Mindfulness Has Now Become A Tool Of The Oligarchy And State

"I'm sorry we had to evict you without notice. As a gesture of goodwill, a link to a best-selling online mindfulness course has been attached below to help ease any anxieties you may be experiencing due to you having no Plan B".

Mindfulness now operates in much the same way as satire does - as a tool consumers use as a defence mechanism and pressure release valve for their anxieties. It's becoming increasingly noticeable though that private business as well as the State, are employing mindfulness to quell the rage, anguish and frustration caused by the injustices they are responsible for which could lead to civil unrest.

How Mindfulness Privatised A Social Problem

I Think Of You

i think of you as a spirit
which wandered in confused
from another realm
searching this world
for its perfect compliment
to explore possibilities
of life lived together
through the other's eyes

and once the it finds what it needs
it returns
to the spirit world
fused to the love it found
complete

Emotional Capital - But How Does One Increase The Amount That They Have?

Increasing one's emotional capital is achieved through the accumulation of value (in the form of meaning) generated by continuous emotional exchanges that become retained and co-owned by both parties due to their positive net worth.  

Each time we engage with a someone, we should aim to ensure that the net sentiment each party takes away leaves them feeling good, or at the very least, better than they were before. If both parties agree that the sentiment each departs with had a positive net effect upon them, than it can be assumed said sentiment possesses value, in the form of meaning.  

Positive sentiments generated in this way are then retained in the memories of both parties as they are meaningful which coalesce over time, leading to the eventual formation of a good rapport: a complex of active opportunities for engagement either party may tap into to instigate an interaction.
  

Each opportunity for engagement stems from a shared knowing (a single interaction both parties found meaningful and thus have consigned to memory). This shared knowing functions as a narrative node when the two parties subsequently meet thereafter (a narrative node being a point from which future stories can be written or shared together in many directions) and affords greater fluidity in communication due to the invoking effect a shared knowing has on both party's desire to create new, or continue on from pre-existing narratives. 

In this way emotional capital can be increased.  

In short. Be nice to each other.

I Love It When People Use Facebook To Be Truly Honest About The Way They Feel

I love it when people use facebook to post things that are meaningful and don't try to project anything other the truth about what is happening for them. It takes courage to be open enough to do this, and being open is an act of making oneself vulnerable. Accepting one's vulnerabilities I think is the ultimate sign of strength.

When you open yourself up you are able to feel more. You become more receptive to your own emotions and also more sensitive to the feelings and emotions of others. Openness leads to vulnerability because we never know exactly what we will be letting in, and recognising each other's vulnerabilities is what allows empathy to grow - something the world desperately needs an injection of right now.

When you open yourself up on social media, not knowing whether anyone even cares to hear about the struggles you've been going through, you're sending out a beacon to all those people in a similar predicament that don't feel able enough to speak out about their own.

Seeing a friend take that leap of faith, being honest publicly about what life has actually been like for them, without the polished veneer, resonates people deeply and calls out to their soul (like a Batman signal in Gotham's night sky :D). It makes anyone receiving their message feel more human and reassured that they are not alone; and in the long run helps reconnect us all to one another the more people act in this way.

So, up with openness and vulnerability, because nothing can ever enter a doorway which is closed to the world.

Trump thinks he is The One

Trump I feel has forgotten, or rather, mistaken himself for being the man who rebuilds The Matrix as he sees fit - the system controller, whose utterances and impulses reshape the world immediately in the direction of the vision he has in mind.

The One, with the privilege to write and rewrite humanity's source code at will from a place of absolute safety and protection, an act of daring / narcissism / megalomania many people are simply in awe of because of its sheer audacity, while others whose interests his actions benefit hope to continue.

At the same time such recklessness steadily awakens those previously silent and apathetic. Trump is compelling them into action. Unlike any other politician I've seen at least, Trump obliges us to make a critical decision. We either choose to walk with him or will have to fight against him.

