yes, you even fantasise about people standing in awe of you, you even fantasise about your boss congratulating you on your latest project, your friends telling you that your ace, I bet you even compare how many people turn up to your birthday party so people don't think your a loser don't you? Yes, I am talking to you. You are floating around in the endless cesspool of failure you call your life, which is lived in the service of what you revere as the absolute paragon of human accomplishment; vanity.

'Vanity of vanities, and all is vanity.' (Ecclesiastes)

In fact, you even give people the power to have this opinion of you and enslave you in to the social hierarchy. Yes, you care so much about what people think of you and your life is based around this game of vanity. Every time you get dressed you look in the mirror and wonder what people will think of you. You walk around the street looking at everyone else or averting their gaze wondering what they think of you. You spend all your life wondering how people perceive you, and trying to impress them, and this is pretty much the primary focus of your life. Oh what? You have other interests as well? Sure you do, but just try and notice how many times you think about other peoples opinion of you. If you actually tried to notice consciously, you would find that this represents one of the driving forces of your life. Why? Because you have been socially engineered this way.

What is it like at work for you?

How many people do you see with a smile on their face? How many people look glum on your way to work, those empty grey faces staring down the road, how many times do you curse the car in front of you just because they miss a two second gap in the traffic and it threatens that you will be a minute late for work. Yes, I am talking to you. Would you choose to do it if you had to? Would you choose your shitty £10 an hour job if you didn't have to? And what about those of you who earn good money and don't enjoy your job? What excuse do you tell yourself? Do you tell yourself that your family needs this money, do you set yourself little goals to work towards and think I'll be happy then, like it is something you can just decide to be at the flick of a switch? You actually do this don't you?

You see friend, the problem is that we have lost sight of what really matters. We actually believe money is the ends in which we have to work towards, when in actual fact it is merely the vehicle that we are supposed to work with. You have not thought long or hard about this have you? Either you are enslaved wishing you had more money or you are enslaved to the thought of having more money for its own sake. You get more and you just spend more, you are never any better off you are just treading water doing the same thing following the same pattern you have been programmed to follow.

The thing is, if you take a step back out of it for a moment you actually think this is a hard earned freedom the really ironic thing is that you actually believe this is a fundamental freedom that you have been afforded. I cannot begin to tell you how naïve and brainwashed you are. You think that if you pay out some money for the latest product then everything will be better, you even turn a blind eye when it is pretty obvious that the world is not going to be able to sustain this level of consumption for too much longer. No, you would rather spend your life working a job you hate to buy things you do not need, to fight each other over scrambling up a ladder that leads to a mountain of bull shit with a bunch of feckless morons who you secretly despise, and all for a boss who you wish you could tell him to shove his job right up his arse.

This, incredibly, is the very thing that you hold as a sacred freedom and as something of value.

This vacuous routine that you never once stopped to question whether it was a worthwhile pursuit, you just went along with it because you followed the rest of the sheep. John Keynes, the guy who you know as the Keynesian father of economics stated 'The market was made for human beings - not human beings to serve the market'. This is where you have failed to see what is happening but don't worry it is not your fault, we were all sold this lie. You see, we are blind to this unless we take a step back, the adherence to this system is indoctrinated in to you at school, many of you (although I believe a few of you will have done) have never even stopped to question this framework that structures our lives to a large degree.

So, I will ask you what happened when the Iraq war kicked off, where were you and what did you do about it? Did you go to work and ignore the protest, or did you jump on a moral grandstand and try to tell everyone about the lies the government told. I mean lets face it, the government clearly lied about weapons of mass destruction whichever way you look at it and then in order to justify their lie they focussed on the morality of freeing the Iraqi people from the evil tyrant Saddam Hussein. True, he was an evil man but the government does not have a track record for doing nice things. We need only look at the times when we have stood aside while genocides happen to see that humanitarian aims are superfluous next to the goals of the big oil companies. Lets look at who won in this war, the arms companies and the oil companies, all at the expense of you, yes you the British taxpayer.

What is striking is that you did nothing, you just shrugged your shoulders and carried on going to work. You did not even flinch when Tony Blair's grinning, conniving face appeared on your TV screen telling you one of the biggest lies to your face. You just went to work and wondered which new thing you were going to buy. Or failing that you cared about how people would think about you if you jumped on a moral grandstand and started talking about it.

