22nd December
Ephraim lives in New York City. He has never been to Israel - nevertheless, he has spent many years studying the situation here from every possible angle – historical, religious, political, social, economic, military – and has come up with what he believes is the best solution to the world's most intractable, divisive and bitter conflict.
Most nights he is up all night – on facebook groups and extremist pages - deep in discussion and debate with all sorts of people from all sides of the divides. The problem is that nobody in the land itself will even listen to his plan, let alone take it seriously – even though it addresses all of the big sticking points in all previous negotiations. Questions of security, sovereignty, civil and religious rights, governing structures, restitution of property, the right of return, Jerusalem... and offers viable, original solutions for all of them, as well as safeguards against it being overturned by extremists, a timetable for peaceful transition and roles for the international community... After all, he's just a bass player from Brooklyn.
If he was some billionaire TV personality with the keys to the white house it would be a different story. People would sit up and take notice, even if he didn't have a clue about Israel Palestine and couldn't even find it on a map.
It's driving Ephraim out of his mind. Every so often he announces that he's through with facebook. It's potential to bring about real, positive change is wasted on memes, cat pictures and empty, wasted words. It will never change anything.
Now he's being driven out of his house by a thieving, drug addicted squatter – the son of a local rabbi.
What sort of karma is that?
What has one thing got to do with the other?
Maybe nothing. Maybe everything.
Reality – subjective or objective?
It's a room full of mirrors –
some small, some big,
some curved in, some curved out.
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If my experience with mind altering substances has taught me one thing, it is to notice when my mind is being altered.
Let's say... you're sitting in a room, drinking a cup of tea. You're comfortable, nothing seems out of the ordinary. You took some LSD about an hour ago... Now suddenly things start to change – patterns in the carpet take on forms that you hadn't noticed before, maybe even start to swim about. The steam rising from your cup of tea takes on cosmic proportions, wonder and significance, as if it contains the secrets of the universe, as if it is the whole universe – a storm in a teacup. The walls that appeared solid before (if you'd even paid them any attention) now appear to be breathing – and could it be that they are only a paper thin veneer covering a completely alternate reality...?
What has changed? Nothing. Only your mind.
A few experiences like that (or even only one) is enough to show you how reality can be altered completely, depending on your perception – or at least how your perception of reality can be altered under certain influences.
And here is the connection.. the reason why I have spent almost all of this No Internet Month Diary 2017 talking about my experiment with LSD and very little of it talking about the Internet...
In my previous No Internet Month Diaries 2015 and 2016, I have already established the similarities – addictive, dependancy forming, mind altering – between facebook and drugs – but I had no point of comparison to determine exactly how mind altering is this new technology which is used by about half of the world's population.
Now, after this scientific trial and close observation and comparison between facebook use and LSD use – I can conclude that facebook and the internet are about as powerfully mind-altering as at least a mild dose of LSD – which is not so mild when you take it day in, day out, possibly for years on end – with no time off, away from its unavoidably mind-altering influence.
The main difference is that most of us are unaware most of the time that our mind is being altered – either because we don't expect it, don't believe it, or aren't paying close, objective attention to our own state of mind and the various factors which may influence our perception of reality.
There is also the fact that if your perception of reality is in a permanently altered state, then quite soon that becomes normal, while your previous state becomes a vague memory, more like a dream – and you are left with no point of reference... objective reality ceases to exist – only relative states of being remain...
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Every car on the highway, rushing from one place to another, or else standing still, crawling along, waiting for the lights to change = is a box containing a unique reality, travelling from one reality to another. Most of those realities you will never know or experience – because you are your own reality and they are theirs an we are all travelling at different speeds in different directions...
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23rd December
Fundamental question for our times: Has truth become a a commodity to be bought and sold, traded and bargained for – or is there really only one truth – one objective reality – everything else is lies and spin, wishful thinking, delusion or denial?
Essentially it's a philosophical question – one truth or many truths? I would say it's both, but of course that would present its own paradox – a true statement in contradiction with itself.
Every person is a complex bundle of contradictions. I don't know anyone who isn't. It's the yin and the yang.
Searching for truth in the internet is like wading through quicksand, looking for a penny that someone told you was dropped there a long time ago. Maybe it's there, but the chances of finding it are very slim, while the risk of sinking without a trace is quite real. Maybe someone will find you and come to help you out, if you're lucky.
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You can read my 'No Internet Diaries' from 2015 and 2016 at:
Check out ecoTrain For the best and latest, original, mind expanding content:
https://steemit.com/nature/@eco-alex/the-best-of-ecotrain-2017-highlights