In the process of dividing us into antagonising camps who, at present, wouldn't dream of attempting to build bridges to in order to reach each other, and right now cannot even conceive of a way to achieve this that would be genuine and unforced - the fact that this process is occurring is precisely why huge blankets of apathy are being lifted and swept away, as the stark reality about what Trump reaching his promised land before he dies will mean for the rest of us finally sinks in, switching on those with a conscience into taking on an additional purpose in their lives they've perhaps been reluctant to accept, but know is worth fighting for - because inaction, paralysis, procrastination and self-denial at a certain stage of a threat's advancement all become acts tantamount to suicide.

But he is, like we all are, just a temporary cog in the great mechanism of evolution taking place on a tiny speck of matter against the backdrop of the cosmos. There is always a system outside of the one in which we are in governing us, responsible for maintaining the favourable conditions that allow us to be the way we are. Trump at this point I feel has forgotten about this fact, and is entrenched in a deep deep denial or perhaps simply couldn't give less of a fuck; happy to enjoy his twilight years like a teenage rebel intent on seeing just how crazy a ride he can make his legacy read after he's expired.

At the back of his mind he must know that no matter how many people bow down to him, willing to carry out every wish and abide by every command that he gives, showering him with the unconditional validation he needs in order to breath, and informing him with sincerity the fact that he is more popular and has higher ratings than God ever had - behind this functioning facade will be the knowledge that the universe could at any moment crush him in an instant, and no amount of executive orders signed off can change that fact. A response is on its way, and he is catalysing his way towards it.

Is Trump an unwitting pawn being played by the universe?

I wonder if Trump is nothing more than his name, nature's trump card, played in order to create the common ground humans have needed to exist for so long in order to finally unite? A pawn being moved in the cosmic game of chess he knows nothing of. The swansong of an archaic form of power clinging to cruelties it tells itself are former glories. Forced now to finally show its hand and go all in/out in its last stand.

It is possible for him to be the one poison capable of destroying the system that gave birth to him. Through the shameless and unapologetic use of his unjust freedoms, making visible and flaunting before all the way in which the previously unseen ways power could dominate and control its people at will, choosing instead to convert every act made into a symbolic currency that feeds his haemorrhaging ego and, he hopes, will carry him through to calmer waters on the other side.

He has chosen to become the unadulterated embodiment of what the capitalist system will allow to be created, but is making the fatal error of disclosing to the world exactly how and why he is doing it. As the truth about his agenda is evermore unveiled, by Trump himself, the ambiguity which he once could utilise to garner the support of those in a decisive limbo begins to evaporate, before finally only the hardcore, absolute disciples who have already made their decision to follow him to the bitter end no matter what transpires remain.

Having to ingest such a distilled concentration of power which has at last decided to abandon all fears about its appearance and intentions being judged I feel will lead to many people within Trump's camp to soon become violently sick. Vomiting up all that they have tried to stomach for so long in a desperate attempt to purge themselves.

In this way Trump helps to accelerate the formation of a global common ground through his demonstration to the world that man's power ought to be respected precisely because it has become so powerful, and therefore should be prioritized over our planet's ability to keep sustaining life. A delusion which we must snap out of finding so comically absurd and resist the urge to scoff at the manner in which we are entering potential oblivion.

Getting Rid Of Weeds Gave Me A Fresh Perspective On My Religion

I'm a support worker who works with people with autism. One of my clients, Fred (not his real name), has an allotment he loves spending time at, tending to the vegetables and flowers there and making sure the place is always a neat and presentable place to work in.

It was a lovely sunny day down at the allotment, and Fred took out with some pride his weed burner with which he intended to scorch the undesirable plants growing between the cracks of the paved flooring. I hadn't seen a weed burner until I started helping out at the allotment, and really it's just a long metal tube similar in form to a litter picking grabber, but with a can of butane attached to the handle, making it a flame thrower one can use in a residential setting. My fellow support worker with me at the time commented that together with the backpack I had on, I looked like a budget Ghostbuster.

