The Fine Line Between Awareness & Fanaticism
Apologies to all the conspiracy theorists.
Can you tell I wrote this in 2014?
11:32am—I checked the clock on my microwave twice before sitting down in the desk chair with my morning coffee today. It was still steaming so as I began blowing a gentle stream of cool air into the cup, I hopped on YouTube knowing I'll have some time to kill before beginning my day.
A good headline should be attention grabbing. It should pop out at you amidst a sea of other unrelated clutter. More often than not, if it doesn't stand out the first time my eyes glaze over it, I won't even know I missed it much less give it a second chance. So I begin to skim—typical compilations or foreign music videos or news segments of world events fill up most of my screen. Then, something along the lines of, “How the CIA manufactured Isis.” Here we go, I think to myself, almost rolling my eyes. I know I shouldn't. But we've all been through this exact minute in one way or another. Maybe you're running to the grocery store to pick up some milk or whatever and there, in the checkout lane sits The National Inquirer, shouting at you from its rack: “HEY! I KNOW EMBARRASSING THINGS ABOUT FAMOUS PEOPLE! BUY ME AND READ ME!” You know you shouldn't, that you're above it. But its got a picture of a pot-bellied Brad Pitt on an exotic beach somewhere with another unrelated snapshot of a black-eyed Angelina staring down in some type of shameful pose. Could it be true?, your mind thinks. “I NEED TO KNOW!” I don't blame you. In return though, I ask that you give me the same courtesy during my own display of attempting to show zero self-restraint and giving in to that guilty pleasure which goes against my better judgement. I click on the video as I prepare for the next few minutes.
It's what you'd expect. Decent graphics, a fancy set designed to emulate a respectable news studio, and an expensive diaphragm microphone with a very animated man shouting frantically behind it—arms flailing, voice heightening to new peaks every other sentence, all while the overly-agitated speaker spews opinions dressed-up as factual reporting.
The 10th Circle of Hell
It's interesting to see these people work themselves into such a frenzy, such anxiety-riddled rants that they must feel as if they don't hit every single angle and theory, then the “sheeple,” or “uninformed” audience will miss their point entirely. I don't want to pick solely on this specific man, there are hundreds of like-minded people who dedicate every free moment of their lives to producing new content for their YouTube channels, blogs, podcasts, or if they're super edgy, their still-in-circulation zines. I'm not knocking the passion. Their dedication is honorable. Even their motives, I suppose, are admirable—to merely wake up the sleeping. All fine and good. It's their processing abilities that they've shrunk down themselves that signals a loss of a perfectly valuable mind, before it had baseless theories pelted at it from all sides—and worse, forced to accept.
Though I'm perfectly satisfied with The Divine Comedy as is, I'm sure if Dante were to have gone any further, the tenth circle of the Inferno would consist of nothing but having to convince one single conspiracy theorist of rethinking his arguments, even for a moment. It just isn't possible. Their world is just as sick and chaotic as everyone else's, they don't need to look any farther to find a news story ripe with injustice. We then, begin to differ on how we mentally process such things. A balanced brain can admit the sadness of the story at hand, they're also able to leave it alone, as is. They don't need to attach any extra narratives to make sense of what they've just heard or seen. It is what it is. Tragic. Or a miserable example of human interaction. To a conspiracy theorist, there must always be something else that we're not being told. We aren't given all the facts, ever. Surely, certain words have been blackened out of the official transcript before the cameras went live. Everywhere they look, there's a connection to be made. It's all run by The Man Behind The Curtain, down to the very last detail. Nothing is under-thought or left to chance. Big Brother is very real and is watching them even in this very instance. Like the final shot of Hitchcock's Psycho, Norman knows he's being observed, analyzed, so acts that much calmer. Not even a fly can break the man's concentration when it's time to put on the poker face.
