On mindfulness

I was debating on what to write for today. This post was what I had originally intended to compose. For a brief moment I considered changing the program and posting something angrier. Certainly, I have enough fodder to do so. But that would be giving in to "them". And the rent in my head is too dear for them to be living in it.

The past few weeks, I have come to some realizations.

For example, as much as I'd love to promote and make that Librarian IV cash, I have realized that at any given moment I am where I need to be. If that's in a new job, then great. But if it's at the library serving my people, that, too, is good. 

I also realized that drinking as I have been ever since the pandemic is doing me no good. It does my body harm, and it addles my mind. It's a mindless pursuit I can no longer afford.

As for social media, there, too, I have finally come to accept its perniciousness. It is filled with bad actors preying on your fear and rage. It is intended to keep you angry and at sixes and sevens, doomscrolling, reacting to every outrage, living in a virtual world of despair. And I mindlessly consumed it all day, every day, with no benefit to myself. So, on that front as well I'm pulling back.

Mindless. That's a word I used twice in two paragraphs.

We are a society of the mindless. We ingest whatever keeps us occupied, keeps us entertained, keeps us soporific. We consume junk and fill our minds with ephemera. We do anything and everything to hold at bay that which is terrifying: being alone with our thoughts. 

Mindlessness is what has gotten us into this pass. Mindless worship of Donald Trump. Mindless support for Hamas genocidaires. Mindless belief that we have no power and no agency.

This is why I have chosen to be mindful. To consciously choose or refuse the things which come into my world on a daily basis. To live out my morals and my principles, and not succumb to fashionable blandishments. I'm sure I could be a world-famous influencer if I joined in the de rigeur hatred of Israel, or in fealty to the likes of Bernie Sanders. I'm sure I'd rake in the bucks if I play-acted a MAGA troll and extolled the glories of our New Order. I would make it far in this world if I turned off my mind and just went with whatever dominated the zeitgeist.

But that's not how I roll. It's not how anyone should.

You shouldn't value a cause you don't understand and know nothing about over the fate of your neighbors.

You shouldn't vote for a man who promises to organize great hecatombs for people you've been taught to hate for no discernible reason.

You shouldn't harm yourself in the promise that others will be harmed more greatly.

You should do none of these things mindlessly. But that's how people do it. They don't think. They get told, "This is what matters. It's the only thing which matters. And if you don't join, then you're next." They push fear, division, and unthinking. Because once you start to think, once you being to be mindful of your actions and beliefs, things start to change. I remember when I pulled myself away from my youthful devotion to Noam Chomsky. And it was precisely because I had always been taught to think for myself. In that crowd, you worship the sage. And that's no way to go through life. That way lies the death of the mind and the expiration of the soul.

We suffer from a lack of mindfulness. We suffer from a lack of intentionality. We surrender our wills to others, because thinking and feeling are too onerous, or too frightening. The will of the crowd is hard to resist. If you're in a group which defines you, you're not likely to break away. Cutting yourself off from that group destroys your self-conception. It's how cults keep their members, making them mindless automatons, telling them to deny the evidence of their eyes, to tamp down any untoward thoughts. It's how dictatorships of all ideologies operate. It's how toxic political and religious movements gain power. Do not think. Two plus two is five.

If we are to survive these times, we must teach mindfulness, from kindergarten to the grave. We must stand up in a milling crowd and say "no", or "yes", and not simply conform to what our group says. We must always consciously choose our actions, not merely do what everyone else does. We must, at every turn, be mindful of if our actions will be harmful or a boon to those around us. We must return to that place inside us, however battered and bruised, where we recognize the humanity in each other. 

This isn't hippie talk. This isn't easy. The weight of society presses down upon us to be mindless, to not care, to think only of ourselves. And that way lights the road to Treblinka and the gulag. It clears the path to 7 October and Alligator Alcatraz. 

In everything you do be conscious. Be aware. And know that yes, one voice can say "no" to the dark, and "yes" to the light. And know that though it seems you are alone, you are not.