The Enemy Within
One of the things that is fascinating with the human mind, is how you can know something, but it completely will convince you that it doesn't apply to you. This summer there have been a number of high profile suicides, so any article about these individuals has the standard 'If you or anyone you know has considered suicide...' language on the bottom. Everyone on Facebook shares a standard 'Share this to prove that someone is always listening!' message or the 'You're brain is lying to you, you do matter!' but ultimately, a person who actually is suicidal, will completely dismiss all these.
The fact is, your brain will tell you what it wants you to hear. If you are considering suicide, it will tell you those hotlines aren't for you, no one is really listening, and it's all just copy and paste feel good mumbo jumbo. Your brain convinces you that the world really would be better off without you. All those other people are different, the world needed them, it doesn't need you. Its fascinating really.
The Bible describes the heart as vile, fickle, and deceptive, but what I think it refers to in reality is the mind. Your mind will lie to you, change what you are seeing, tell you how you ought to feel, and the reality is, there is little you can do to realize it let alone override it. If your mind tells you that your spouse really and truly hates you, everything they say or do will be colored by that thought, even if it is completely untrue. If your mind convinces you that really, the sky is shades of purple instead of blue, that's what you will begin to see. There are whole disorders where the mind convinces people that the arm they see is not actually there and was amputated, or that their eyes they are seeing through right then, don't work and convinces them they are blind when they aren't. From an academic perspective its amazing the lies it can make us believe!
The internet has brought us into an incredible time of knowledge transfer and sharing. Anyone and everyone has a voice, and there is so much information at our finger tips it is staggering! So much of what we all read is clutter and garbage disguised in fancy words, fonts, and graphics as genius. You can read a perfectly passionate and empowering blog piece, but the reality is that it could all be wrong. Critical thinking is more important now than ever, but oh is it easy to lulled into group think and letting others figure it out for you. Your mind insists that yes, this is what you think and believe, and eventually you fall into it.
This is what is so dangerous about extremists who yell loudly. No one listens to the crazy guy up in a cabin writing his manifesto away from the world, but everyone sees the beliefs and opinions of a terrorist, a school shooter, a protester who was arrested. It's discussed at length on all of our information channels until bit by bit, these beliefs begin to take hold. Not because they make sense, or we actually agree, but its what we hear the most and eventually it wears us down.
Its always easier to float with the tide, then to swim against it and it's always easier to be one voice in a crowd of people yelling the same thing, than to be the one person standing against them. Our country is full of people who think they are the one standing against the crowd, but all they are really yelling is for others to join them so they don't feel alone. Great visionaries that we laud now, were the ones who stood against the crowd even when no one else joined them. Sometimes for years, years, or their entire life time.
These days, people shame, mock, and belittle those who don't agree with them from the beginning. Is it really that anyone cares to stand for whats right, but rather its the rush of converting others to our opinion? And what if its not even a valid opinion, but all a lie our mind has told us first in a small whisper and now a loud yell? How can we be bound by 'truth' when each person has their own? Truth is the facts, and the facts do not change by opinion or because they are acceptable or popular. But the truth, the real truth can be lonely and isolating. It is so much easier to believe the lies that our minds and others words tell us.
How can we fight against an enemy that is within ourselves? An enemy that is us?
The fact is, your brain will tell you what it wants you to hear. If you are considering suicide, it will tell you those hotlines aren't for you, no one is really listening, and it's all just copy and paste feel good mumbo jumbo. Your brain convinces you that the world really would be better off without you. All those other people are different, the world needed them, it doesn't need you. Its fascinating really.
The Bible describes the heart as vile, fickle, and deceptive, but what I think it refers to in reality is the mind. Your mind will lie to you, change what you are seeing, tell you how you ought to feel, and the reality is, there is little you can do to realize it let alone override it. If your mind tells you that your spouse really and truly hates you, everything they say or do will be colored by that thought, even if it is completely untrue. If your mind convinces you that really, the sky is shades of purple instead of blue, that's what you will begin to see. There are whole disorders where the mind convinces people that the arm they see is not actually there and was amputated, or that their eyes they are seeing through right then, don't work and convinces them they are blind when they aren't. From an academic perspective its amazing the lies it can make us believe!
The internet has brought us into an incredible time of knowledge transfer and sharing. Anyone and everyone has a voice, and there is so much information at our finger tips it is staggering! So much of what we all read is clutter and garbage disguised in fancy words, fonts, and graphics as genius. You can read a perfectly passionate and empowering blog piece, but the reality is that it could all be wrong. Critical thinking is more important now than ever, but oh is it easy to lulled into group think and letting others figure it out for you. Your mind insists that yes, this is what you think and believe, and eventually you fall into it.
This is what is so dangerous about extremists who yell loudly. No one listens to the crazy guy up in a cabin writing his manifesto away from the world, but everyone sees the beliefs and opinions of a terrorist, a school shooter, a protester who was arrested. It's discussed at length on all of our information channels until bit by bit, these beliefs begin to take hold. Not because they make sense, or we actually agree, but its what we hear the most and eventually it wears us down.
Its always easier to float with the tide, then to swim against it and it's always easier to be one voice in a crowd of people yelling the same thing, than to be the one person standing against them. Our country is full of people who think they are the one standing against the crowd, but all they are really yelling is for others to join them so they don't feel alone. Great visionaries that we laud now, were the ones who stood against the crowd even when no one else joined them. Sometimes for years, years, or their entire life time.
These days, people shame, mock, and belittle those who don't agree with them from the beginning. Is it really that anyone cares to stand for whats right, but rather its the rush of converting others to our opinion? And what if its not even a valid opinion, but all a lie our mind has told us first in a small whisper and now a loud yell? How can we be bound by 'truth' when each person has their own? Truth is the facts, and the facts do not change by opinion or because they are acceptable or popular. But the truth, the real truth can be lonely and isolating. It is so much easier to believe the lies that our minds and others words tell us.
How can we fight against an enemy that is within ourselves? An enemy that is us?
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