Their incessant warnings have fallen on deaf ears for so long that they've adapted the same formula they profess to be exposing: fear mongering. They say mainstream, State-run media is all one huge sham. That their stories are used to advance hidden agendas. The irony is that they are employing these same tactics themselves. It takes a willful eye to pick up on the hypocrisy, but it's there. Was it really necessary for this opinionated speaker to keep reiterating his validation of a particular politician again and again? Say you respect the man's views once, then move on. Things like that. It's bothersome, not because they hold allegiance to their own political figures as the big boys do, but because they do it all while making such a huge fuss about how honest their aims are, how thankful the general public should be toward them because of their unwavering courage in exposing the truth.
Patterns = Safety
Well, “the truth”—in my opinion—is that they're just as scared and bewildered and let down in humanity as the rest of us are. They don't understand how such pure hatred could go unnoticed for so long, how so many innocent lives are lost for the furthering of poisonous ideologies. That much is completely understandable. However, they get diluted with fantasy—that if some shadow government was behind it all, everything would make that much more sense. There would be a pattern again. Life would cease to be so chaotic and they'd be able to sleep once more. They're amazing talkers who have no interest in exercising any reason whatsoever, so a good conspiracy theorist is quite able of convincing even himself that up is down or that the sky is actually bright red. Once connections are drawn from seemingly unrelated events, they begin seeing it goes farther than planes flying into buildings. That it's bigger than the gas chambers and extermination camps built solely with the purpose of wiping millions of innocent lives off the face of the planet. In fact, it's the most extraordinary piece of knowledge ever—and they're the ones who stumbled upon it. They will expose these criminals hidden-in-plain-view to the rest of the world and because the assassins must already be on their way to their homes, they'll go down as martyrs for humanity. Truth seekers who saw it all before anyone else.
Either way, listen to any one of them talk long enough and you'll quickly start getting tired of hearing about their sure-deaths. How they'll be used to cover-up the truth they were trying to expose. They say it with such certainty. From the mouth of this man himself: "When the nuke finally goes off, expect every last one of us leaders to be killed within an hour. That's all it'll take. An hour. You'll see!”
Rabbit Holes
With all of that said, here's the whole point of this essay: after sipping the last of my coffee, I looked up from my computer screen—12:47pm.
More than an hour later and I was still jumping from video to video, listening to mumble I could either poke holes the size of these men’s egos in or—while trying to give him the benefit of the doubt—not only accept, but strengthen his arguments with much better logic on my end. Both were incredible wastes of time. It was useless trying to reason with hyperbole. So how did I lose track of time? The sheer arrogance of it all engulfed me. I was in a trance. Much like flipping through channels and stumbling upon The Wiggles or Teletubbies or any Kardashian-centered show, you can't help but take a few extra seconds to admire the awkwardness. “How does anyone watch this?!,” you ask yourself, while watching it. Not even noticing the seconds ticking by, turning into entire minutes.
As I closed out Safari and began getting myself ready for the day, all these thoughts swirled around my head. This is how honest, good-natured people get sucked in, I thought. The need some humans hold in their black hearts to see Western Civilization burn down to nothing but ash is a terrifying thought and a properly-wired, down-to-Earth mind tries to make sense of such a thing. The reality of there being no good motive behind these crimes against humanity is a tough pill to swallow. So the armchair geopoliticians flock to their keyboards and offer their skewed theories, promising the truth. The ones with louder personalities and intrusive characteristics eventually build a following, get noticed and maybe get a talk show, with real producers, because someone will still listen to a complete stranger’s opinion, no matter how much lunacy they radiate.
Advocates & Worshippers
But a true thinker considers all viewpoints, no matter the source. So, let's play Devil's Advocate and for a minute, humor these people and their delusions. Even a shadow government is still compromised of human beings. Even if they're secretly praying to evil deities and placing subliminal symbols in everyday environments, they're still two arms, two legs, and a torso with a talking head. Even if they perform Satanic rituals at meetings of the world's utmost elite, they're still buying weekly groceries, eating at their favorite places, trying to stay in shape, arguing with their wives or husbands, accidentally backing up their toilets, walking their dogs, oversleeping, getting sick, getting old, dying. These devil-worshippers draped in scarlet robes who wear animal skulls as masks and chant in ancient tongues are not real threats. The real danger is a poisoned ideology.
