Today, I was reflecting a little bit on this. My mind needs constant reprogramming to get it to think more positively and produce better thoughts, and one morning this reflection just came to me. I thought to share it with you too.
By the word "programming," I mean a type of conditioning that happens with ideas or constructs. There can be good conditioning or bad conditioning depending on what we do and who we hang around with. Many politicians site examples of "brainwashing" or "conditioning" happening in war torn countries, but it seems to me that a lot of programming goes on in our side of the world as well.
One of the more popular forms of programming is the "television program." I've often wondered why a TV program is formatted the way it is. Or how the characters on sitcoms encounter a problem just before a commercial is aired. The negative use of language has also puzzled me. Why does television talk so dramatically and exaggerate the words and phrases to describe situations? Words like "despair" "devastating" and "battle" are thrown around like this is a normal way to talk. Weight loss is often coined as "the battle of the bulge" or "an uphill climb." These may be amusing phrases to say but in my experience, the effect they have on me only serves to make the problem worse.
I read somewhere that the subconscious mind is very literal. It tends to take everything your conscious mind says at face value. Even though it won't take you into an actual war front when you say "battle" of the bulge, it still likes to follow instructions as closely as possible. Therefore, if you use television talk to talk to others in daily life, it seems to make sense that you will create the same sort of drama that is on T.V.
But talking this way seems to create unnecessary hyped up emotions and over exaggerations. It can do a lot of damage in complicating problems, arguments and discussions. Use of clever alliterative phrases and metaphors on negative aspects can wreak havoc on my psyche. And that in itself may be exaggerating a bit, but it just shows me how powerful language can be to create negative circumstances in our lives.
Television "programs" seem to be designed to engage people, to evoke emotional conflict so that the commercial can be seen as a psychological relief. People can only love shopping if they feel it will solve a problem, and for some, shopping and acquiring material things does seem to be the pathway to a happier mood.
On a similar level, radio "programs" seem to be formatted in much the same way. A lot of songs are designed to make the listener feel bad with their use of similar dramatic language. I have often heard that songwriters tend to write songs as a form of therapy. but once their songs are broadcast to the mass audience, doesn't the audience take in this personal discomfort and makes it their own? Melodical, alliterative and metaphorical songs that are both negative and "catchy" seem to be easier to remember and repeat in our heads, so doesn't that mean that we are in essence treating these songs as types of affirmations that we can one day manifest in our daily lives?
Humans are very paradoxical to me; they can claim they are highly intelligent beings when it comes to civilization, but be very simple minded when it comes to certain things within it. How else could they be sold a "television program" with "remote control"? Or come to see that positive thinking is bad and negative thinking is better? The use of language tools seems to have been manipulated an awful lot by media types and marketers to persuade us to buy what they are selling. These days, the drama in some TV shows is rediculously heightened and the commercials lengthened to feature infomercials just to try to make up for a lost audience.
We can only hope that someday this paradigm will shift to inspire a more harmonious balance in our society.
Until then, we viewers may have to depend on ourselves to ensure that our minds are exposed to positive messages.
We should decide we want ALL the control of our programming, not just remote control of it. We ought to take these tools of language and form them into phrases that uplift us, encourage us, feed us and nurture us. Imagine the possibilities billions of individuals can create if each one was fully content with their own self created positive programming.
Governments are only a few people, so caught up with procedures and meetings that they have little time to mend the public's concerns. But billions of people have tremendous power to change their lives, once they are aware of what's right in front of them.
This is what raw awareness is all about. Maybe life was created to be simple. Simple fruit, simple vegetation, simple pleasures. If the gorilla, one of our oldest ancestors, wants to eat, he just helps himself to whatever fruits and vegetation lie before him. But once humans learned about fire, suddenly he seemed to complicate the whole feeding process. Not only did he start running after live animals to kill them, but he then dissected the meat from the bones and fur and sat over a fire waiting for it to be edible enough to eat.
It seems to me that when people eat cooked food, it's as if thoughts become irrational, being selfish becomes habitual, and acts of cruelty to other animals and humans becomes logical. To use a tool of language, controlling one's mind when they are eating cooked food is like steering a ship in a sea of wet cement. No wonder there are so many self help books written on positive mind programming.
On the other hand, several psychological changes seem to take place when people become fully accustomed to the simple way of eating. At least this is the case for me. In a matter of days from beginning this diet, my temperament suddenly became more balanced and harmonious. The most violent of mood swings subsided, leaving me calm and mellow. I wonder if raw food eaters are generally more selfless and giving as well. Wouldn't it save us a lot of money and grief if eating raw food actually made that kind of difference? Governments could save millions simply by feeding and educating prison inmates on the benefits of eating raw fruits and vegetables. Parents could save money and energy giving drugs and therapy to their children labelled as having A.D.D. or autism. Leaders of government might make clearer more beneficial decisions for our countries. And in the final analysis, as every individual healed him/herself from these diseases, the population of the planet might come together to heal the Earth.
