TL/DR: 'We the people' starts with 'I the person'.

Today's people are ever looking outwards for an answer when it is glaringly obvious that we should be looking towards ourselves. Real blue pill stuff. "If someone else provides the answer then, at least I am not to blame if it is the wrong one".

Horrible. It erodes personal responsibility and delivers us into the hands of a corrupt elite, their media- manufacturing your consent and calling it a democracy. It's pathetic.

While not being perfect (is anything?), I agree with the principles of democracy and votes for all. The problem with this kind of freedom is the requirement of personal responsibility to maintain an informed electorate.

It doesn’t take much to put people off though- especially those who shy away from responsibility, especially…..more than half of the electorate. “I mean, don’t you just HATE taking decisions? Isn’t it just so much more CONVENIENT when everything is done for you?” – hence the lamentable lack of participation in our modern democracies. This way of thinking finds us getting to choose between red and blue every 4 years. A convenient, simple, representative democracy which reflects our simpleton, blue pill outlook

Eternal vigilance is forcing our way in to participate in the endless debates we have been shut out from- and I really don’t mean being diverted down blind alleys like Gender Studies or any idea of discrimination in favour of other groups. Our current system, corrupt tyranny, encourages lack of participation and blue pill behaviour by design. Removing authority at all levels where it is desperately needed to enforce individual and group principles and behaviour.

Still, I suspect you realise that you hold the answer in your hands though.

While it’s awful that so many people never bothered to turn up and vote at all, it’s still pretty terrible to consider the number of people who voted for Trump and Clinton without realising who they really represent (clue: it’s not the people who gave them the campaign money). Even worse, so many people voted for Clinton and Trump as a popular reaction against Trump or Clinton- not realising that there are so many other options when you simply turn up with your head screwed on. Happily, there were of course a small minority who voted with their eyes open. I can only applaud that.

Still, the red/blue dynamic is heavily promoted by the media along with many other kinds of dualistic crap- the one closest to home being the wholly artificial ‘battle of the sexes.’ That men and women should be killing themselves, killing each other, ruining children’s lives and breaking up families at the behest of the powers that be is THE tragedy of the modern era. The system fails us at nearly every self-interested step it takes.

As an aside, this is also why independent thinking really causes a stir in corporate controlled social and traditional media. Self actualising individuals that create self organising groups and systems are very powerful and threaten a status quo which is ‘too big to fail.’ Large(ish) groups, even online ones, need breaking up, compartmentalising, atomising, extinguishing. The unhealthy democracy and outdated financial system which serves powerful interests must be maintained at all costs. This gravy train is to be ridden all the way to the end of the line. So, in essence, the real message to the poeple is "fuck the lot of you."

Anyhow- to answers: If you want you healthy democracy, stop looking for some hero to vote for and focus on becoming that person instead. And not for the votes either- just because it is what you should be doing. taking part, talking to people, writing letters and emails, standing up, making speeches, getting involved by forcing your way into the debates that matter to you. If nothing else, it's all great practice.

Individual responsibility pokes it’s head up again and again: If you want a healthy life and relationship then become the kind of person, you and others will want you to be. Not because you want women to like you but because you know it’s what you were born to do- to become responsible for your manhood. That people love you for it is just a bonus.

You cannot change the world, but you can change yourself and the way you respond to challenges. At the very least this serves as an example to those around you.

‘Be the change you want to see’ is the cliché but there is a deeper meaning to it. In a spiritual sense, the outer world is nothing more than a reflection of our inner world. We all know that a few weeks down the gym turns the world into a better place. If you clean up yourself then you clean up the world.

Shakespeare: “Why, then, ’tis none to you, for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. To me it is a prison.”- Hamlet.

Even the whole idea of global warming could simply be nothing more than an allegorical tale of man’s collective anger untransmuted. Here is an idea from Siddhartha’s ‘Fire Sermon’:

“Form is burning, feeling is burning, perception is burning, volitional formations are burning, consciousness is burning. Seeing thus, bhikkhus, the instructed noble disciple experiences revulsion towards form ... feeling ... perception ... volitional formations ... consciousness .... Through dispassion [this mind] is liberated...."

An inspiring example of someone who changed the world by changing themselves is Dr. Huw Len and his Hawaiian Hoponopo tradition. When tasked with curing patients in a mental hospital, he examined their charts, investigated the way his body and mind responded to the data and proceeded to ‘clean’ himself instead by working with the energy, according to his principles. Strangely, his patients got better.

Did someone mention anarchy? There is very little difference between anarchy and a democracy which removes old Elites and non-functioning central banks. A real democracy is the black market, real democracy is the weight of a powerful yet fleeting popular opinion riding down the tyrants and their evil ends.

In short, anarchy serves democracy by removing tyranny. Beware the dictator who is not benevolent in such an environment. No wonder they seek to break up any group which dares speaking to power.