Those are what this speaker and Co. should be concerning themselves with dispelling and eradicating. Those ideas are what live on, much longer than that of the men who spend entire lives living for, spreading and eventually dying for. Hitler is no longer with us, so why are Neo-Nazis still sprouting up randomly? His theories can be called out for the sick rhetoric they are—but as long as they hold weight in sick hearts, they retain enough power to destroy lives. An internet show or podcast built around the discussion and dissection of ideas doesn't pull in the masses though. We're talking ratings people! YouTube has been writing out some hefty checks—let’s get in on that action! Instead of exposing why and psychologically where these monstrous acts of violence come from, taking the time to destroy their threads of logic from the inside out and exposing their followers as blind and ignorant, they choose to paint a picture full of hidden plots, mystique, secrets, connections that are so outlandish, they just might work. And of course, they do. Every time. They speak to an audience who doesn't like thinking for themselves. Unfortunately though, these are the types of people they replace their innate intuitions with.
Just the fact that people lose their lives, isn't that enough of a news story? Isn't that enough to bring out the best in us? Why does there always have to be even darker, ulterior motives? No matter what the event, an even grimmer truth is waiting underneath the surface. Look long and hard at something and a person will trick himself into seeing exactly what he wants. If there are governments in bed with each other who also invite Big Pharma and The World Bank for one huge orgy and their ultimate goal is the enslavement of 99% of Earth's population so that they can feed us nothing but that weird paste fast food places pass off as beef, then I'll be a pretty bummed out slave. But until the day comes where I am taken from my home by MIB-looking agents dressed in expensive Gucci suits with sunglasses to match, why obsess over the possibility and eventual rise of this New World Order? Why spend all my waking hours and gorgeous summer days listening to Apocalypse-enthusiasts who make it a point to dream up the most brutal scenarios they can, as if it’s a sport? The end of the world is never close enough for these soapbox preachers. Disease! Famine! The fact that Joan Rivers once had a joke about Scientology in her set! Can't we see how simple and related it all is?!
Finale
Which brings us to the end of this long diatribe. I left my studio and stepped out into a sunshine so bright and invigorating, so powerful and lifting, that I suddenly felt more alive just standing outside my front door than I had in the entire past week. The sounds of the city flowed in and through my head; laughter, birds singing, church bells, an airplane soaring high above taking people I'll never meet to new places they've never seen. It was all so real, so perfect. It reminded me what life truly is. Or at least, what it can be if looked at with the right frame of reference.
There's been so much sadness lately. A million reasons to just break down or shout at the sky or give up completely. I've realized that the continuous stream of bad news will never stop. There'll always be a tragedy waiting to happen and be reminded of in the weeks afterward. You get mentally and emotionally exhausted. You forget how important it is to be able to appreciate a nice day outdoors. The trick isn't to disconnect from the mainstream media by just jumping ship from these opinions to those. Rather, it's to disconnect entirely. No more theories. No more “strange” and “curious” camera edits. No more tracing back the paper trails and who was whose distant relative. It may all be related, sure. But that's because they're all things vying for your full attention, energy, and heart. All of which are so precious and valuable and nobody but yours.
Of course it’s important to be aware of the world you live in. Of the evils which are possible and those carried out everyday by tyrants. But to know is one thing. To fill your life with them to the point where they’ve consumed all you are is another.
If these men behind the microphones ever allow themselves to truly experience a moment’s worth of honest happiness where they aren’t looking for connections or hidden plots put in motion by scary men in the depths of dark shadows, I’ve never seen it caught on tape. Maybe at some point they too, chuckled at something funny. Or maybe they got home one day and instead of their usual B-line for the conspiracy websites, they grabbed their wives, spun them around and while in their arms, planted a huge kiss on the women’s lips for no other reason than to make them smile, just for that moment. Maybe. Who am I to assume to know these complete strangers? I just wish they and the millions of similarly confused theorists would just take up a hobby every now and then. Something that doesn’t involve a computer or a webcam. Crocheting circles? Then they could harness those beautiful brains of theirs on who keeps using all the green thread or why the jar of raspberry jam they’re all supposed to share always turns up mysteriously missing. At least it’ll keep them busy.