Amazing that most of you just stood aside and allowed this to happen and you did not even bat an eye lid. You just shrugged your shoulders and pretended it was not happening. You lied to yourself and started to believe something else to divert your attention away from the fact that you had just been lied to and you swallowed it straight down without the slightest bit of resistance.

Or you just shrugged your shoulders even though you knew it was a lie.

What you did not realise is that this is not the only time you have been lied to. As a result of you turning a blind eye every time you have been shafted you have simply got in to a pattern of repeating this behaviour. It really does boil down to elementary psychological techniques, you are just being manipulated like a pawn. You will never achieve anything of value because it is all based on lies. This system forms the fundamental basis for your life and it is a vacuous, empty lie therefore, a life in servitude of this is worth nothing. I am not judging you, the point is you have spent your whole life looking at appearances when underneath it all underpinning it, is a toxic and foul bunch of lies that have never been challenged. These lies are the worm that is eating its way in to the very fabric of our society and the trouble is some of you even know this is happening.

You need to look at the substance of what your life is based on because appearances are deceptive. Look at that TOWIE program for all that is wrong with our society for instance. The tragic thing is people hold this up as a shining example of the absolute paragon of human accomplishment. A bunch of retarded fucks who would lose a battle of the wits with a cheese sandwich, yet people actually aspire to be like them and (god help us) even try to imitate them. I am not here to bag these people in particular but in many other areas of our society we have other lies such as religion, propaganda news broadcasts (admittedly not as bad as America), companies feeding us with sugar laden chemical crap, need I go on? Start to look at your life and you will see the lies you blissfully ignore or actively pedal to yourself everyday but it takes a shred of courage to face up to the truth.

'The opposite of the truth is not a lie the opposite of truth is cowardice' (Stepvhen)

How do we change it? We change it from within, we move to a new paradigm where capital and its influence is rendered inert. Money is not the problem and neither is capitalism. It is simply our greed and vanity that has been socially engineered in to us. We spend our lives working for a market that was originally supposed to distribute goods among us. The power of the market has simply become too great and we are subservient to the very mechanism that is supposed to work for us as human beings. That is where we went wrong. 

What we need is to be the change we wish to see in the world. Now this is a big ask but it is not impossible any more. How do we just change to a paradigm of no greed?

Instead of making our world a better place for all of its inhabitants, all your hard work currently goes to things like this

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18944097

Maybe we will never get it perfect and there will be some disparities but when we see this kind of thing, it shows you that this is what we have really achieved. This is the sum total of all of our hard work, to support the lifestyles of leeches who have never contributed anything. That is exactly what you are achieving now, whilst blindly clinging on to the hope that everything will work out for you eventually. You have just been duped your whole life but the thing is it is all based on a single lie that underpins this society, which once challenged, means you can step out from the machine and live freely. We can create a world in which we are truly free and we can live without being in service of a lie.

You can walk away in denial but why change the habit of a lifetime? Once a failure, always a a failure and for the rest of your days you will live a life blind to possibility and carry on the self serving greed and hopeless vanity as you have always done. Is that the shallow endeavours of your life, did you ever want anything better for yourself and the human race?

If all you ever do is live in servitude of a lie how do you expect to achieve anything of value?

You are achieving nothing with your life but perpetuating the problems as they are currently. Maybe my harsh critique was unfair on you but the fact remains you live your life in service to a lie, that requires your active participation to maintain the façade. You are the problem truth be told, you let it happen willingly.

What can one person do? Well imagine if my granddad and all his comrades thought like you. We would be eating sourkraut and speaking German by now. I know he and his comrades would probably turn in their graves knowing what a legacy of putrid, dishonest weaklings who let themselves become enslaved by their vanity and greed thinking they were free.

'None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free' (Goethe)

If he knew that he was going to put his life on the line and endured all that hell just so you could live your vain life, I would not expect him to step within 10 miles of an airfield. Is there a shred of humanity left in you? More to the point, do you even fucking care?

The new paradigm is a life without self image:

www.truthstrike.com

Quite evident this, nothing new really, but more insight in to how consumerism does not make us happy. Ghost 2013

So we have ascertained that the false self projects itself on to any external object it can, in order to perpetuate the illusion of a thinker behind the thinking. We also discussed the idea that all thought, no matter how trivial, is serving one function... taking us closer to survival by means of gaining survival and replication value. Or simply S+R value.

