This gagablog is about the Quest for the True Colbert, a mystery play whereby America discovers a new identity for Herself that is free of conservativism. But first, Paradise: A Preview.
Lots of people know about the idea of the collective unconsciousness. We might have different ideas about the collective consciousness or whether or not it can even exist. I think the internet is giving people more ideas of what the collective mind of the world is or could be. My idea is that there is a collective consciousness, the world of inspiration, stories, and ideas, but also an inferior mental world of judgment and prejudice. If the collective subconscious is the world of dreams (and a commercial about insurance just said "your dreams are the most valuable thing you will ever own" in he background as I typed that) then the collective consciousness is the world of Hopes and Dreams: idealism, innovation, art, fantasy, sensuality, magic and the quest for justice. The reason we don't recognize this waking dreamworld as "collective" is that some mindsets, and therefore some people and cultural expressions, are kept out of it by narrow-mindedness and small-mindedness. Of course no one is excluded by nature. Everyone can become more a part of the collective consciousness by overcoming the mental limitations, breaking through the barriers of narrow-minded mindsets. From my perspective I see the collective consciousness as Oz and the small-minded culverts that separate themselves from it or even "threaten" it and drag it down as the outlying kingdoms. In this fairytale arrangement these are separated by the Deadly Desert. Of course even Ozzites, within Oz, can be victims of restricted mindsets, but the collective mindset of Oz is this paradise of love, support, and acceptance. In "our real world" the mindsets are mixed among us. More importantly, the "dominant" mindset, currently, the one in economic power which translates to great political power, is this inferior collective consciousness of judgment and division. We can tell the difference between them but until we, collectively, actually differentiate them then the collective consciousness will be burdened by these lesser consciousnesses. And the world and it's people will be threatened by their collective political power. Opposing the restricted mindsets collected in positions of power that threaten the harmony of the world is crucial for our survival and happiness, as a species.
Of course this happens on an individual, personal level. We all have our high-minded ideals. We all get realizations and inspirations and moments of magic happen to us, whether we believe in magic or not. Of course if we do believe in magic we will notice these things more. If we believe in art we will have more of these inspiring and magical experiences. If we deny creative thinking and only focus on the "real world" (as it has been) then we will have less insights and notice magical things less but they will still happen to us and around us. The world of Love, Magic, and Ideas, this paradise we can call collective consciousness, is equally open to all but our minds have blinders or blindfolds on which keep us from seeing it. These blinders are the same things that keep us from seeing ourselves in others, blinders that allow us to see some other people as "more other" than us or "too other" for respect. Things like racism, nationalism, misogyny, and greed. Of course these are collective, too, and form collective "consciousnesses" except that these small-minded zones are not really "part" of the heavenly consciousness but are more like sandbags attached to the Hot Air Balloon of the Mind. There is a phrase "Minds are like parachutes: they only work when open." Of course closed minds do "work" just not well or for good. It does not matter how limited someone's mind is by these restrictive mindsets of racism and greed, they can still "think" enough to plan murders and political campaigns and run big business. And they still have the chance to escape those mindsets and join the paradise of the rest of the world. I can hear objections like "I'm open-minded but it's no paradise" to which I just say "it's not entirely, yet, we still have to make it"
I've always been high-minded, idealistic and creative and always valued those dimensions and wanted to go further along them, but I am still held back by doubts, fears, anger, misconceptions, and frustrations with the world. A closed-minded person is perfectly susceptible to open-minded ideas changing they way she thinks. An open-minded person is still susceptible to closed-minded ideas changing the way she thinks, too. In the first instance, the person can be lifted up out of a bad mindset, and in the second the person can be dragged down by one. Even if you don't accept negative and narrow-minded ideas, they can drag you down and upset you to encounter them. Of course we can't just blind ourselves to the bad things in the world but must find a way to address them without getting dragged down by them. I think this arrangement of The Collective Consciousness as Paradise and Collective Biases as like "more private" hells weighing it all down is a good perspective to have to approach things. We should all, always, strive to be more in paradise, to have better, more helpful thoughts. This striving should remind us to reject the negative things that creep in. This is why I call "paradise" THE collective consciousness. It's not the only kind of consciousness, or the only way to collectivise mindsets, but it does connect all the good ones into one and the bad ones are just mistakes and misunderstandings. The Good One is the one that ultimately lifts us up and unites us all. The bad ones are the ones that drag us down and keep us apart. And the collective consciousness does unite us, already, and will ultimately unite us all, in all ways. "Ultimately" means the paradise consciousness is "the future," for all of us. I see it as destiny but not quite inevitable. We have to work to unite, in "pursuit of happiness", to reach this paradise. We have to become our best selves together and resist these dividing mindsets. It is possible for us to be overcome by fear, to make the wrong decisions, elect the wrong leaders, and even end our entire existence on the planet in war or pollution. Then this paradise is not an inevitable future. But if we resist those things in ourselves and in the world, a world where we all feel connected and sense our collective goodwill is assured.
The world of the mind exists in all of us and we are all part of it even though we are beset by smaller mindsets that drag us out of it. But it doesn't just happen inside each individual. Like the collective subconscious, the world of the mind is being played out in reality through world events. I would suggest that one way of looking at the world of the mind is the internet, and another is the pantheon of goddesses and gods. Another is the world of Art, music, stories, theater, movies, TV, video games and entertainment. Another is the world of science and philosophy - and another is the natural world itself and the social world of humans and other living things on the planet. But I see all of these different Models of the World of the Mind are coming together into a universal whole, and it's not like one version is better than the others. Looking at heaven as the City of the Goddesses and considering their lives and interactions might be the best way to understand Paradise in certain ways. But to understand other things about it, it might be best to talk about the world of art, the internet, politics, or nature. Of course, from my perspective Gaga is the Goddess of Love and to me the Genius of the World, though of course others are close to that as well and divine in this way, too, and in other ways peculiar to them. This gagablog was originally - and is, later - about the Quest for the True Colbert, a mystery play whereby America discovers a new identity for Herself that is free of conservativism. It's a magical spell Colbert, a master wizard, is doing with America to transform himself, and us. No matter where we are in the world we can be transformed by new ideas. Of course our surroundings can affect what we think about. The beliefs of the surrounding community, or community we choose to associate with, affect us. Someone observed in CMG recently that people who are real jerks on the internet are often are from places where "people are shitty." Even with access to the internet, a magical community, and better ideas we can still be dragged down by living in "bad places." And it's not like people are actually any shittier, by nature, in one place over another, but there are mindsets that pervasively color the collective mindset of each area and some places have shittier ones than others, for various reasons. People can sense and characterize the "feel" or mood of different cities, for instance. You can be a visionary wherever you are, but it gets easier, in some ways, for necessity if the area is mostly backwards-thinking, but really hard to live there. And it gets easier, in other ways, if there is a community of belief around to support you, or other conditions, such as the booming legal weed economy we have here in Colorado, or communities based on art or around liberal colleges, etc. I recently saw a picture on facebook that says it is of one million Tibetan children meditating for peace. It's impressive and mind-blowing to me, in my American mindset, as much as I have always tried to focus on peace, personally, and knowing that other cultures are way better at it. And the idea of it, just the image, opens me and others up to more of that way of thinking.