A permanent anarchy is a reaction too far ( imo- The Donald Trump for your Hillary Clinton perhaps?) Yet it is no surprise that it makes sense when faced with our current ghostly, prison of tyranny.

Democracy is more than just a name, or a symbol of ownership and manipulation, but only if you want it to be. You must however realise that it is something you yourself must do- not Hillary Clinton, not Donald Trump- YOU. Beginning with yourself, affecting the things around you such that you can and should. Not just being able to act but really acting out on your own ideas and conclusions- and bugger the opinions of others. You are important – you count, it is your life.

As usual, it all starts and ends with working on yourself- the rest is for the birds, which happily brings us back to the Red Pill…

Just wanted to write down my process I used to transform obstacles into something useful.

Background: I suffered from undiagnosed anxiety since childhood. Rather than get help, I spent three decades trying to prove that I wasn’t just a 'pussyhole' by being routinely aggressive, starting fights and generally pretending to be the big man I was not. Inside I was the same scared six year old whose family had suddenly broken to pieces.

For years, I was the anguish and pain. I was hopelessly scared. I would shake with fear at the slightest provocation and try to hide it. Shaking with anger worked instead, doing stupid dares worked instead, drink and drugs worked instead. Inside I was till screaming though and it is quite debilitating. I just couldn’t get any real success with being in denial about my problem.

The breakthrough came in the form of insight and awareness meditation. It wasn’t until I was at rock in London that I first began listening- more so in Thailand where I began to take the idea seriously.

Meditation demands first and foremost that you be honest with yourself. Nobody else can see how honest you are about your introspection. It’s the easiest thing in the world to lie about as nobody can see the difference between ‘doing nothing’ and doing nothing. Learning not to lie to myself became the first and most important step towards an honest life.

Initially I used visualisation, counting and awareness of the breath to gain more control over my thoughts. The result was that people started to come closer to me. I realised one day that someone had just come over and sat down next to me on a bench- mainly it seems because I wasn’t trying to stare them down. I wasn’t expecting it, but it was a shock when it happened. I hadn’t considered how my semi-conscious actions were affecting those in the immediate vicinity. It was this small breakthrough which really gave me some faith in the process- some much-needed hope.

The next stage was being able to disassociate from my thoughts and feelings. The writings of Erkhart Tolle were instrumental in this. His idea of the Pain Body where all feelings reside, the mind where all thoughts happen were illuminating.

Most of all, the idea of ‘the observer’, a name for the conscious awareness- ‘I’ that sits behind it all. Just writing this sentence does not describe consciousness well. I cannot think of the right words and I suspect you can’t do it justice.

Still, this ‘I’ was separate from the anxiety and the thoughts. Here was a place of peace which I could observe them from. The most interesting part of the pain body experience was the way I could disidentify from my anxiety. It was an elephant tusk shape, the base in my stomach- curving upwards to stick up out of the top of my neck and under my chin. Just heavy, it felt like some kind of tumour and I hated it. Still, at least it was not me. I was no longer anxious- I had a feeling of anxiety inside me.

Next stage was ‘meta’ or to give it the more fluffy name ‘loving kindness’. The feelings inside your body are your history. They represent you and your pain. Giving your pain energy in the form of anger and hatred only makes it bigger. ‘Meta’ allows you to do the opposite: not only accepting your past pain, but sitting with it and, after some time, becoming sympathetic and attending to it in a loving manner. After many months, the tusk began to grow thinner, became lighter.

So there is the process: Anger, noticing, disassociation, acceptance, love- and that is how I got there.

Perhaps that seems familiar to some of you. It does seem similar to the Kübler ross grief cycle. It seems like the way people realise the red pill- beginning with frustration and venting and leading to self mastery. It seems similar to the way people react to the #quarrantine. It happens all of the time for me.

Nowadays this even works when I wake up in the middle of the night and cannot get back to sleep: Relax, notice, accept, befriend, let go. Often, I quickly fall asleep again- and, if I don’t, then I’m already in the next best state- deep relaxation.

Terrible shit happens to people all the time. Experience leaves marks on you. There are many ways of using pain to master ourselves- in fact it’s probably true that self-development and self-actualisation only happen as a result of being brave enough to face up to your pain and responsibility, wherever it comes from.

It still seems kind of perverse to say that ‘the obstacle is the way’ or ‘you should welcome the pain’- but it is true in my experience. Learning how to deal with your pain is learning how to find and slay the dragon. Learning how to transmute negative energy is making the phoenix rise from the ashes. These are things which are realised along the path and make it well worth walking.

And for me it all began with being honest for a change. These days, my inability to deal with anxiety is gone. Most importantly, the elephant tusk isn’t there anymore. It has changed my life, left me free and put me on a different level.