As Fred began scorching the weed-filled crevices to enhance the aesthetic of his plot, my colleague, who initially was gazing with interest at the way the intense blue flame would make the edges of the weeds glow bright orange before they morphed into charcoal, suddenly became extremely anxious at the sight of some insects that had been living in the cracks clambering up to the surface and dispersing in panic. Ants, small spiders and woodlice all came rushing out looking for a place of refuge while the ladybirds wisely made emergency take-offs and took to the skies. My colleague, who I've since come to learn is a deeply empathetic person in all manner of respects, urged Fred to turn his weed burner off at once so she could take those insects closest to the flame away to a place of safety. Fred abided, and soon the insects had been gathered up and transferred to a nearby flower bed. After a short time, insects stopped emerging from the cracks that had received a taste of the burner's menace, and so Fred resumed his task again.

The acuteness of my colleague's emotional response, and her efforts to rescue these insects before they became ash caused me put myself in their shoes for a while and consider the experience the unfortunate ones on the front line who had perished in the blaze had just been through.

One moment you're chilling in a nice cosy little nook on a summer's day, undisturbed by the universe, enjoying shelter from predators among the rogue blades of grass and dandelion leaves around you, maybe even snacking on a greenfly or two or just lounging on bean bags made of soil, and then, without warning, you look up to see a huge body from the heavens appear, casting a shadow upon your world before a fire of biblical proportions rains down upon your neighborhood.

Imagining myself as one of those insects left me with a renewed perspective of religion reflecting later that evening, the religion I was brought up to believe at least. I wondered how the insects might have responded if they had been brought up as atheists or as Catholics, like I was.

In the final brief moments before realising they were about to die in the raging fire engulfing them, the atheist insects could be forgiven for assuming that this furnace from above they were powerless to stop, was simply a cold hard reality of life - that what was happening was a random and indiscriminate chance event which unfortunately for them just happened to be happening now. A natural disaster.

"Such is life!", exclaimed the woodlouse to the ant.

"Oh woe is us! Nature is inherently cruel in its indifference towards our lot, and we are simply unlucky fodder at the mercy of its whims!", lamented the spider to the earthworm; who hadn't heard a thing the spider had said as earthworms are stone deaf.

Similarly, the Catholic insects, not knowing why they were suddenly being torched, could also be forgiven for assuming that there was a reason why this blaze that seemed heaven sent wished to annihilate them. They might conclude, without any solid evidence of course, that there was a specific reason why this was happening right now, that the inferno was in fact an act of God who had cause to take aim at them personally, a cause they'd probably appreciate a bit longer than a few seconds to work out. These insects had royally pissed off God somehow, and God couldn't be bothered to tell them what it was they had done. What a rotter!

"The powers up above want to destroy our way of life!", cried the ladybird with an air of authority rarely displayed before.

"Yes! This is no random happening. It is the intention of God to punish us for living the way that we do. This has happened to me before, but I was lucky to escape with only a charred wing. God hates those insects who choose to live in the cracks! He considers us lowlifes! This is no natural disaster I tell you! It is the work of a higher power! ", shrieked the greenfly in sheer desperation, while also maintaining a safe distance away from the ladybird, just in case.

And the Catholic insects would be pretty spot on in their assessment to a large extent. The inferno they were powerless to control wasn't a random event at all. There was a definite reason why it was taking place. And many more paving cracks would be left charred that day. The Catholic insects should also be forgiven for a second time - for envisaging an all-powerful, all-seeing God who wields complete dominion over their world, going potty behind the celestial controls because nothing winds him up more than insects communing among dandelions in narrow openings.

You can't really expect a woodlouse or an ant, no matter how smart they are, to deduce that a person with a learning disability in a wheelchair, brandishing a weed burner only because their lack of mobility limits the degree to which they can participate in manual tasks, and whose aim is to simply to make their allotment prettier, is the reason for their suffering. It was never Fred's intention to knowingly destroy the habitat of another culture and claim it was necessary in order to serve a higher purpose - that of beauty. He would be truly mortified to find himself thinking in this way.

