The Intake

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The five colors blind the eye.
The five sounds deafen the ear.
The five tastes harm the palate.
Dashing about riding and hunting injure the mind.
Rare goods lead one astray.
The sage is for the root not the eye.
They take one, discard the other.

-Tao Te Ching Chapter 12, interpretation

This chapter from the Tao Te Ching is one that I hadn’t thought of initially, just assuming it was about getting caught up in things. Over the last few years I’d come to realize how profound it is, and I have to say the internet played a huge role in that.

Not using the internet for research. But watching how overloaded with crap it is, and how it sells us crap. Does it seem like we’re overloaded with things to buy? Is there endless hype and things you’re told you want? Are you trying to keep up with the latest hyped game and getting the graphic card you’ll need? The internet in Web 3.0 is a gigantic device meant to overload the senses, keep us online, sell ads, and sell products.

And, as I became disgusted with the state of Web 3.0, I began to really get this chapter.

Humans can only process so much information. Some of that is the limitations of our senses and systems, but some of it is a blessing because we’re information, and taking in too much ruins who we are. To be who you are, you can’t drown yourself in information, but process it so you grow effectively. Information is a lot like nutrition, you choose the right input, the right amount, and you’re healthy and functional.

Web 3.0 is a mixture of buffet, processed food, and force feeding for the mind. It’s not good for us, and people are using it to drain our attention, money, and time.

So now I get this quote. Too much stimuli, unselected and unchosen, numbs us, distracts us, and misguides us. We have to be selective, we have to keep aware of who we are, centered, so we don’t numb and distract ourselves. It also keeps us from being exploited.

Its a reminder of how some common sense has been written down over the aeons . . . and how we have to keep rediscovering it.

-Xenofact

Screaming Through The Cracks

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I’ve previously speculated that some conspiracy theorists and spiritual grifters don’t so much have beliefs, but an internal narrative they’re trying to keep up. These people are constantly telling a story, and can’t really interact with people so much as constantly self-soothe by making their internal narrative external. I believe I’ve witnessed a case of someone transitioning to this stage.

Unfortunately, it’s Russell Brand. So this might get rough because he’s painful to deal with.

I had followed Brand with some interest because of his transition from weird actor to accused sex criminal to weird right-wing anti-science religious crank. There was something strange about the man, but the podcast/videocast On Brand helped me understand Brand better – though be warned, if you listen to On Brand, you’ll find Russel even more annoying in large doses.

They had been following Brand for some time, and analyzing him. This got into my sphere as it intersected with my interests in conspiracy theories, politics, religion, and medicine. Russell had been heading for crankdom for some time, but the accusations of committing sex crimes seems to have accelerated his decline – obviously crying “conspiracy” is a way to insulate himself.. Curious about what I might learn about him, I tuned in to On Brand, and faced the verbal firehose that is Brand.

Russell is a fast talker, what one wit once called his “Artful dodger” routine. He comes on fast, goes in loops, says the same things many times, asks and answers his own questions and keeps going. He also will talk to utterly objectionable people while still maintaining he’s all about Jesus, love, humanity, and so on – and of course he keeps going. There’s not a moment of self-relfection in there, and in fact it takes time to figure if he’s talking about anything.

(Often he isn’t).

But as I listened, while only occasionally regretting my choices, I could feel him trying to make leaps of logic to deal with his situation. Verbal diarrhea to try to not deal with what he’s talking about, throwing out questions as opposed to answers, and constantly not settling on any one thing. The man wasn’t just trying to do a narrative, it felt outright avoidant of reality or any form of solidity.

There was a painfulness to it, not just cringe, but it felt like part of him knew he was full of bullshit. Brand wasn’t to the stage where he was entirely lost in his narrative, he knew down deep he was bullshitting, or at least wasn’t good enough to cover up the fact he was. Somewhere in there was a person that knew he was full of it.

It was unsettling. Brand’s an objectionable person, probably outright sex criminal (if not yet tried), and is probably going to end up founding a cult before things degenerate. But he didn’t have the decades some would-be gurus had, didn’t quite have his story as smooth, and you could tell. There was a bit of cringe, a bit of fear, just enough that you knew he knew what he was.

An actor that knew he was acting while ignoring his own acts.

In time, I’m sure he’ll be lost in his narrative. But for now I could look at the man, listen to him, and see someone in transition to that constant narrative, that endless self-soothing. Much as my first experience with Knowledge Fight helped me see self-soothing behavior in conspiracy figures, On Brand helped me see the transition.

I saw an awful person who still had bits of humanity in the cracks, as he worked to seal them away. I see people like him and how they work to be awful, and see how much work goes into becoming such monstrous, devouring, living narratives. It’s uglier than I would have thought.

  • Xenofact

McMindfulness: Aware In The Dark

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I picked up McMindfulness by Ronald E Purser when I saw it at a store, right after it had been mentioned on a podcast.  I’d heard of this look at the “mindfulness industry” and how repurposed stripped-down Buddhism was used to basically serve capitalism.  So I picked it up, read it, and found that my summary was a little too genteel.  So let me review the book – and heartily recommend it.

The book starts by looking at how, over the decades, mindfulness exercises taken in part from Buddhism had become big business in seminars and corporate advice.  The core idea is that you become more aware of your actions (and reactions) and thus mindful, are not as troubled by the world because you are so aware.  You’ll notice, by the way, it stops there – you just learn to navigate the world better as opposed to asking “why am I so stressed out?” and “why do things suck?”

The author, a Buddhist himself, walks through the Mindfulness Industry and shows how widespread it is but also how useless it is.  Since the industry is firmly lodged in neoliberal capitalism, it has no interest in fixing the system it’s in – which often causes the problem.  In fact, seeing how Mindfulness has become a corporatized product illustrates the problems of our economic and culture – which the Mindfulness Industry can’t and won’t solve.

During this tour, Purser notes firmly and intelligently that this separated selfish pseudo-self awareness misses out on Buddhism’s teachings on community, compassion, and responsibility.  The Mindfulness Industry doesn’t just take a few bits of Buddhism, it outright excludes the social elements of the religion and its teachings.  It couldn’t include them since then they’d basically be selling something that wouldn’t fill those big corporate conferences – and worse.

Because, Purser goes in depth more than I expected on mindful politics, war-waging, and more.  We’re so used to the “mindfulness” stuff we might not realize how far it’s penetrated, showing up in banal political speeches and efforts that desensitize people in the name of “not being reactive.”  Even if you pay attention to this stuff, you may be surprised beyond your capacity for cynicism.

Purser also speculated on how McMindfulness produces a selfish, separated, almost abstract sense of self.  I can see echoes of the prosperity gospel and online conspiracy theories in his speculations – both ways to seek wealth and self-aggrandizement, but without any responsibility or even real transformation.  If anything, I think there’s more to study in this area.

He does see hope – or ways – to free Mindfulness from its current corporate shackling.  So it’s not a hopeless book – it’s one carried by a kind of passionate loving rage.  So yes, you’ll get angry Buddhist when you read this.

A firm recommendation for seekers like ourselves.

-Xenofact