I have two great examples of these "easier amongst the backwards" and "easier amongst the progressive" paths to visionary living. When I was writing the first paragraph of this I was watching the semi-finals and finals of Masterchef. The way the final competitors were describing the experience in the lead-up had many media magic echoes of what I've been talking about in the last few gagablogs. You could tell they respected each other, Claudia and Derrick. They each have their own passion and love for cooking but it is love and passion so great that it takes them beyond themselves. The way they interacted, their body language, hugging and tearing up while being judged, showed that for both of them the love of cooking went beyond themselves and they loved each other as well, recognizing and respecting each others talent and passion. Even though the other person was each one's "obstacle" to getting $250,000, a cookbook deal, and the Masterchef title and trophy, they were not treating each other as "others" but their passion let them move beyond that and be genuinely happy and hopeful for each other, too. This is overcoming the problem of "otherness" or "otherizing" that I was talking about in gagablog 89, I think. Another example, from another FOX show, of all places, were the lesbian and Mormon couples competing to win a home on Home Free, who became close friends despite cultural differences that they said themseleves would have kept them apart, because they recognized the passion to care for their families was the same and they were all working hard for it even in competition. Derrick said it was an honor just to be cooking alongside Claudia, to have her to compete with, whoever won. Claudia praised Derrick's skills and vision and talked about how it made her become her best by having to compete with the best. This is what I was trying to talk about in gagablog 90, I think. You could tell just by looking at them that the dishes of the finale were a higher caliber than what these homecooks had made before. It's not like they were holding back before and saving their very best for last. Yes, they improved by the whole experience and what they learned from the judges. But they also improved by the environment itself. They are all home cooks who had people around them tell them their food was good, but no one setting a professional expectation and no one to compete with to reach that level. These are conditions set up to create excellence, like a great theater or dance company or artists collective or magnet school. This is what I am talking about in this blog, getting good things together, away from other influences to create the best conditions to excel in a particular direction.
It does happen despite being in situations that are less conducive or even hostile to innovation and creativity, as well. I'm not sure where it was, it seems like Texas, but just the other day a boy named Achmed Mohammud (sorry if I misspelled it) made a clock and took it to school and his teacher reported him and the cops arrested him and interrogated him. He seems to be very obviously a nerd, very skinny with a NASA T-shirt, but of course it shouldn't matter what he looks like or what his name is anyway. The teacher apparently thought it might be a bomb, influenced by anti-Muslim paranoia and prejudice. The boy was suspended but released without being charged, though of course it could have ended much worse. An overzealous cop could have hit him too hard "interrogating" him and killed him, or any number of worse courses of action could have taken place from this arrest. Thankfully that didn't happen, but if nothing else happened this would just suck for the kid. Instead, the story got media attention and President Obama reached out to meet the kid and raise him up as an example to other kids to get us excited about science and learning. Mark Zuckerburg also reached out and said he wants to meet him - maybe the kid can help him make his "dislike" button, which is apparently problematic and more than an hour-long job, for some reason. And the reason I tell that joke, now, is because I thought it was funny but also because the end of the story, so far, is that while he was suspended and could go back today, he's not going back to that school. He decided to change schools and go somewhere that can appreciate him.
And this is how this collective consciousness works. Our personal mental worlds can be dragged down by fears, depression, restrictive beliefs, etc. Out love lives, family lives, and social lives can be damaged by negative thinking, too. In even worse ways, our communities of interest or geography that we belong to can potentially limit us with bad mindsets going around, we can live in oppressive places, racist areas, Red States, etc. Someone on the radio was lamenting that Kim Davis (sorry if I forgot your name), the clerk who was jailed for refusing to issue marriage licenses to gay couples, gave the town a bad name because it had always been more of a haven for gay people, relatively, in the generally homophobic state of Kentucky or Tennessee, wherever it is. Most of the South, and much of the rest of the country, is still generally homophobic, but only because of the thickness of that layer of repression upon the cultures there. We are all coming out from under it, thanks in part to towns like Athens, Georgia, where I am from, which was always a mecca for queer folk, artists, and "alternative" people of all kinds. And thanks to artists and other individuals who make up artistic towns, etc, or for their work as our healing cultural shamans, wherever they.
The idea is, to create our entrances to paradise, we must encounter the negative, in our own minds, with impervious goodness. Encountering negative ideas, or having them ourselves, should be a signal or clue to move to a better mindset instead. If we are constantly encountering bad things around us, we might be able to change things from within by being a guiding light, but the best solution could be to move. We can never turn our backs on the problems of the world, but joining communities focused on goodness to become our best selves could be the best way to help others, too. It should be obvious that the liberal mindset is this Collective consciousness in the political realm and the conservative one is the divisive, destructive, drag upon it. Politically the Democrats in America are not perfect but are the path to perfection if we hold to our ideals. The Republicans are the path to destruction. It only becomes more and more obvious, but we won't always have a choice if we keep choosing badly despite these blatant evils of greed, pollution, racism, homophobia, nationalism, and misogyny that they are more and more obvious are their "ideals." The liberal, progressive, futuristic, inclusive mindset is the collective consciousness and the money-and-hate-fueled conservative mindset is the threat to it. It's collected out of the hateful mindsets that form around these mistaken ideas and even come to dominate certain areas, and still dominate most of our economic and political power structures. But we can break these down within ourselves, within our communities and states, and nationally. We do it by sharing information and learning from each other. I was just telling my friend what I was writing about and mentioned the kid being suspended for making a clock. He told me three more amazing things. One was that he has also been promised an internship at twitter and gotten a scholarship to Space Camp. The other was that his dad is really cool and has run for President of Sudan more than once, trying to bring progressive ideas there. I would never have known about that guy, probably, if this news event had not happened. Now many more people will have heard of him and maybe next time he runs it will make the difference, he can get more support and win the presidency, you never know. But I don't mind predicting it, here, now, because I just thought of it and it sounds like a good idea. The other thing he told me was that the English teacher who confiscated the clock, "thinking it was a bomb", put it in her desk drawer for the day. If what she believed was true, she was endangering herself and the whole class by doing that. This either shows just how stupid she is, generally, or reveals that she did not really think it was a bomb at all and just wanted to harass the kid for reminding her of stereotypes she is prejudiced against. Which is just a more specific type of stupidity, and one that can be learned or reinforced from others. This reminds me of a fourth thing he told me, that the mayor of the town is notorious for making Islamophobic remarks. So the teacher is not blameless for being prejudiced by living in a prejudiced town, but that should also be taken into account. Since writing this I have seen on the news how he has been welcomed onto the Google campus.