From here we can take our thought experiment and expand from our car.
So you bought a car from my garage and your not happy about it now, so I'll do you a deal, you can have the Ferrari and I'll put the original engine back in and sort out the handling sound fair? How about if I offered you a 3 wheeler? If you were non attached to the car you wouldn't care so much if you were seen in a Reliant Robin, hey its only a car right? Never mind, heres the keys to your Ferrari.
Ok now how do you feel? Seriously close your eyes just for a minute and imagine a Ferrari outside. How does it feel?
Pretty good huh?

Ok so you got a Ferrari and everythings still the same, you got the same job, same house, everythings still the same. A month has passed now and the novelty of getting all the heads turning as you drive past is getting a bit old but its still pretty cool. Occasionally you wish that you could just pop down the shops without everyones jaws dropping but oh well, I can think of worse. You take a look at your life and you think well nothing has really changed, I got a nice car but somethings still missing.

The honeymoon period from getting the car is over but nothings changed too much. You  yearn for that feeling that you had when you first got that car but as luck would have it, right now, I'll give you a Lamboghini for free. Yes you heard that right. A free Lamboghini. How good is that? Wow you just got that new car feeling again, how awesome is that? Come on, I've just given you a Lamboghini for free and you already had a cut price Ferrari. You should be ecstatic right now. Isn't this what you always wanted?

Ok two weeks later, the fun has gone a way a bit quicker this time and everything is back to normal again. What can we do now to make you happy? How about I buy you a mansion, I'm serious. Do you want the one with the swimming pool? No problem. Ok you have this, you have the cars. Everything ok now? Good.
Roll on two months. Its nice to have a mansion and the cars, you still have to work the same old job and lets face it, its a little lonely living in a mansion on your own. I tell you what I'll introduce you to this girl I know she's very attractive. Well what do you know you hit it off and 3 months later she actually wants you to marry her, she might be bit of a moneygrabber, she seems the party girl type but your just enjoying the moment right now and you have fun together.

There is a term going round at the moment that I think is pretty good a discussing the mindset we have right now, its called deferred happiness. I believe it was Tony Robbins who came out with this. Maybe we would disagree on the cause of this but we are in agreement on the symptomns of it. Its deffered happiness because it implies one day when when certain conditions have been met, then we can actually decide ok... I'm going to be happy now. So where is the threshold that we can actually turn round and do this? You think about it, you go through school and then your told to pick a college course you may be interested in. Your told to work hard and then you can get in to university. So you finish college and to be fair it is an acheivement in itself. How did you feel when you completed college? Take a look back but do yourself a favour, please use absolute honesty when you do this.

Did you find that once you got your results back it was a good feeling, you went to tell your parents and they said well done and then all of a sudden it was like wow two years, now I have a piece of paper. I expected to feel a little bit different than I do now. "Well done son, now you can get in to university".
Now all of a sudden, no sooner have you completed college, the goal posts have been moved. Two years of your life to get that piece of paper, then all of a sudden, you get to the finish line and then what? "It's ok, you have just run 10 miles but now you have got to do the marathon next. Come on theres no time to hang around get moving!".

Woah, now we got three years to go. Fast forward, rinse and repeat when you finish university. You get your worthless media atudies degree (sorry for being cynical, I did anyway I'm in the same boat) and then you have the joys of walking out in to the workplace. This jobs market where you need a degree to get a shitty job that you despise and has no interest to you. You wake up every morning thinking fuck this bull shit, I can't be arsed, your boss is a cunt, most of your co - workers consist of utter morons, who you would never give the time of day to but when it comes xmas you feel obliged to send them a xmas card just because they sent you one... even thought they don't like you either. You keep telling yourself everything will be alright once you get the promotion, once you get a new job, once you get a relationship, once you get the car, blah blah. Everyday you look on the TV and in the magazines, you see all these people living the life you can only dream of, you want to be just like them. You see people with all this stuff, they are prettier than you, have more stuff than you, the message everyday is BUY THIS STUFF AND ALL YOUR PROBLEMS WILL BE FIXED.

