Mind Clutter is Not Our Natural Habitat
My cap from Sea Shepherd
arrived yesterday, and I completed and submitted the on-shore work application.
Psyched! #seashepherd #marinelife
#savethewhales
I
should just never turn on the TV. Last night, it appeared that a rogue ice
storm was moving in, so my husband and I turned on the television to watch the
weather report. No ice storm, just garden variety January rain and sleet. Meteorologists
love to cry wolf.
But it
wasn’t the weather report that got me: it was the general evening news. There
were four lead ‘stories’ in a row, and here they are:
1. There’s
speculation that a meteor is going to roundhouse Earth in 2019
2. Children
are probably not safe on school buses
3. Deadly
skin cancer is on the rise
4. North
Korea is threatening a pre-emptive nuclear strike against the U.S.
In
fewer than five minutes, our minds had been completely assaulted by a stream of
things that we can do nothing about, don’t really care about, and generally don’t
need to know about. It took us hours to decompress afterward. And of course, it
got me thinking.
Keeping
us all in a very distracted and worried state all the time is a very effective
way to promote frightened compliance among the masses. Keeping us worried or
obsessed about things that we have no control over leaves little time for us to
think about anything else. Stoking our anxiety about what could go wrong is a
way to keep our minds off what is in fact going wrong.
Who
orchestrates these distractions? Anyone who can profit from it – retailers,
government, the wealthy. Rich and predatory people. The last thing they want is a population that has the
mental bandwidth to start thinking about how it’s being screwed. So, they give
us meteors and melanoma to vex us.
This
is why I dislike television and avoid it. Screeching commercials punctuated by apocalyptic
reports of threats on our lives is not the nourishment the mind needs to
thrive.
After only five minutes last night, my brain hurt and my blood pressure
was up. And all I wanted to know was if a storm was coming our way. Next time,
if I want to know if one is coming, I’ll just go outside and look around.
Last
night’s goodness: my cap from Sea Shepherd arrived, and I completed and
submitted the on-shore application. I’m really feeling this next adventure. And
while I’m a little sad that I didn’t take the opportunity to go to sea with Sea
Shepherd before I married, I believe that I can do lots of good for ocean life
from dry land. I’m excited. Looking forward to hearing from them soon.
I
planted another pot of those amazing wisteria seeds last night. I’m thrilled
with how quickly the seeds germinate and shoot up. The first pot of plants is
already putting out tendrils, looking for something to climb. I’m going to have
to figure something out before they get any taller.
I also
planted another avocado pit, this time using the plastic bag tent method. We
have one really nice pit that’s germinated and is already a foot tall, but I’m
hedging my bets. I’d like to have a healthy young avocado tree ready for outdoor
life come June.
Live
in peace.