The Collective Good is the collective consciousness and is politically represented by Democratic ideals. The clusters of small-minded beliefs that make up the base for Republicans are Collective Evil. There really is a good. benevolent mind connecting us all and guiding towards a world that manifests it more and more fully. Progressives and liberals are sensing the ideal world of the future and working to take us there. Conservatives are pining for myths of the past that make them more comfortable in small minded beliefs, nostalgic for times when gender roles were more hierarchical and races more segregated and gays and others more marginalized. Of course the future belongs to the liberal, open-minded views. It seems like there should be no competition between these two worlds of ideas, and there isn't on their merits, but the conservative viewpoint is given undo power by money from Big Business and the Greedy amongst the One Percent. There is a new democratic candidate for President, a professor named Lessor, who is only running to draw more attention to the issue of overturning Citizens United and getting money out of politics. The principle is to return power to the people instead of corporations. He is not expecting to win, he had to use crowd-sourcing to raise the million dollars needed to be considered a serious candidate, apparently. But he intends to be in the race to press this issue and says he will drop out if the other candidates make it a top priority in their campaigns. He says they all share his view to different extents but might not prioritize it. He is convinced from his expertise that the first step to making politics work better is to get the money out of it or under control. It makes sense to me and I hope he is successful making the point to the American people so they demand it from the other candidates, or just showing them up about it so they have to change and take it up, in the debates if possible but in the course of the campaign, somehow or another. Bernie Sanders revised his position on the Black Lives Matter movement through activity in the campaign, for example. But Lesser doesn't care who takes up this issue as long as it gets addressed. He's not in it for personal glory, he is in it to get something done.
By contrast, Jeb Bush and Donald Trump would probably both say that they have the goal of "Making America Great Again", the slogan Trump basically stole from Reagan, but would they say they have the same goal? No. Would they be happy no matter which one achieved it, as long as America was "Great Again"? No. Because the goal itself is a lie. Yes, they have differing beliefs and policies, somewhat, but their sames as Republicans certainly trump any of those. The problem is the Republican "ideal" is not for the collective good but only for empowerment of the Selfish Ego. There is a Self or a spirit, in all of us, which is good and our own guide to the Collective Good and even helps fashion good, positive, considerate, helpful Ego in ourselves. But our selfish-ego nature threatens to make us only look out for Number One. And collectively that makes people want America to be Number One - "their America" - and only care about nationalistic and self-serving goals. This is the "American Exceptionalism" they are so proud about. If we join with ideologies that encourage that, that say our beliefs are more valid than others and let us think we have more of a right to have our way by virtue of how we identify ourselves - for example as white, male, Christian, or American - then we become parts of this cultural troll upon society. I do think that is the best way to describe it and most of this gagablog was originally approaching it from this angle, trolling, but I got bogged down and had to start over from the positive conclusion I was working towards but not reaching. The original, somewhat revised I imagine, will follow this.
Jeb Bush and Donald Trump aren't "frenemies." But they are both serving the same small-minded, evil spirit of collective mis-consciousness in the world. Their goals are the same: the advancement of Republican ideals to the expense of the people of the country and the world. Why would they want this? Because it comes with personal wealth and political power so the truth is they want it for themselves. I'm not saying they don't believe their ideas would work, I'm just saying they are wrong. In terms of foreign policy - and probably at all levels - it's like a bully who decides "I can just beat everybody up until they all do what I want." With a military larger than the next ten biggest militaries combined we certainly can be the biggest bully on the block, in the world, but even if we could bomb the world into submission it would only "work" for so long, or just lead to complete self-destruction of the human race. That's just wrong. It's a bad idea and their other ideas are no better. They are all bad for everyone involved because they are the refined expressions of catering to the most financially powerful parts of society that enriched themselves through moral bankruptcy and the most fearful and hateful pockets of the populace. All the Republicans share this same basic idea no matter the details that differ. If they were smart enough to see beyond narrow-mindedness they wouldn't be Republicans. When the country gets smarter to be less affected by it we won't elect any more, either. I've been predicting that this is the end of the Republican party and it seems to keep coming true. Once it's gone maybe the Democrats will be challenged in different ways from different sides, or even shift and become more fully the establishment party so that all others are to the left of them. But at least this form of collective evil and small-mindedness, the Republicans, will be gone. And when they are, and as we are getting rid of them, we will be forging a new character for ourselves, for America, and be a new kind of leader to the world to help create this paradise for all humanity.
Since I wrote this, while waiting to edit and finish it (it is now Tuesday and I think I last worked on this Friday or Saturday) Scott Walker dropped out and encouraged other candidates to follow his lead, drop out, so that people can focus on helping the "most viable" candidate beat the current front-Runner, Trump. To me this just shows what a sham all of these candidates are, how much it is just engineered and then pretending to be a democratic process. But no time for details on that, now, besides, it's obvious. ...An hour later, I have to mention that Colbert told some great jokes about this. He talked about Walker saying God was telling him to lead "by getting out of the way" and that the same God, presumably, had called him to run in the first place, according to an earlier Walker quote. So Colbert summed this up as God saying "I have chosen you, Scott Walker, to...psyche!" then Colbert said he loved it when God played jokes.
I was going to say that all Trump supporters should have to sign their names on something so we can laugh at them later. We should have done this with George W. Bush. I was in high school and college for most of the Bush years, in Georgia and North Carolina, mostly, with a few months in Colorado and a few travelling, then the last 3 years in Colorado, from 2005 to 2008. (I've been here since then, too, with only few vacations out of state in that time.) So many people were so pleased with Bush while he was in office. I got in arguments with people in the street about it, since I was always protesting him. All of our criticisms, from the left, proved to be true - from him lying about weapons of mass destruction to go to war in Iraq to everything else. Now that the test of time has shown this and now that people see more of the fall-out from his terrible policies, very few people will say they support him. But we haven't really learned a lesson. Jeb Bush has only said he would be more conservative than his brother W and seems hesitant to criticize him on Iraq or anything other than spending. He has by far the most party support and money, 150 million dollars, devoted to his campaign, showing him as he insider favorite. He has a more moderate tone than Trump or other candidates, which would help in the general election, but conservatives have been complaining about having compromise candidates for years and maybe should find out what happens when they get their wish for someone more ideologically pure. I can only hope that we as a country are educated and involved enough to defeat that ideological purity and the passion amongst the stupid people in America that it can rally. I know we have it, but my intention is to rally the other side to defeat that movement and send a message that it will never be mainstream or even powerful again. The popularity of Trump, Carson, and Fiorina all benefit from a "anti-establishment" sentiment, especially now. The Republican voters are so sick of all politics they want a non-politician. But there is also a Tea Party support, meaning more politically involved, at least for Trump and Carson, for their ideas. And the Tea Party is also the main support for Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio and other insider candidates. Because of these overlapping bases, candidates have been slow to criticize each other, wanting to avoid offending voters who support Trump, for instance, so they can woo them later. But as Trump keeps gaining momentum in the polls tactics have changed. I have not seen them yet but the second round of Republican debates were last night and apparently the others went on attack against Trump. Even Miss Alabama, when asked at the Miss America Pageant (which I think Trump still owns?) about his popularity, had an awesome response. She said America should be scared of him and that candidates who had a chance to be able to actually govern were not getting attention because of him and that "if I was a Republican" she would be really scared of that. This reminds me of a point I at least started to make in a previous gagablog, that better competition makes us better. If Trump became the nominee and no one took him seriously, the worst outcome is that they wouldn't vote and he would win. I think this, and cheating, was a factor in Bush taking the White House - people on the left did not take him seriously enough to vote, to avoid voting for Nader, and just didn't believe America would be stupid enough to elect him. But we kinda were. And I've seen a meme, recently to that effect, that if we don't think we are stupid enough to elect Trump, we should remember Bush.