You see those slimy politicians lying to you every day, you stand by and watch as your civil liberties become eroded and accept the fact that you are living in a police state. No worries its ok, I'll turn a blind eye, now if I can just move out of this apartment in to a bigger house. Now you have all this stuff, you become the boss, you got respect, you start to put your money away in to a pension, you can afford it among the car insurance, contents insurance, Utilities insurance, credit card insurance, mortage insurance, holiday insurance, loan insurance, life insurance, hell even your pet insurance, you can sleep with total peace of mind now. You decide to have a family, then you can be happy. You spawn a litter of fucked up selfish brats to replace yourself (thank you Irvine Welsh =D) You find they want and want all the latest shit, your wife won't fuck you because she doesn't want to become pregnant again and she hates the stretch marks on her stomach. One of you cheats, the marriage falls apart, you only get to see your kids on weekends now.
Never mind, its ok you can be truly happy when you get your pension. Oh wait sorry to tell you this someone has embezelled it all and spent it on luxury holidays, I'm very sorry, you can take them to court if you want? Don't have the money, oh well, there nothing we can do sir, I'm very sorry. You saved all your life in to the pension scheme and then they flip you off, theres nothing you can do.

As you lie on the bed in the government old peoples home as the nurse wipes your arse because you can't do it yourself, you stare blankly at the TV. Look its Big Brother 69, this time they have to do each other twice in the arse or they get eliminated form the house. You sigh and put your palm on your face. You look back at your life and think what did I really acheive? Then you think about your impending demise, I wonder if there is a heaven will I go there? A tear comes to your eye as you realise that in actual fact there is no such thing as heaven and once you die thats it. You look back on a wasted life chasing the dream, the carrot dangling from the stick that they tied to your head. Maybe a few people will turn up for your funeral but the world will just continue, life goes on.
You call this life?

Could so easily have been me, I started out on this trail but from a young age I knew I didn't want this kind of life. Its rather a bleak view of life but I saw so much misery and suffering around me and none of it was over anything in particular. I mean its not like we were living in Africa and had no food. Yet we have the highest rates of depression in the west, how can that be when in reality most of us have a roof over our heads and 3 meals a day? Maslow's hierarchy of needs is met for most people, so what is it that makes us so discontent?

Lets go back to the situation where I've just given you the cheap cars the mansion and even a relationship. Nothing has changed, you just have this stuff. Your life has changed some as you have just got a girlfriend but underneath all this appearance level stuff, you are still you. We have done nothing to fix you, you still have the same problems, we've just pasted this stuff over your problems. You thought this shit would solve your problems right? You thought this would make it all ok and your struggle would disappear?

You still have to work for a living but no worries I'll give you a job with my company. All you have to do is collect your wage, I'll pay you double what your on now for doing nothing. Still not enough? How about a private yacht or a helicopter? That should keep you occupied for a year. You can party hard everyday, you don't have to work. I would go snowboarding all the time, that would be fun. What other stuff can you do? Hell go travelling round the world for the rest of your days. How awesome would that be? Do you think at any point you would feel unhappy? Surely you have everything that everyone want, you have absolutely no right to be unhappy? Surely you must never argue with your girlfriend? Surely all those hanger onner's you have picked up along the way are your true friends? Surely everyone respects you when they are nice to you? Surely nothing bad happens to you anymore? Everyone wants to be just like you, everythings perfect now right? Surely you can't desire anything more than this? This is the accomplishment of success in other peoples eyes and your own standards right?

We all want this one way or another, theres no denying it. You know what though? Its not the answer to your problems. We can throw all these objects at you but we have done nothing to sort out you. Have you ever heard of those stories "The lottery ruined my life?". How can this be? They have everything they wanted thrown at them all at once and they can't handle it. Its like they have all this stuff and the they yearn for how things used to be because of all the hangers on and the changes they encounter. These are rare occurrences though and in reality we usually see people accumulating wealth over time, so this is only an extreme form of this but for the average person, what does success mean to them? What point can you consider yourself to be succesful? When you've got a mortage on a semi detached, a Ford Focus, a spouse and kid? How do we really measure success or again, are we dealing with constantly moving goalposts...