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The Desperation of Commercial Porn in 2019

Something I've noticed for a long time in porn which has become more obvious recently is how in classic porn there was less of the user/used dynamic. If a man or a woman was giving head, there was less inclination for the pleasuree to hold the pleasurer's head in place and apply more forceful guidance. The pleasurer had a freer role and was less constrained in what they ought to do. They possessed greater ownership over their performance as well as the aesthetics of their body while enjoying sex. Ideally, both parties should simultaneously be pleasurer and pleasuree. There ought to be no distinction at all. But this growing divide in porn, in a way now reflects the world at large right now, and reflects the deeply unfair and unequal divide. I think good feminist porn aims to reaffirm and demonstrate in a way that is self-evidently true, the fact that equality of power for both parties during the act of sex is the most desirable configuration.

Some of the more aggressive commercial porn hetero porn I've watched recently has taken a disturbing twist I think. Going beyond the woman's function of simply being an obedient fucking or sucking device, she now has the additional challenge placed upon her of having to perform her duties with a balletic grace, making aesthetically pleasing for the viewer, the male porn stars sudden whims and changes in his carnal urges. From fucking her mouth while perched uncomfortably upside down to being spun around resuming her duties sucking on her knees while jacking off two other cavemen who were waiting patiently on the sidelines but now want in on the action. This new additional pressure placed upon the woman to make these immediate and violent transitions more natural looking or at the very least, less clunky I feel is very unhealthy as it is the woman's responsibility to ameliorate the impression that violence is taking place. Hetero men have never had it so good, if that's the kind of scenario that gets you. Interestingly there are women, who it seems, absolutely love being degraded and treated as sexual objects, their humanity during their ordeal becoming a faint memory from a former life.

I don't know enough about sex, but I have been making notes on how the symbolic acts in porn have been gradually morphing over the years. For guys who see women through a reductionist lens i.e. see woman in terms of the part of them they will end up coming in (mouth, ass, pussy, tits etc), I feel like aspects of foreplay and arousal that don't directly involve pleasure will either seem pointless or unnecessary to them. Acts through the language of touch that symbolise what is to come or what might be possible with their lover, what their partner might be willing to do with them, are all too subtle for these brutes to pick up on. They need concrete, unequivocal signals of what will be taking place soon. I think it's possible that this new age of men feeling the pressures of obtaining clear consent may feed into this absolutist stance to some degree, but I'm not sure. Part of me feels like the tireless sex performing neanderthals from our current porn world are incapable of romance, because for me, romance is based on wanting something we don't yet have and we maximise the sensitivity to our desires and wishes being reciprocated whenever potentially reaffirming signals are detected. This can also work the other way round and involve us investing inordinate levels of vain hope and optimism into the chances of our transmitted signs and cues projected into the ether of our beloved being gladly received.

I think it's a lovely phenomenon the way a sex starved individual will declare they would drink the dirty bath water of their beloved, or masturbate with a deep carnal yearning over an empty can of coke their beloved's lips had once been sipping from. When there is a profound lack of what one truly desires then the brain/heart amplifies any incoming signals that indicates our wishes may soon be fulfilled. So it's interesting when I watch 80's pornstars like the slightly built but egregiously well hung John Holmes come, allowing lustful feelings swell up inside of him and take over his person before being engulfed by a powerful tide of erotic pleasure, opening his floodgates and letting his cum gush wherever he happens he is. Compared to the uber-hench pornstars of today who are devoid of any narrative in the story of how they fuck. They start at the end and turn the act of sex into an endurance challenge for themselves as well as for the woman they subject. Sex for hetero women in commercial porn more and more resembles a test of their inner strength and will power, an arduous trial they are determined not to succumb to. So it comes as no surprise that invariably these men end up having to jack themselves off at the end of the shoot in order to finally jizz, their own hand proving only thing they are unable to resist the orgasmic persuasions of. The narcissistic homos!! Hahaha!!