POSITIVE NEWS
JELLY BABIES FOR JUDASThe longest retail religious festival in the world is slowly coming to a close, and during this period in between chocolates, horrific celebrity consumed TV and almost breaking my back challenging my Dad at the Wii – I’ve found time on the sofa to think.
I am not an atheist, and do not believe in a universal mafia type being in the sky who calls the shots as such, but having said that my understanding of what could be conceived as spirit is strong and has been nurtured through years of meditation and other related things.
This has always left me open to ridicule when articulating stories of out of the body experiences, notions of deconstructing the Ego then putting it back together again with a new name like Wehttam Pmek, and the problems of farting on 10 day silent retreats. Yet for me unless Tottenham are stuffed by the Arsenal: On any given day my belief in the existence of spirit is absolutely unshakeable and forms the basis of how I choose to live my life
The ugly spending and consumption of this religious festival seem entirely at odds with the Spirit of Christmas and as I live in this grey area of being neither a Christmas hater or a Christmas cracker I feel at odds with myself sometimes, wishing that there was a way out and that being white and European did not make Christmas mandatory.
I feel somewhat corrupted and dispirited.
For a start the first seven years of my life I was lied to! Then one-day the illusion that Santa existed was shattered when we had to call the ambulance to get my overly ambitious drunken Grandad out of the chimney.
Let us also not forget the once luschious green robes of the early Santa were robbed by Coca Cola in an early marketing scam, and you may have noticed more recently his Elf’s have that strange space invader image under there left arm, whilst the Reindeers appear skinnier on the cards as corporate plundering of their land in the name of giving has left it scarce of food.
If Jesus were alive today, how would he feel if he took a stroll down Oxford Street and other commercial centres. Would he be buying cheap perfume for Mary? an Ipad for Joseph? or stocking fillers for Judas?
Or would he be preaching to the shoppers with a big sign made from Cardboard from the top an Escalator outside McDonalds? Or maybe he would be a full on booted and scarfed anarchist running the street at nights scrawling ‘Where is the love?’ on corporate signs and posters whilst simultaneously breaking things.
Well, I don’t know him personally and even by introducing the 7 degrees of separation theory I have found no tangible links yet my hunch is that perhaps the latter is more of a distinct possibility.
There is a well known chapter in the bible that suggests Jesus got angry when he spotted some people selling things in the temple – he shouted ‘My house is a house of prayer but you are making it a den of thieves’.
If he were to visit my local church Sunday market I think the blasphemous obscenities that would leave his mouth would be quite something and not for the ears of the average church goer.
Was Jesus a Vegi?
This question has dogged historians for sometime. There is evidence to suggest he was as his last meal consisted of bread and water plus the length of hair also suggest Hippy like orientations.
So the glutinous ‘meat feast’ parade of this festival would probably leave him sick and bulimic.
As for the Christmas trees I believe the idea of them would lead him to take action with only one penalty……
Merry Christmas
Matt Kemp
27/12/2011
Tune in, Pull the Plug
Break the Illusion.
Have you noticed recently how many people are looking at screens in one form or another, whether its an Ipod,Phone,Ibook,Tablet,Laptop,Tv,Desktop or Smartphone.
With devices becoming cheaper & cheaper it seems more and more people are spending an increasing amount of time looking at screens.
Now don´t get me wrong I am not a technophobe. I find technology useful for many things, but to begin this series of articles about this subject I would like to ask this simple question - is the increasing dominance of technology in our lives healthy?
With the advent of messaging and mobile phones you could say that what we previously considered ‘reality’ has changed as new technologies are able to shift space and time to a point where all shall we say ‘plugged in’ humans are living an alternate , technologically driven reality.
Yes! It is useful to text a friend your going to be late for a meeting or find out what your girlfriend wants for dinner after leaving work, but how many of you reading can remember a time when everything just ‘was’ or simply ‘as it is’ with no outside influence at all?
The mobile phone was quickly followed by the internet, which again has dramatically changed lives. Again communication became simpler making the world seemingly smaller for all, but for example how many rooms or flats have you been in where people are engaging with their computer rather than those around them, or how many conversations have you had or seen when one person is actually having another conversation at the same time via some piece of technology.
Yes it is exciting to talk to your friend on the other side of the planet, but what about maintaining and caring for the relationships around you – right here – right now!
Is it not to easy to open up a screen and live your social life there?, human beings are by nature social creatures so the attraction is huge to be seen and heard on the web, but is this not creating the slow death of community?
Recent riots in England, have left many questions – with one defining question being ‘why is it teenagers will attack their own community?’.
Could the answer lie in the fact that this generation has no sense of community as they see the web or chatrooms as their community.
If you knew the man who had cut the hair of your parents for years , would you kick in his shop? I doubt it.
Communication like space and time has become warped , where people have less time for one another .
Facebook and Tweeter keep up the illusion of connection, but its only that an ‘illusion’ nothing more.
My students cite facebook as a hobby and many spend hours each day using it – what affect does this have on the psyche of young impressionable people? What is happening to their minds when they can seemingly live a social existence on the internet and can be so easily distracted.
Recent studies have discovered that language is dying , less and less words are used every year. Language is culture!
I met a teacher two years ago who worked at a school in London. This school had employed someone to come in to teach the children playtime games, Why? Because the children were bored, they wanted their computer and had no idea how to interact with each other. The games introduced were a success – but should this be needed?
It is well documented that corporations in order to be able to sell their goods more easily have been mapping the human mind for years with work pioneered by the nephew of Freud - Édward Bernays. Bernays was one of the first to attempt to manipulate public opinion by appealing to, and attempting to influence, the unconscious.
This work eventually caught the eye of Nazi Germany who then used similiar techniques to whip up fear and power amongst their people.
Over sixty years later it could be said that corporations have an increasing dominance over our market force dominated lives, open a computer and you will find that evidence everywhere.
Is society being stripped of individuality under the illusion brought by technology that we live in liberty?
More and more lives are becoming plugged into the Net and there minute by minute at the mercy of corporate driven software.
Have you ever wondered why most applications are free?
The Industrialization of society plundered the earth and has brought serious repurcusions, could the technological age bring something more serious a ‘Symbiotic man’? This to some is a laughable idea – but take a look around, is it already happening?
The Law of Accelerating Returns states - As Order increases, so Time speeds up.
If you are older than 30 years old in the year of 2011 I think you would agree that time time has sped up dramatically.
Take a step back for a moment and ask yourself a question where does this end?
What are the huge changes that technology brings doing to human conciousness?
What are the implications to successive generations behind who are born into this market force and government driven illusion of control?
Do yourself a favour pull the plug for a few days break the illusion and remind yourself of your humanity – its important! Its quite possible there are others out there who don´t value it so much.
By
Matt Kemp
23/9/2011
**For more information on Edward Bernays watch 'The Century of Self' on the Little Ripples page.