So we look at all this and then say what have we really learned? From the example I used, all thats really been demonstrated is that if you acheive your desires for material goods it doesn't guarantee you happiness. You'll have up days and down days still, people will still irritate you, people will still walk over you like they always have if your a submissive type, you may get bored of snowboarding all the time, you'll still be an emotional wreck, you'll still have relationship problems, you'll still be a crackhead or whatever. This stuff don't get fixed by material goods. Its The last ones a clincher though, can you get bored of partying all the time? Yes you can, its not so difficult. It does get tiring after a while. Try backpacking round the world, you literally have days when you cannot touch a beer and you often realise I haven't been sober for a month. But as for having enough money to go travlelling for the rest of my days that would be awesome. I would totally love for that to happen. The world has so many magnificent places and cultures, I would truly love to see it all. Yes this is something I truly desire.

Does this cause me any suffering? Remember "desire is the root of all suffering" was our riddle this time round. I can say categorically no. Does not winning the lottery cause you any suffering? I doubt it. Yet we all desire this. Now there is something called wishful thinking, Here there is desire but guess what is mising? Thats right, we generally don't form an attachment from such things as there is the knowledge of the fact, that it is something that cannot be obtained in objective reality; bar extreme cases. Theres no point in forming an attachment on something the body cannot obtain. Hey... I don't make up the rules of the cognitions of an organism but generally, there is no attchment to these types of things, although I'm sure we know the types who spend loads of money on loterry tickets.

So going back to our example again, if someone gave us all that stuff would we really want it? Fuck yeah! That would be totally awesome lets not beat around the bush. The chances of it happening are pretty minimal but Do you desire this to happen? sure, I know I do. Do I desire a lottery win? Yes Do I desire a Ferrari, loads of money? Yes its a very real part of us to want this stuff, we know this from our own experience. Is this really so bad? Think about this, when do you ever get down about not having this stuff? I mean maybe on occasions you may think I wish I could win the lottery but its not as though you ever get upset about it.
If we are realistic about it when do we think; if I don't have a Ferrari people will look down on me? Like never, ever ever innit like... Sorry for writing like a spaz there but its pretty simple if we look at things there is no pain when we desire something that we cannot obtain realistically. So desire is not all bad right? Now lets look at it another context. Lets look at it from the point of view of something that can be obtained in objective reality.

To be continued...

A post about attachment to material possessions, perhaps common knowledge now but it may be useful to the layman or someone who has never investigated how shallow consumerism really is, and the effects that it has. Ghost 2013

I want to discuss with you the dynamics of the concept of non - attachment.
Non - attachment is a Buddhist concept but it actually fails as a premise for the average truth seeker. This is because non - attachment cannot be realised through self. I stated this in my last entry so I will paraphrase what I wrote just to recap:
Non - attachment cannot be realised through self, its like a man made out of lego saying "I don't want to be plastic".


From this metaphor we can see that attachments are actually the construction material of the illusion of self, like plastic is the material the lego man is made from. Without attachments there cannot be a sense of self  Like our man made out of lego, each piece builds up to form a complex model except the difference is, the lego man is an object that exists in reality, what we perceive as ourself or "you", "yourself", "your personality", "your life" is not an object that exists in reality, it is simply a complex illusion of thought patterns.

So we are ready for one one of Buddha's most well known bit of scripture:

"Desire is the root of all suffering"

Ok, in order to make sense of this we need to first look at how desire works on a normal level, define the root of this desire and then take a look at suffering with many detours along the way :)

First though lets look at why non - attachment cannot be realised through self....
When you have not seen the universal truth of "there is no you", non attachment is simply a pipe dream because you are living life through an illusion of self. This illusion is primarily made up of  thoughts, memories, projections. Whether its thoughts related to an ex girlfriend, next weeks holiday your looking forward too or thoughts about the present moment. These thoughts give rise to attachments from which a false sense of self is drawn.

How can you choose what you attach to?
The answer is, you can't. Because the illusion of self is made of attachments, anything that arises is attached to by the illusion. This is why resistance to the idea of no self is so strong. It almost sounds like science fiction. Really its not so difficult to comprehend, its just that so many attachments are formed and constantly drawn from it, that it literally seems insane to say there is no self. Fortunately however this discrepancy in reality and what we percieve as our experience can easily be reconciled by looking in reality with absolute honesty.

Since we have actually already looked in reality and seen there is no "you", no "ego", no "self" or any other entity behind the thoughts, actions and experience in any way, we can look at the subjective nature of thought and see how it tries to manifest objectively as a self.