Even if we "know" Trump can't win, the problem with having a weak opposition is it does not bring out the best on our own side. It would be best, of course, if the election were just between the best liberals, so a General Election between say Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders or Joe Biden or Hillary Clinton would be better than between her and any one of the Republicans. We will keep attracting even better people to be candidates, too, as the whole political situation improves. And it will improve, inevitably, if we just believe it can and get involved. You can tell by how ridiculous the Republicans are, and how silly their supporters seem, that it just can't last. But it also won't just go away on it's own with all that money behind it, and the momentum of the collective of bad beliefs. We are waking up to escape these in ourselves and helping others out of them, too. We do this individually and socially, but the biggest changes can come from government leadership, as Obama has been doing so well lately addressing all sorts of issues from climate change to overtime pay and sick leave. And even bigger changes can come from the art and entertainment world, like Superman teaching us that the KKK is evil or Gaga teaching us to be proud of our art, identity, and sexuality. Stephen Colbert is now playing a major role in helping America forge a new, non-conservative identity and I will include my discussion of that right after some news of the day. The original idea was to include the news after the Colbert discussion but it got too convoluted. I will see if I can fix it but I will go ahead with the news stories now. The idea was that looking at the stories from the New Liberated-of-Conservativism consciousness would help us reach that new era and see how we are moving towards the future. I decided instead to just suggest that future so we can look back on this current time from that mindset, how I think I usually think of things. And I heard a few news stories that show the new mentality emerging and difference with the old one.
This just in! Arianna Grande hates America! Full disclosure I have had a crush super-hard on Arianna Grande ever since her song "Love Me Harder" and it got even harder when I saw her video for it and some concert appearances. She's beautiful, divine. My friend just told me that she hates America and Americans, too, which makes her officially even sexier to me, which I didn't think was possible but it turns out it is. She appears on camera licking donuts at a donut shop, saying she hates America and Americans. I wonder how she feels about donuts? She might not like them, either, and it's a protest against American Unhealthiness. But I bet she likes donuts. My impression is she hates America for the same reasons I do, for the same reasons Michelle Obama did until her husband became president- it's full of shit and mean and racist in so many ways. I imagine Arianna has had such amazing success with her music career and has finally travelled to other places and seen how different people can be. Maybe she went to places where they are nicer, culturally, and it made it stand out how mean we can be. Or maybe she went someplace we criticize and found out how prejudiced we can be. Maybe being exposed to ideas about America anywhere else gave her some perspective on our culture. Or maybe she didn't go anywhere and just got exposed to some new ideas that made her critical of the culture where she hadn't been aware of issues before. Or maybe she always felt that way and never expressed it, but just went off one day due to deciding to, or being high, or something that set her off. Regardless, the whole story is amazing to me and incredibly sexy, maybe just because I already felt such attraction for her that it would have to increase as my general regard for her grows. And I don't take offense at what she said as an American or living in America - I don't feel like she was talking about "me", about "us". I don't know if she is from Canada or somewhere, my friend said Florida, but like I said, I think she means the same thing I mean when I say I hate America: I hate the racist and narrow-minded culture that is still so dominant in America that it characterizes us and makes us the likely country to wage war on the world and otherwise threaten nature, people, and harmony between us. I hate the Americans that are Proud of that America. But everyone changes. While people who rally around their narrow-minded mentalities seem the least likely to change, are the least open to change, they still change. I have hope for everyone, but it doesn't mean I don't hate the way too many of us are, right now. But we change and the perfect example is John Mayer.
I always thought John Mayer was a douchebag and this is probably because he always was. I'm not sure of this, I have nothing to base it on other than his music which I found lame and the fact that he was always dating these super-hot celebrity girls but it was never working out. I can't even remember who they all were, just that I was usually or always jealous of him. And not liking his music never helped. But that was all "my perception" and probably influenced by impressions of other guys who got with girls by making music, good or bad, who I was jealous of, too. And I think I could tell he was a skilled, talented musician, I just didn't like his style or his sound or my impression of his character - again, just from seeing what he looked like in tabloids or hearing little interview clips of him on Entertainment TV. I can't even remember anything he said that offended me, just an impression I had: Douchebag. And like I said, he might have been one, he might not, the more I talk about it the less that seems to mean, or I'm just being one myself. But the point is, whether he was or not, he changed. He got better, and we all do, so why am I talking about him? How did he get better? He got exposed to something better and evolved with it. I know because I heard him talking about what happened and I've seen the results. I apologize if I seem obsessed with this but the details are important to what I'm talking about, the transformation of culture and individuals. Since I always thought John Mayer was a douchebag, I had one response, initially, when I heard him say on a talk show earlier this year that he had Just been exposed to the Grateful Dead last year: "What a douchebag." All I could think was: This idiot. He is famous for music, even instrumental ability in particular or jazzy styles. But hasn't heard the Grateful Dead. He has been around for years, decades, has rubbed elbows and more with all sorts of celebrities and other musicians. But hasn't heard the Grateful Dead. He might have even been involved in liberal social causes, or just know other artsy people, or even had drug experiences, even psychadelics. As a rock star, if he did have the drug experiences and liked them, he could have had many, many such experiences in different locations with different people. And even without the drugs, the rock star lifestyle assures that variety of experience. But he hadn't heard the Grateful Dead. It almost boggled my mind, but more than that it kind of confirmed my prejudice against him: Of course, he's a douchebag. He's a rocker, sure, but he's kind of like a frat guy-type, a lame-o. He probably just bought into a judgmental perception about the Grateful Dead and avoided them. The most stereotypical criticism is that it isn't good music, just a drug experience. I can see how people can get sucked into closed-minded perceptions like that. Taking some drugs, like pot and psychadelics, especially, can get people out of those mindsets because they realise they aren't bad. But you don't have to take drugs to escape those prejudices. In this case, just enjoying the music of the Grateful Dead without drugs proves that this idea is a myth. Millions of people have proven that, for themselves, but the myth still persists amongst the closed-minded. Because the music is good, this is something that is True. It doesn't mean that everyone will enjoy it, but it is good on many levels and many people who don't expect to enjoy it would be surprised. I'm not saying John Mayer is closed-minded, either, but just that he could have only gotten his impression of the Grateful Dead from certain crowds. That might have also given him an impression of deadheads and he might have been doubtful about any deadheads he met and not take their word to try the music. But of course deadheads are everywhere and it still surprises me to think that in the music world he's a part of no one would find out he hadn't listened to the Dead and made sure that he did. And he just never got curious, because of course it's easy to access with the internet. But maybe, internally, externally, it just never came up. Maybe because of whatever circumstances, maybe it just worked out that way. Maybe it was fate. Anyway, all of this, basically, is what flooded my mind when I heard John Mayer say, in 2015 or 2014, that he had never heard the Grateful Dead before.
