further explorations on the Manipulation theme.
as usual, a series of seemingly random events led me to thinking about this.
a friend posted about an earthwide meditation for peace, to be held on a certain day, at a certain time. i get lots of these. when i ‘sign up’, they usually want my email address, to send me ‘updates’. there’s usually a few pics of some of the high-rollers in the new age feel-good (and sell stuff) game, an invitation to a seminar, retreat, whatever, that cost Money, and related websites and books for sale on a sidebar.
this latest one made me think... aren’t i a beacon for peace already, just by my life, by the way i choose to live, in every moment, and not just at a particular time? reminds me of going to church on sunday to be spiritual for an hour, and cursing the neighbors the rest of the week. who needs it? advertisers maybe. trend followers, maybe. not to discount the power of bubble realities, compiled energy, beliefs entrainment. but when i read someone (ANYone) being referred to as the midwife of mother gaia... huh?? who am i then? a lesser being who needs more powerful beings to tell me what to do and when? isn’t this just a continuation of the old paradigm, just in new clothes? dressed up to appeal to well-researched memes and themes and market trends?
i believe that i am birthing my own reality, my own version of mother earth, in every single moment point. i don’t have to wait until saturday. and furthermore, i trust what i am doing. do i really believe that? i do.
thinking about this synched in nicely with another thing going on recently. won’t waste time with details about how i got there, but a couple days ago, i ended up on a website where you register, answer some questions, take a test, and if you are someone they want, they ‘hire’ you to make predictions about the future. the name of the organization is something that, by design i’m sure, is unlikely to raise any red flags. the idea of predicting the future intrigued me, because i know that the future is inherent in the present moment. that what we are putting out there in the electrical field/seth’s framework 2, IS our future. and it fluctuates with every in and out breath. there is no Future, as in sitting around with a crystal ball trying to ‘see’ it. we are making it as a part of the Now moment, which is all there ever is. so what are we making? i was thinking that by putting forth possibilities publicly i might be able to contribute on a larger scale to Peace on Earth (now). so i jumped through their hoops, and checked back periodically for a response. next morning, it was in my inbox.
two of them actually; a ‘welcome to our program’ and a details, how it all works, etc one. being the naturally curious person that i am, before i even ‘checked in’ as i was instructed to do, i followed the email trail to try to find out who was behind the benign-sounding ‘predictive research’ group. turns out there were alot of big corporate names/logos involved, and they are clients of this ‘trend prediction’ service (inkling is the name of it, which btw was not stated anywhere in the emails themselves). digging around, i read a blog entry from someone who was involved in data collection (the data to be sold to the corporations, the data i would be contributing to). it spoke about how to get people to do what you want, how to get them to do your bidding for free. psychological manipulations they had experimented with, and the results. not just in the marketplace and the usual media avenues, but school teachers, employees, social media. facebook (guess that’s the one that stood out for me because i participate there).
on the one hand i’m thinking... geez, how can we be such unthinking obedient little creatures? they Do know how to manipulate us, and so Easily! even the ‘test’ i took to get to participate, which seemed to me was designed to weed out people who ‘shot from the hip’ (the first answer, the obvious answer, was not the correct one; all the questions had that in common). i felt pretty smart, thinking that i’d completed it correctly, and then getting ‘chosen’. made me feel kinda like an insider, a caller of the game instead of just a participant. ha!
but on the other hand, some things i read there intrigued me. it was an interesting exploration. there was a link to ‘kiip’, which i hadn’t heard of. its a system where they give ‘rewards’ (kinda like internet dollars) for ‘achievements’ such as completing profiles, posting data, etc. etc, on websites that carry their adverts. something like this, in various forms, is already out there. where they gently push people into a psychological investment in the website. like on reddit where posts are voted up or down and the number of upvotes one gets is somehow Important. in the commenters section of news and other types of organizations, where the people that post alot of stuff achieve some kind of status symbol by their monikers. the trend now is to ‘reward’ people for participation by giving them coupons and money off products sold by the stores that are owned by these larger corporations who are paying for this trend prediction data.
they want to know what the thinkers are thinking so that they can attach an ad to it. and what better way to get maximum exposure than to make them feel invested in the place (virtual in this case) where they hawk their wares, apt to return again and again.
there was talk of ‘front loading’ the rewards, then taking them away if they didn’t produce (achieve the desired results), as a way of making people feel more invested. instead of earning it, they were given it and then threatened with its withdrawal. it was said that studies showed this to be a superior method of motivation. hummn... make up a game, and figure out how to make people believe that they Have to play. interesting to me how hardwired we can be, as a species, to react in predictable ways to specific stimuli.
the take-away for me is that i need to be Very Conscious of how and where i direct my time and attention. am i developing my Own intent, or mindlessly/blindingly helping someone else develop theirs.