Since there is no thing in reality that can be construed as self, we can deduce that "you" is composed of external references or labels which we will call attachments. As a thought pattern trying to manifest itself in reality, the illusion of self will take every opportunity to jump on to attachments. Thats why there is no choice about this, it is automatic. Thats why you can't conciusly choose to not feel hurt when you fall out with your lover for instance. Even if you hate their guts and you have humiliated them, why do you still hurt? It is through this attachment that suffering arises.

Where do thoughts originate?

A thought arising is the product of the mind. We can say thought is requisite in a human, in order to drive it towards survival. We see that in every species, an organism is hardwired to go towards survival and reproduce. Even if lemmings do self terminate, their drive in their useful lifespan is survival and replication and we even see in certain species that once mating occurs the organism dies. Evolution is ruthless but the drive towards survival and replication is the driving force behind an organism, we cannot deny this.

So when exactly do we NOT have thoughts related to survival? The answer is NEVER. The end product of every thought is rooted in survival and replication, we can take any thought you like and trace it back. The base level of the thought is rooted in the organisms drive towards survival and replication value, lets just call this S+R value for easy reference. Conversely, if we were not driven towards survival it would be counter intuitive that an organism would have thoughts about survival. We simply wouldn't have this capacity if it had no benefit to an organism. We have already seen from direct experience that when necessary, direct thoughts about survival do occur.

So I've got a few quid saved and I have a thought about buying the "Mona Lisa".
What has buying an expensive painting got to do with survival?
Lets look at the key things in terms of survival:

1. Its a status symbol. Displaying wealth can be helpful in displaying qualities or putting out a certain message to people. Whilst this is debateable in some circles, there is clearly a perception of this or else why would people feel the need to have status symbols. By displaying your status you are showing that you have higher status than others. This goes back to our evolutionary psychology. Our ancestors status symbols could have been animal skulls or bones through the nose. Higher status in the tribe often ensures more respect for your family (survival) and better pick of the gene pool. (replication).

 2. You have an asset that will increase in value. If you sell it you have more bio - survival tickets (money), if you keep it and pass it on when you die, you are ensuring that your offspring  will have a greater chance of surviving. They will be able to cash it in for more bio - survival tickets or have the status symbol also. You have just given your offspring a better chance of surviving and having higher status in the human tribe.

What other things can we get out of this purchase?
What if you are a lover of fine art and you appreciate the picture or you have a big ego as it were and you want to look good to other people or impress your artsy fartsy friends? We can lump the latter with our S+R pile but as for the appreciation of fine art, is that something that you are passionate about or are you more interested in making people have this impression of you?

Hmmmm interesting, lets not forget to use total honesty by the way. We won't answer this one but if you look with absolute honesty with this, maybe you can get a good insight, if you don't cling to the delusion of self too hard.

Maybe your still not convinced yet anyway.

 Lets take a car. Now I'm going to buy a Ferrari but I'm not too sure, maybe I could just buy a Mercedes and pocket the difference. Both are status symbols but one has more status associated with it.

Which would you choose and why. Ok first lets live within our means, can we really afford the Ferrari or in fact is it going to affect our survival prospects? We may have to go without food at the end of each month and if I loose my job or am ill, I could get in to arrears. My anxiety will increase, I will have no bio survival tickets, my children will get anxious and my partner might get angry at me for getting us in to this mess. Is this what you really think?

Or does the thought "I can't afford it" just arise. If this is the case, (well it is with me anyway), where then is it rooted? The positive benefits of this purchase do not outweigh the negative impacts and perceived threat to the bio survival equilibrium. Hence the thought patterns are triggered to actualise the S+R drive. "I can't afford it" is taking you closer to survival.

Sometimes we witness that in some people, the drive towards survival can actually make them get in to debt as the perception of status is so important to them. People call them stupid but really all they are doing is following their drives and they are more susceptible to the affects of advertisers.

With the mercedes, I can afford the monthly repayments and I get the same perceived benefits but its no Ferrari never mind. Why don't you buy a second hand Ford Focus, they are really cheap right now.

So why don't you?

The bio survival equilibrium would be tipped heavily one way, with all that money left over you could invest it in to a few diferent pies, your kids could go to university and you can go on holiday next month.