Then my opinion of John Mayer changed. It started to change and I think it will continue to change more and more. Because he changed. Whether he was a douchebag or not previously became irrelevant. Do you hear that, Republicans and Trump supporters? It's not a license to be the biggest asshole you can be, it's the idea that if you aren't too terribly obvious about it, when you change and get better people will forgive and forget all about whether or not you were a jerk before. John Mayer may have just been a fine guy who nothing was wrong with him, ever, I was just being a jealous jerk, myself. It could be the whole reason I disliked him was from making a conservative comment, or even a comment against the Grateful Dead in particular, at some point. But if he did so it was at a time when he did not know what he was talking about because he had not listened to them, then. He said it himself on the late night talk show, that it changed him when he listened to the Grateful Dead. I think he said he fell in love, became obsessed, which is a very natural reaction from a musician, especially a guitar player of his experience. I started to fall in love with John Mayer at this point, just as the rivals for Masterchef showed such love for each other when the flames of their passions flared out and combined. His respect and admiration for the Dead were true, even in these early stages, and you could hear it in his voice. I was happy for him for making this transition, and happy for the world that more people would discover the Grateful Dead through his discovery. But even with this budding happiness I was still jealous when he got to play a song with Bob Weir at the end of the show. Not that I can play guitar, but I did always fancy that one day I can sing the Jerry parts since I have that kind of voice and some of the other people who have sung them don't.
Let me be clear: I'm a deadhead but really a Jerry fan. I'm not so convinced the rest of the band can do no wrong to accept all of their choices for musical partnerships. I really don't enjoy Warren Haynes, for instance. I liked Steve Kimock on guitar, and of course have loved some of their other guest stars like Willie Nelson and Bob Dylan. No one is expecting to "replace" Jerry, but just having anyone near good enough seems almost out of reach at times. Of course magic happens, anyway, and people do transcend their limitations, especially with such great surrounding influences. I'm sure I'd like some Warren Haynes shows if I listened to enough. The thing is, John Mayer is a really skilled and accomplished guitar player. Many people already considered him one of the greats, for years. I might have scoffed at this, as much as any reason because I think Jerry still hasn't gotten his due respect, but he is really good by many standards. And if he got that good without ever listening to Jerry, imagine how good he can get now that he has the inspiration and music of Jerry to guide him? And the collaboration of the band? I forgot to mention, talking about the ways in which the environment helps forge the best Masterchef that they also have access to all the best ingredients. I've just been building up to this, but the big announcement is that, now that "The Grateful Dead" have played their final shows, in July of this year, the "side-projects" Bob Weir promised are coming to fruition. I just saw a commercial that most of the band and John Mayer have formed "Dead & Company" and are starting a Fall Tour. To me, this has all the makings of the Dead rising again in a way like never before. If they keep it up it stands to create something that gets closer to the original Grateful Dead than we have had in 30 years. Now that I type that, I remember that just yesterday, before I saw this commercial, I was telling my friend about my musical theories, that the Beatles weren't the "best ever" as some people suggested because other bands could still be better. I said I thought when people said that "there would never be another Grateful Dead" or anything like it, that has proven to be true so far. But just because none of the "other" bands had that potential, as much as they Pretended to, doesn't mean it is not possible. Of course there has been crossover between different bands and they all get better from playing with each other. But if John Mayer steps into the role of Dead guitarist for a period of time, I predict it will open up a world-changing course of events. He will grow and evolve, to supernatural heights, by whatever extent he plays Jerry. But the culture will evolve as well. In addition to bringing in more of the younger generation, John connects with more mainstream and non-hippie demographics and breaking down barriers between these will be great for the American culture. He is also a generation younger than most of the rest of the band so if he continues with it he could be another link to the next generation of the Grateful Dead. I'm particularly excited about all of this but unless you have the same love for the Grateful Dead I can't expect you to understand it so check them out. I'll move on.
The news stories I wanted to mention all relate to changing our sense of identity. Originally this was all going to be in terms of "finding the true Colbert" but I will leave that for the end. Here are the news stories that happened this week that I've been wanting to include here: Baghdad's First Woman Mayor has been elected and is working to end violence and corruption. This seemed especially significant to me and probably will be to the world if she is very successful so I'm hoping she is and including that intention in the magical spell of desire that is My Gagablog. Baltimore paid over six million dollars to the family of Freddy Grey, the black kid who was killed in police custody. This is more than the previous one hundred and twenty settlements for similar cases combined. I don't know how many years those last 120 cases span, but I do know they cops are only finally starting to be held responsible and there were many more cases than that which don't get reported or any justice for the victims at all. The fact that this settlement was bigger than one hundred and twenty previous settlements suggests that either the riots or the Black Lives Matter movement, or both, are finally getting the system to start to value people equally. If Baltimore had to retroactively give those other one hundred and twenty victims millions each, there would be serious changes. If they can anticipate not wanting to ever again have to pay that much, especially not over and over, it should motivate them to make changes, too. Yes, it would be nice if they were just motivated by a moral sense, but there you have it, they had not been so far. The changes they make could be examples to other places where the problem is bad as well as to places where it is not as bad. But the problem is bad in most places, fueled by a culture of police with no accountability. Fixing it requires shifting attitudes. The report on the police-community situation in Baltimore was being discussed on NPR and it begins with the phrase "We have Not Moved Beyond Race." There are those in small-minded communities who either accept racism or deny it exists. The rest of us, the collective conscious, must be vigilantly aware of it, confront it and remove it in every way that we can. When Trump is asked "why do white supremacist groups support you so much and does that bother you?" and his response if "lots of people like me" he is saying it does not bother him,. He welcomes the support of the KKK and white supremacists. In Colorado we've had a racist candidate, Tom Trancredo, who runs and gets the support of Neo-Nazis and the KKK. I know because of how he talks and his policies but also because his opponents ran ads pointing out that he had this support. We should be calling this out more often because until we treat intolerance, hatred and racism like they are unacceptable they will continue to poison our culture and politics.
