“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.” – Oscar Wilde

High school was hard. Not so much the classes. The classes, at least at my high school, were a breeze. The hard part about high school was navigating the social cliques and doing anything possible, including great leaps of effort and imagination, to not, under any circumstances, do or say anything that would constitute the tragic and unshakable label of being weird. I did my best to look like everyone else, and everyone else did their best to look like me. We were all hiding – with each other and from each other.

Being insecure in high school I can understand. Everyone is still growing into themselves and trying to map out their coordinates on the spectrum of social relationships. High schoolers are allowed to be nervous wrecks, afraid that their own shadow will make fun of them if they trip and fall. But after high school, when we transition into adults, shouldn’t this need for approval go away? My high school years are long gone but everywhere I look the social pressure to conform to the standards and expectations of others remains. Adults too are afraid of looking weird. Should we be?

Quantum physics has revealed that the true nature of our reality is much “weirder” than we previously thought. Findings in this realm challenge various belief systems that are still firmly held by a large portion of mainstream science. The modern scientific worldview is predicated on assumptions closely associated with classical physics. This has become dominant in academia, more specifically, materialism, which is the idea that matter is the only reality, despite the fact that multiple experiments have clearly shown how certain empirical phenomena cannot be explained by classical physics.

“QM [quantum mechanics] has questioned the material foundations of the world by showing that atoms and subatomic particles are not really solid objects—they do not exist with certainty at definite spatial locations and definite times. Most importantly, QM explicitly introduced the mind into its basic conceptual structure since it was found that particles being observed and the observer—the physicist and the method used for observation—are linked. According to one interpretation of QM, this phenomenon implies that the consciousness of the observer is vital to the existence of the physical events being observed, and that mental events can affect the physical world.” (source)

Zen Gardner, Guest
Waking Times

It’s intriguing to me to find viewpoints. When we observe anything we need to be mindful from whence we are doing so. It has everything to do with how we perceive so called reality.

I had an interesting experience one time, I can’t remember if it was in a semi dream state or some such altered frame of reference, but I could see an object or concept I was viewing as a sort of crystal. If you looked at it head on it had certain perceived traits and characteristics. But when I moved slightly to the side to see this form through another facet it was of a completely different nature than I had originally perceived.

Ida Lawrence, Contributor
Waking Times

What could a person possibly gain from insecurity? What could be the reward of feeling undeserving? Why would we harbor low self-esteem? Why do we think against ourselves? These states are not natural to our essence or inner being, so why… where did the urge to give away our power come from?

I grew up in the American Midwest, in a place where people worked very hard for not a lot of reward. And yet, I can’t remember a single instance of a farmer saying ‘I deserve’ a better life. Everyone I knew behaved as if self-denial was humble and spiritual and a sign of goodness, and ‘I deserve’ was presumptuous and greedy.

It’s the ego that makes these comparisons. Ego identity comes with the situation we’re born into, formed by interacting with who and what is in our world, and by what works for us as we go out into our world. It’s the character we think we are, the separate I and me, as we deal with others.

Phillip Smith, AlterNet
Waking Times

There is something strange, very strange, going on inside the heads of people using the fast-acting psychedelic. Machine elves, anyone?

Have you encountered stick men, machine elves or other discarnate entities while tripping brains on DMT? If so, you’re not alone. The use of the powerful, fast-acting psychedelic dimethyltriptamine (DMT) generates reports of such entities on a regular basis.

DMT has been around for a long time, although it’s never been that popular—and encounters with extradimensional critters may be part of the reason why. Back in the 1970s, it was known as “the businessman’s trip” because you could take it at the beginning of the lunch hour and be back to normal it was time to go back to work. When smoked, the psychedelic effects begin almost immediately and fade away with half an hour.

“The best teachers are those who show you where to look, but don’t tell you what to see.” ~ Alexandra K.Trenfor

There comes a time when we reach a level of awareness – about our selves and others – when we are able to function with love and security, slowly working on ourselves as we move towards the light. There may still be bad days, but all in all we will have dealt with the stealthiest parts of our shadows and are simply working towards being a ray of light for others; an example to follow.

With this comes great responsibility – perhaps the reason why many are avoiding it! – but this is where our true selves shine out. We become a teacher. Not a preacher. The ego preaches. The ego wants to tell everyone else that they are right and you are wrong. A teacher doesn’t need to do this. They have solved the problem of themselves and are simply existing, enjoying the experience of being alive.

In 2008, the loss of 11 billion dollars by the world’s largest investment company, AIG, and the bankruptcy of the US investment bank Lehman Brothers, triggered a domino effect of financial consequences which brought the entire capitalist system within a hair’s breadth of total collapse.

But, as the events leading up to the financial crisis were slowly unveiled, it became ever clearer that the crisis was caused, quite knowingly, by the bankers themselves.

The Cause

In the years leading up to the economic crisis in 2008, banks increased the funding for the riskiest loans (called subprime loans), from $30 billion a year to over $600 billion a year, rigged even higher interest rates on those loans, and then, while the bankers were making billions of dollars of profits off the borrowers’ high interest repayments, they made further profits betting against their customers ever being able to pay back the loans they had just been given.

The FBI warned the government about this in reports as early as 2006, the IMF’s chief economist, Raghurum Rajan, presented a paper to the men in charge of all the world’s major banks, including the Federal Reserve, warning of the potential collapse of the system due to dangerous incentives, and journalist Allan Sloan published articles in Fortune magazine and The Washington Post in 2007 – nothing was done.

Many of us live with the understanding that to turn off our personal chatter and quieten our mind involves us having ‘to do’ something, to either distract ourselves or refocus our attention.

Some of us are even unaware of how busy minded we have become. We live with a revved up speed of thought and don’t recognize its significance in our struggles with productivity, procrastination, and relationships.

We sometimes only realize the scale of our mental speed when it slows down enough for us to notice it. Much like hearing a noisy drill on a construction site next to our office, we don’t realize how intrusive and loud it is until it stops momentarily before then starting up again.

We all have an innate pull towards habits and pastimes to help us: holidays, hobbies, yoga, cycling, alcohol, walking, watching movies and our phones! The list is endless.

What if our understanding of having ‘to do’ something in order to quieten our mind becomes the obstacle?