Now heres the clincher...
Which one increases our perceived S+R value? Would it be the Ford? I think not. As I mentioned before, the basic drive in a human is to move towards survival and climb a status ladder of sorts, going back to our evolutionary psychological drives. Of course the survival benefits of ensuring your kids go to university and having a holiday next month to keep the wife happy are good and all but our status is not increased from doing this. We want the good feelings from purchasing consumer goods. Saving the money and buying the Ford ain't gonna cut it.
Our purchase of the Mercedes will be perceived to increase our S+R opportunities hence we have a situation where people are literally "chasing status" over and above all else.

The advertisers know this all too well.
Yeah thats right... you are being f**ked with big time. They are f**king with your head. They know you are hard wired in this way and all they are doing is simply manipulating you. It is genius really, it is so clever how it is done. How do you sell someone a new car? Make them think there is something wrong with the one they already have. Its like the fashion industry, it chops and changes so often, why is this really?

How do we know this is true?

Simply because if given the choice, you would have the Ferrari. You could argue that  you like the fact its faster and it handles better.

So I'll do you a deal, I'll make the Fiesta as fast as the Ferrari by putting a Ferrari engine in it, I'll uprate the shocks and make it handle just as well as the Ferrari.
Now which one would you choose?

Would you still tell me you prefer the look of the Ferrari? Ok To make it fair, I'll downgrade the Ferrari engine to a Ford Focus engine and downgrade the suspension and make it handle like the Ford Focus used to.

Which one would you choose now?
Hmm... now I've f**ked with things. The image you have in your head of each of the cars has been changed. It ain't the same thing your buying anymore. Theres a little more difficulty in the decision.

Why?

Its only a car I'm offering you.

A car you can use to get from A to B.

Nothing has changed there. However we have f**ked with the perceived image or the S+R value that you think can be derived from it. If your like me, you probably think that neither are really that appealing anymore.

Who cares now? No one knows or gives a f**k that the Ford is the same speed as the Ferrari. The Ferrari wouldn't feel the same now because it would have a farty little engine in it and the image that you were buying in to is not there. All those spotty boy racers would blow you away and people would probably chuckle when they heard the farty engine of your car and you would be cursing it when the top end of 120mph is reached on the motorway.

I've taken away the value of the luxury item and increased the value of the non luxury item. The advertisers work the other way around but we are merely doing a thought experiment. If all you wanted was a fast car that handled well, you could take the Ford and if you just wanted to potter around and look good you could take the Ferrari right?

To make up for it we will sell either car for the same price. Remember I've got a shotgun pointing at your genitals, you have to buy one :)

Ok so you drive away from my forecourt.... and take your new purchase home. So your friend comes round and sees the car on your driveway. "When did you buy the new Ford?"
Would be the first question asked. Just now you would say "and guess what"!
"What?"
"Look at this".
You would excitedly open the hood and show the Ferrari engine crammed in to the Focus.
"How awesome is that? I've even had the shock absorbers uprated it handles the same too!".
"Yeah its cool and all but its only a Ford Focus".

Ok so you drive away from my forecourt... and take your new purchase home. So your friend comes round and sees the car on your driveway. "Wow!!! When did you buy the new Ferrari?"
Would be the first question asked. Just now you would say "It looks the part don't it"!
"Yes, it sweet, lets have a look at the engine"
"Err... look the seats are leather, check out the interior".
You would open the door and show your fiend the smart interior of your new car.
"How awesome is that?"
"Yeah its cool lets have a look at the engine then and lets take it for a spin".
You open the hood and there is the poxy little 6 cylinder engine.
"Its only a ford focus engine dude, this car is a fake".

BAM!!!
Please tell me how you would feel in each situation. At the end of each of these little scenarios would it be safe to say you felt a little insulted and you would have to defend yourself? Would you volunteer to show the engine of the ferrari? Would you be able to contain yourself from telling everyone about the Ferrari engine in your Ford?

Yet the car says nothing about you?
Then why would you feel the need to defend it and sell its strong points and hide its weak points? What does the car say about you?
The problem is, you have formed an attachment with your car.

Yes an attachment.
An attack on the car, is actually an attack on your false sense of self. Thats why these comments would hit. Your judgement and sense of self would be called in to question and you would feel the need to defend this. Why, its only a car that you use to get from A to B?
At what point does a car become a part of you? Of course this is when the false self latches on to external objects, to create an illusion. These attachments are the mental construct of the illusion of self. Whether you like it or not you have formed an attachment. You don't have a choice in this.

To be continued....