Trump is making headlines in America by talking about deporting eleven million Mexican people and building a wall between America and Mexico. At the same time, the European headlines are about refugees from war in Syria and the varied response in Europe. In particular, Hungary is building a wall to keep refugees out and other countries are criticizing them. The wealthier countries may be in better positions to absorb refugee populations but truly a crisis like this should remind all countries to help each other as best we can, including helping in the countries that the refugees are fleeing. We have narco-terrorism, economic hardship, oppression and other forces causing people to migrate north into America, as well as promise of a better life even from less dire conditions, the ever-alluring American Dream. But we have a billionaire making headlines and gaining political steam talking about building a wall between the US and Mexico. At the same time, an Egyptian billionaire wants to buy an island from Greece or Italy in order to set up a new country for refugees to live. It's not that money and power make you evil. You can be rich and powerful and do good things, or bad things. It's all abut attitude and perspective. In modern times, more and more people are making vast fortunes off businesses and products that just help people more and more. We do more with crowd-sourcing and social-networking and can address really big issues in new ways. I wanted to rally people to help pay off Greece's debt, knowing they will flourish as tourism and everything returns and they just need help to get out of a bed economic situation, but also showing a new way of doing things, collectively, that many of us together can make big changes in the world.
This is because we can finally act, coillectively, with the guidance of this collective consciousness. It is paradise, itself, and the more we believe in it and that it can come true on earth, the faster we will get there.
Well, that was the news. Here is the original version, "Angelfishing with Steven Colbert."
The big media event tonight was the premiere of Stephen Colbert as the host of the Late Show following Dave Letterman's retirement. I wrote a gagablog about this a while back and I wanted to write this before the show today. As it turned out I am glad I ended up writing this afterwards, at 6 AM Wednesday, instead, so I get to include the magic of the show, and some other stories I heard yesterday. All I think I was going to do was predict that in shedding his conservative character with Jeb Bush as his guest he would magically and hysterically finish pulling the cover off of the Republicans and expose them to the ridicule and shame they deserve. I felt sure it would be a milestone in the Fall of Conservatives. I think it was, too. It's no prediction at all to say Colbert was going to drop the conservative act - everybody knew that. It's magical perspective that leads me to presume that his transformation would magically transform the world as well. I believe that about myself, and anyone, that we can transform and if we do it with the intention to influence the world then it will work. Well, it magically effects the world anyway but even more if we intend it. So I wanted to set up some magic tricks I hoped the show would perform, like reversing Trump's momentum and revealing Jeb as no better. I just got busy and didn't have time to write yesterday. During The Late Show I experienced a rare and delicious example of media magic: I had put Oreos in my pocket before the show and as he got to the part about Trump boycotting Oreos I got to eat them along with Colbert, like I always like to smoke weed when it is referenced on TV, as a magic spell to increase awareness. Afterwards I heard that Hillary was asked to be his first guest and she declined and went to the Tonight Show instead. A CNN guy said this represents a new "booking war" and maybe it does, but Colbert also had a section where he talked to Jimmy Fallon, the Tonight Show host, through the TV and discusses their guests in a friendly manner, and says they will meet in the locker room afterwards. I think some people might have missed it but after the credits it did show them meeting in the locker room, with Colbert's locker blessed with a picture of Jon Stewart and Fallon's featuring a TIME Magazine cover of Lorne Michaels, I assume. This coordination between networks suggests to me that even if their is a "war" between them at the "real world" level of ratings and money, they are working together from an artistic perspective and intend to magically help shape the culture and move us forward through their art.
Colbert talked to himself at one point in the monologue, telling his six-hours-in-the future self that... (It's been a few hours since I left off writing this, now it is 7 PM, and I drove past a kid on a skateboard with a Deadpool T-shirt. My friend recently told me about Deadpool "breaking the fourth wall" all the time. So this seemed significant in the middle of this sentence and a few hours break...also, at Toys R Us I saw Simpsons figurines for the first time in years, a guest star series including Matt Groening himself, as well as Stan Lee who also tranverses this fourth wall in unique ways and Adam West who does, too, in his subtle way. Also Bart and Fall-out Boy Millhouse, Tom Jones, Tom Petty, Buzz Aldrin, Lenny Kravitz and half of Aerosmith) ... he doesn't want his future self to tell him anything through he TV, not so spoil it for him. This joke evokes the same magic as Gaga's "my religion is you" or so many other examples, like Paparazzi and Venus, where she blurs the lines between "you" and "me". It's playing with the nature of identity and there is so much magic we can discover just by thinking of the implications of this one beautiful joke. I don't want to spoil it by dissecting it, but I will just highlight how he is talking to his "future self", "and"/"who also is" "Us" or "me" or "you" when he does this - he brings us together in the forming of identity. I will explore this more, well, we will all explore it together.
Colbert tells us this explicitly. We've all been wondering who the "real" Colbert is, without the conservative character he played. He introduces the idea that discovering the true Colbert will be a journey we all go on together. The CNN entertainment critic suggested this was a gimmick and wondered how long it could last. I'm saying it is a magical operation that makes us all better people, together. Letterman helped steer the course of culture with his humor and Colbert has done the same. Colbert, on the Late Show, is the start of a new era of TV that "coincides" or magically leads a dance with the new more liberal era of the entire American culture that we are finally entering. I recently watched some of a John Cleese lecture on creativity (thanks to someone in CMG) in which he states that it is not a talent but a kind of operation. In the journey of self-discovery that Colbert is making the Late Show he is sharing this creativity with us and engaging us in the operation, helping us create ourselves more idealistically as well. Jeb Bush commented that he had more pictures of himself than he expected, and Colbert responded that he "used to play a conservative, narcissist pundit, bow I'm just a narcissist." Colbert discovering his true identity will be America discovering it's true identity, without the conservative mask. It may take a long time, it may be an ongoing process, not a "gimmick" to postpone creating a new "character." Colbert is actually forming the character of America through media magic, through Art. This is the more mystical meaning of him talking to his "future self." This reminds me how he said "hello, Nation" then "I don't know what that means" at the start of the show. Of course that was his old intro phrase, when he was referring to "The Colbert Nation", his audience and fans. This time, it was in inside joke for us but because he IS talking to the whole nation on a new scale and not just his normal audience the joke becomes him saying he didn't know what it means. In that introductory phrase he transcended his old character, treating it like a dream he was waking from. He may continue to say it to open the show but it will be the whole nation, now. We are truly all going to find ourselves more in the search for the true Colbert, we will all be forging a new national identity free of conservativism.
Current Thurs-Next Update: Colbert made another joke on this shift in time between recording and airing the episode that also connects to the you/me identity idea. He jokes that he hasn't watched the Republican debates yet, since at the time of the taping of the episode they haven't happened yet, then reuses the same joke, telling the audience "no spoilers!" and waving his hand as if we could tell him what happened through the screen. Since he used this same joke on "himself" the week before, this time it brings in the idea that the True Colbert is "you", the viewer, everyman, or America itself. This makes me think of America, the spirit of the country, being the "feminine" counterpart or compliment of Colbert. This reminds me of the current popularity of Deez Nuts as a political candidate. In polls, Deez Nuts is getting about 10%. People may think this is a joke candidate, but if you do your history you'll know it is the feminine alter ego of Snoop Dogg, formerly Snoop Doggy Dogg. In those days, when he first appeared on Dr. Dre's "the Chronic" album, he did an interlude where he asks a girl over the phone "did what's her name get at you the other day?" and when she asks "who?" he replies "Deez Nuts!" I think the song is called "Deez Nuts." This leads me to the conclusion that if Snoop wants to be president, all he has to do is run as his character Deez Nuts and he already has a head start.
