GLOBAL STUPIDITY

I have never enjoyed having my own website. It has always gone against the grain. It has never been my way . It was someone else’s idea. It always seemed like vanity to me. If it is just commerce then it bores me for I have never been materialistic. As a young singer-songwriter I yearned for a world to become enlightened but instead it became more and more stupid and inane. Our new found technology has seduced us into a kind of atrophy as we fill our minds with data.

We as humans have always been capable of what was known in ancient times as received wisdom. That particular muscle in our brains is either the starter-motor of the engine that drives our hopes and dreams or it is the receiver in our built-in natural radar. Without it we may as well be robots. There was more wisdom practised in the world of the Ancient Greeks and all they had were their minds. Their individual minds. Their inspired minds. Their enlightened minds. They used that muscle in their brains well.

The Internet is hailed as a tool for information and education but it is dangerously close to becoming a data bank for robots . But we are not robots. Yet. We are all free to use The Internet as we wish so it can be argued that if all you want is Greek philosophy it’s there for you. But we are human and we are easily distracted . The temptations are overwhelming except for the very determined.

It is this modern way of communicating that runs contrary to my instincts and so I have ceased to play the game of late in an effort to gather my thoughts once more without outside influences cluttering up my mind. In my experience the best music is produced when one is once again tuned to nature and the higher self. I see no point in adding to the kind of uninspired nonsense that passes for product these days.
The worst music is produced when under pressure from commercial deadlines, radio formats, and accountants interfering . We have all seen what happens to our industries when they are run by managers who have no affection for the job they are trying to do. All human endeavor has been torpedoed. We are misguided fools if we pay attention to misguided managers and the consequences are there for all to see. A lousy National Health service, and pathetic railways (unlike the French who were passionate about creating something beautiful), are but two examples. Airports and air travel have become intolerable. Officious authoritarian uniformed and uninformed people appear to be trying to take over every aspect of our lives , from the contradictory nonsense pumped out by local councils to the highest institutions and lawmakers in the land. In dialogue John Le Carre’s defector calls it the economic oppression of the masses , a telling speech of what America has given us under the guise of ‘freedom’s protectors’. Artists are not alone in feeling like this and many resort to suicide in their despair. It will take a Leonardo da Vinci or Socrates or Jesus Christ or Ghandi to alter this increasingly obnoxious environment.
You have to love what you are doing to do it well. When love became a dirty word everything went to hell.

We have followed the American way in which everything is geared to materialism. Our children are taken at an early age and channeled into the most lucrative job they are suited for. Socially engineered, and manipulated from an early age how could they know what they are suited for, except childhood, but that is disgracefully undervalued, exploited and disregarded. Children are a big market and no one is off limits to the philosophy we have adopted. Few are concerned with a chosen profession, a calling as it was so accurately once described, and picked up entirely naturally by our personal radar. After being sold the idea of university for all, the wrong people go into the wrong jobs and begin a lifetime of robotic routine, filled with endless data, resulting in total ineptitude and incompetence. Their hearts and minds have shriveled in the process . Their heart isn’t in it, so their concentration isn’t either. They confuse love with sentiment and discard it accordingly.

When editors of newspapers talk about ‘our readers’ we all know it’s not because they love their readers. They are claiming to know what their customers want to read about, and deliver it to them like mother‘s milk. They try to kid themselves they are fulfilling a need in us all. The only reality that exists for them is their own survival. To hell with the news. Every journalist’s livelihood depends on him never writing about what a cynical monster his trade has become.

I listen to records and all I hear is a pressure to deliver on schedule. It has ceased to be music from within. It is soulless because it has become about fame and fortune, and The Internet can be helpful in achieving those goals. But it is neither art nor inspired thinking. Yes they may sell because they are marketed efficiently, by more and more cynical marketing men, surely the worst offenders of soulless manipulation. Their efforts do not produce good music , it is simply a cold empty cynical machine. The favorite acts of marketing men were acts like The Spice Girls who made their job easy. They loved them because of the sales, not because of their music. In time we become acclimatized and it becomes the norm. Give us more like the Spice Girls. Everybody gets rich that way. In their view. In reality we are all poorer as something inside us yearns for something a little better. Mediocrity becomes the norm in all forms of entertainment. In time the world will all go to crap. I would say without doubt we are dangerously close to just that . It’s not just global warming you should be worried about . It’s global stupidity. And the worst offenders are the media who have put commerce above everything . All that matters to them is the survival of their newspaper, their TV channel, or their radio station. They will not survive . They are at war with themselves over the ratings. As with all wars no one wins and we all suffer the consequences. They will destroy themselves one by one., and our only hope is that they don’t destroy all of us in the process. It has become boring waiting for it to happen, but it will happen as sure as global warming is happening. When we get back to thinking for ourselves we may find a surprise awaiting us, for the answers we are seeking are there within each and every one of us. What America hopes for is that we finally cease to ask questions and in our stupor no longer need any answers. Their advice is if you feel bad, take a pill. It is evident that there are many who have already reached that point and who, if challenged, will vehemently deny it. They will just be echoing the voices of their tutors. They have ceased to be and the process is complete. Our corporations are now free to supply you with all your needs.

We don’t need managers or advisers or governments running our lives, advising us wrongly, or exploiting us. We only need faith in ourselves, and the time and the place to think carefully, undisturbed by the daily bombardment of nonsense spewing out of our so called ‘authorities‘. They are the real enemy and we would do well to recognize that fact and simply ignore them. They are powerless without our support, and we have the power to put them all out of business. All we need is the inclination. To achieve that all we have to do is to keep our hands in our pockets, stop wasting our time and money and think for ourselves again. The Internet can be the destroyer of our souls or it can be our salvation. Use it wisely and sparingly or not at all. Data is not knowledge. Trust your Latin and you’ll find to educate once meant to bring out what is already in you at birth. Exercise that muscle before it disappears forever.