The conservative mentality is a troll upon culture and it's adherents are all the kinds of trolls who are unaware that they are trolls, just dittoheads and zombies under the spell of the conservative mentality itself and the influence of powerful people who promote it. Colbert was playing a typical kind of troll, trolling the conservatives by mocking them, on his old show. Now his humor is the same, thankfully, but he's not pretending to be the opposite of who he is, in many ways. He's not trolling anymore. I'm happy he is the same guy, with the same kind of humor. He even said his whole creative team came over from the other show. As hilarious as it has always been to liberals, the sad truth is there are some conservatives that are so closed-minded they don't get it as a joke but take the conservative Colbert seriously. I know this is hard to believe, but people can be that stupid, or even think they are being smart by suspecting that he is acting like he's joking in order to say "what he really means" when he mocks republican thinking and values by claiming them. The fact that he is taking the conservative beliefs and trolling out of his humor distills the humor to become the opposite of trolling. I've engaged in this "opposite of trolling" for years now, on the internet, ever since I encountered typical internet trolling. I call it Angelfishing, the opposite of trolling.
Trolling uses a presumed, limited mentality to frustrate or mislead someone, ultimately bringing out the worst in them. Angelfishing is intended to bring out the best in people. It does not involve playing a character, like trolling does, but it does rely on the idea that we are changing identities and we can evolve through communication with each other. By playing a character, trolling, the Actor is in control of the play, manipulating the Audience / victim into frustration and passions, but maintaining the superiority of "controlling the situation" or feeling like he does by restricting the mental environment to a false paradigm. A lot of trolls probably do this and don't feel any guilt for it because they justify it with a belief that "all paradigms are equally false and fake", or something. Angelfishing is the opposite because it does not try to control or restrict. Instead of lying to the other person, it is asking for more truth. I mostly talk with magical people online and often encounter incredible claims. A troll might argue with someone about magical powers just to annoy them, even if the person trolling actually believes in the same magic. By contrast, when I encounter a belief instead of adopting a skeptical, insulting, or critical belief I try to encourage the person to be as honest with me about it as possible I try to believe what they are telling me even more than they do, if possible, to get as much into their belief as we can. By encouraging belief and considering it more deeply than most people ever really do, I feel like whatever the belief is starts to take effect to transform us. Now, some beliefs I cannot accept because they are based on intolerance or abuse. I will still ask the person to express their feelings about the belief in case I can see where a disconnect allows bad beliefs to creep in and try to connect them with something better. But most often I find people have good beliefs that they do not feel have a place in society and they keep them secret. If I can show them that I want to truly respect and understand their belief they can come to deeper understandings themselves by responding to genuine interest. And I always want to know more of what everything means, for all of us. I want to go on a journey with people when we communicate, an epic journey that makes us evolve. Trolling takes people on a trip, like a horror movie. I want to promote this new method. Instead of doubting and disbelieving each other, generally, and tricking each other at the extremes of this, as trolls to maintain control in a dubious culture, we should trust and be curious about each other. The extreme of this is trying to really discover things about people when we meet them, hopefully so much that they discover more about themselves and us, ourselves, in the process.
The whole trick to Angelfishing is how it works as the opposite of trolling. Trolling is being "clever" enough to adopt a more limited role. Angelfishing means seeking a more expansive mindfield. It requires the ability to suspend disbelief, to try to believe something just because someone else does, to show this intense consideration. It's basically being open-minded but seeking out things to expand your mind. Of course I call it angelfishing because trolling is a fishing term that reminds me of laziness and digging up from the depths while angelfishing implies pulling out angels, into a higher realm, out of the sea of this world - or casting lines into heaven to pull angels "down" to help us. It's designed to invoke the opposite of trolling and suggest a natural, if unique, way to be, since there are actual angelfish.
The good thing about trolling is that it can be funny or artful. But it frequently involves a negative element. It seems like some people are cruel and enjoy trolling others, getting pleasure from making others feel uncomfortable. Many good comedians do the opposite of this, triggering people with a negative reaction, making the audience uncomfortable, then resolving the tension with humor. Trolling, though it can be funny, is not the same as this kind of humor because it does not unite people in the joke, but is more like a comedian trying to just laugh at his audience instead of making them laugh aling with him - it does not make a connection because the troll is faking his part. Some people justify trolling like they are helping their victims by helping them overcome self-importance and limiting views. I say to this that trolling is not zen. If you believe there is a way to shock people out of their comfortable selves so they can learn and grow more, there is a way to do this more consciously that does not involve faking negativity the way trolling does.
This is how I came to the conclusion that the conservative mindset was itself just trolling humanity. I compared a typical way of trolling liberals with the way of trolling conservatives. Basically pretending to be conservative works to troll either end of the political spectrum. To troll a conservative they can pretend to hold conservative views, get their victim to agree with them and then express the more disgusting conclusions of these views. Revealing the inherent racism, sexism, and violence of the conservative ideals can help others make that connection and ultimately reject those beliefs. But it probably won't happen in the moment, the person will defend their beliefs and say "well, I'm not a racist conservative, I just believe in (whatever)." They might question the ideas later or it might help them make that connection when they hear the criticism that conservative belief is racist, at a later date, to talk with a troll who pretends to be a neo-Nazi or KKK. But at the time it will just annoy them and feed the troll. Or the victim will really believe in the racist or sexist sides and find that the troll is someone they can really talk with. At that point the troll could reveal they were trolling and leave the person alone and presumably ashamed to believe these things, but that isn't likely to help them change, or happen. Or the troll could continue playing the character and share racist views with the victim, patting each other on the back for being such assholes. But that doesn't seem to be good for anyone either, other than the troll feeding on negativity, but truly not good for him either, even if that's what he thinks he wants. Most likely the conversation will end and the victim will never know they were being trolled, but will merely conclude that one more racist person out there agrees with them and there are more of their kind than people think. Now if the same conversation went down between two people and neither was trolling but both were actual racists waiting to express their views to someone who agreed with them and it could be the exact same conversation as if one was trolling the other - that's one of my proofs that conservative thinking itself is a troll upon humanity.
Current edit: The "collective consciousness/Paradise" versus "collective bias/Exclusive Hells" model described in the beginning shows the mental life of humanity, the good stuff, to be that paradise and these pockets of fear-based small-mindedness are the obstacles and trolls upon it, keeping it from fully manifesting and bringing us all together.
Now compare that kind of trolling with trolling a liberal. The troll could pretend to hold liberal views to take in a liberal target. But what would be the negative liberal stereotype that the troll could express to try to shame the liberal for "really believing that"? "Don't you just love having the nanny state take care of you?" It doesn't work: the victim will either take pity on the troll for misunderstanding the liberal ideal or more likely see that they are trolling because no one "really" believes that. The thing about the negative stereotypes that conservatives make about liberals is that they are limited by the conservative mentality that can neither see beyond itself nor examine itself. It's a fearful, retracted mentality. The liberal belief in welfare is not "give me something for free" as characterized by the conservatives, but rather "give those in need what they need." Of course we all hope to not ever be in need and work towards the day when no one is. But we recognize that we might be or become needy and that others currently are, a situation that demands compassion. If a conservative can't see past their own greed to imagine others aren't also motivated by greed there is no way for them to appreciate welfare and assistance. Unfortunately, part of the troll of conservative belief upon American culture is that people are too proud to accept welfare, or are even shamed or prevented from using it. It's not even doing all the good it could be doing, and of course it could do much more without the trollish resistance. The idea that conservatives are mentally limited by their self-unaware beliefs is the only explanation for how so many of their congress folks can vote against disaster relief for other areas then vote for it when disaster strikes their area. I say they are self-unaware because it does not matter what "self" they represent, they are restricting what that self can be with greedy and fearful beliefs. As an individual or representing an area, as an official or just a citizen, or as a representative of any of your beliefs or interests, you are limiting yourself to say that only others of the same kind can share that identity. The conservative mentality, like the worst evangelical Christianity, must insist on total agreement to maintain itself: "you're with us or against us" as Bush said. But the shotgun approach to the recent Republican primaries shows that there is no actual unity in those ideals. Right now, Trump has over 30% of the Republican support in polls out of 16 or 17 candidates, with Rick Perry suspending his campaign. I hope he continues to embarrass himself and them royally. Even if they come to their senses before the actual election, I don't think we can never forget how much of the conservative mentality was galvanized behind his bullshit. It's truly shameful. Which might be why Republicans are running commercials with all this feel-good stuff and concluding that it's okay to be Republican, nothing to be ashamed of, which is completely untrue. By contrast, nothing liberals believe is anything to be ashamed of. Sure, you can criticize some Democrats - too many, for sure - by saying that they only espouse the ideas and profit off keeping them from actually working so we have to keep fighting for them, that they are hypocrites. But you can't really say anything bad about liberal ideals themselves, other than from your restricted conservative perspective YOU don't see how they can work. You can't say anything bad about people who believe in them, because the desire for them to be true is good and everyone knows this in their hearts, in the collective consciousness. It's just that the small minded mentalities tell people they can't trust their hearts and must limit themselves to what their groupthink believes.
On one hand, trolling a liberal by playing a conservative is super-easy and effective. And, on the other hand, trolling a conservative by playing a liberal is easy, too. But they aren't the same thing. In the first instance you are frustrating an open-minded person by pretending to be closed-minded and insisting on staying that way despite their best attempts to educate you. In the second you are upsetting a closed-minded person by presenting open-minded ideas they can't comprehend. They will get upset and angry at you for not accepting their beliefs. But of course there is nothing they can educate you about because those beliefs are based upon lies. This examination of trolling is to show something about how it works and also the nature of the conservative-liberal dichotomy. It is not a spectrum, with conservative on the bad side and liberal on the good side, nor the other way around depending on your perspective. It is not a spectrum where neither side is good or bad either. It's like conservative, negative shells or bubbles within the larger, all-encompassing, larger, liberal globe. It gets better the more we expand into the fullness of it. Many people seem to think they are too meta or perceptive to vote but liberal ideas truly are good while conservative ones are bad and it's important to vote to show we know the difference and hold government accountable to higher ideals. You could say that Colbert used to pretend to be a conservative to troll conservatives and is now playing a liberal to troll liberals. This isn't true, but you could say it. The thing is, it's not just untrue because Colbert "happens" to be a liberal. There couldn't be someone who was truly a conservative who did the opposite, playing a liberal to troll liberals then having a successful show as the conservative comedian they really are. The reason it can't be done is you can't be that funny and intelligent, you can't be intelligent enough to be that funny, and be a conservative. It's just not mentally possible. The conservative mindset is too restrictive to make the mind-expanding, conscious-opening stretches that really good humor is based upon. This is why the only conservative so-called comedian I can think of is Dennis Miller, who isn't funny, but all funniest people are liberal and the funniest of them are often the most liberal.
The reason for looking at the difference in trolling is to better understand the relationship between conservative and liberal. Conservative is closed-mindedness, small mindedness. It comes from retreating to a small idea of the self that feels threatened by different views. If conservatives were to consider other views, or follow their own views to conclusions they might not yet realize, but would with more self-examination, or just allow themselves to present their own views in dialog with alternative views instead of only talking and listening to those who agree with them, but actually engage different perspectives with respect instead of instant condemnation - if they would do these things they could evolve and eventually overcome those views. I believe liberals only become conservative if they are traumatized by certain life events that cause them to reject their previous beliefs and adopt small-minded ones. That's all I can imagine, or some of us becoming rich and deciding to adopt greed to go along with it. These are the only ways, I can think of, to go "back" to being conservative from being liberal. Maybe generally as Americans age, our "ideals" just aren't strong enough to overcome the desire to be greedy, as we either gain wealth or increase in bitterness over wealth we think is our due. But it only takes a new idea, or a new experience, to get a conservative person to start to open up to the truth of liberal ideas. He was fated for it, too, but Buddha's awakening began with viewing the four negative aspects of living that his royal family hid from him: poverty, sickness, old age, and death. All of us can start to awaken with some new exposure. Trauma and anger decrease our ability to think well and process our lives. We have to be able to feel good to overcome these things, but as long as the conservative mentality trolls our world of the mind it holds us back from paradise and keeps people bitter, angry, fearful and therefore susceptible to adopting small-minded beliefs.
I heard a recent story on NPR about MDMA being used in therapy to treat PTSD. Currently therapy has about a 25% success rate with PTSD but using MDMA in therapy make this an 83% success rate. The idea is that the euphoria allows patients to access the trauma without it constricting their mind and trying to continue repressing itself, so they can actually deal with it. I see this as an analogy for the sickness in the whole society - there is still so much negativity and bad feeling going around we can't expect to effectively deal with our social issues. If we can just create more spaces where things can be good enough, wonderful, even, then out of those Intensive Care Units we can find the tools to heal the rest of us. The Late Show will be one such Care Unit - but we can all create this in more ways. Some cities and communities already are. But any time an artist or visionary goes for it, we bring paradise back with us and people are attracted to that to create it in the reality around us, too. And doing enough of that changes reality into paradise.
There is a new episode of the Late Show with "what future archeologists will identify as the remains of Steven Colbert." He's joking about the football game , made a centaur joke, now. He did the Craig Ferguson "in your region joke"; "congratulations team's name here" with his hand over his mouth. "Big moonheads here" for Ban Ki Moon. In douchebag news, he just announced that Tom Brady has endorsed Trump. "His head has just the right amount of deflation."
Conan actually made a better version of the same joke, saying it was surprising that Brady supported him since he didn't usually like things that were over-inflated, something like that.
This is "to be continued..." So far it spans the time Jeb Bush and Trump were on the Colbert Show - Trump is walking out now, I predict this will magically destroy him and will address the details next time, and revise this later. Thanks!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment