Mirror-age

 

Our personal self-image, the way we believe ourselves to be, may not, in fact, really be our true identity. What we think of as our own unique identity may in reality be the echo of a pattern of the human collective that has been bestowed upon us from the outside. Where have the ideas that have molded and shaped the way we live and think come from? Are they uniquely ours, or someone else's? Stop and ask yourself if you have ever had an original thought, truly originating from within your own imagination?

People are psychologically shaped to fill specific roles in the world, as if they were poured into a pre-designated mold. When you come to realize that life is no more than the upholding of patterns installed from some outside agency, it is a rude awakening. You can scream, but until you cease to compare your existence to the way others live, you cannot restore freedom or regain control and will continue to live according to the operational instructions that have been downloaded into you from peers, parents, and the social powers that be.

This foreign installation is very much like a downloaded computer program or a psychological implant – something that has been embedded into the human psyche to keep people, among other things, fearful and compliant. It is a kind of self-imposed mental slavery that disempowers us, ultimately leading to unproductive or unfulfilled lives, or something destructively worse. This imposed identity is the gift of the dark side to humanity.

Where did this come from? Has it always been this way?

There is a dark force about the world that preys upon us all; it is of our own making and has been here for as long as anyone can recall. But it does not exist everywhere. Some places on Earth were not shadowed by the darkness until recently. Many places throughout the wide universe have beings that have not evolved a dark side.

It all began as an idea... an idea that someone had to make things better. Traveling back in time to when our ancestors lived a hunting and gathering lifestyle, someone proposed a novel idea to cultivate food and domesticate animals so that the community was not on the move from day to day, but could retreat to the safety of a secure dwelling and give up the hunting and gathering way of life. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

Our ancestral communities thrived with the shift to agriculture and populations increased significantly as communities began to spread out over the land. Leaders arose who did everything they could to emulate the success of other communities. As communities grew and became more complex, tasks were assigned to specific people to optimize productivity. In return for taking time away from tending crops and animal husbandry to perform their assigned tasks, they were given housing and food in trade.

And so slavery had its beginning. Some people objected to the arrangement and may have gone off to start their own communities with those that followed. Eventually, most found themselves repeating the same patterns from which they fled their previous community.

What arose from this was a claim to land and a right to possessions. All sorts of rights emerged – rights to land, animals, even the right to control the people in a community, forcing others into labor that offered less and less in return. Looking back at the feudal era, a certain disconnect between the people and the land arose. Anger, frustration, and loss characterize the unfulfilled lives of those subjugated to the control of feudal lords.

Then wars began to protect claims and expand territory, fought not by the noblemen, but by those who continued to labor on their behalf, turning their plowshares into weapons of war against other communities that became the enemy.

And so the arms race began. Communities merged into countries as they pushed for bigger and better tools of destruction. Greed to control more and more land and people along with every other natural resource continued to escalate. The drive for control and power over humanity has become the conclusive agenda of a very small group of elite “leaders”.

The outcome has been slavery, mass production, over-consumption, and war. It no longer even matters what the conquest is all about. Sitting at the top, weapons ready, the elite protect their prominence and the material possessions and privileges they have amassed.

The weapons they use are not always overt. Manipulative language is used as a weapon targeting the collective unconscious with lies of praise and condemnation. And all of this began with the first seeds of our so-called modern civilization - wresting control and power over the environment, animals, and people.

Some claim that this dark force is otherworldly. So horrific is it's predation on the planet and humanity that it seems easier to assign blame to some outer space origin. That is easier than taking responsibility and owning up to the fact that we allow this to happen. By blaming the corrupt systems of control on some alien force, the culpability for humans may be set aside so that our own barbaric and cruel behaviors may be justified.

But we are not the dark force that acts through us. The predator is a force of energy, not a being, that over thousands of years has enmeshed itself in every aspect of our world – government, money, food, religion, education, resources, and the environment. It imposes itself upon us in every aspect of our lives, effecting control by removing our decision-making authority in a very subtle form of slavery.

Those appointed or “elected” into positions of power are given decision-making authority. We put them on a pedestal, showering them with privilege, and want to believe we can trust their integrity and wisdom, but they are little more than pawns on a chess board and can only maintain their position of authority and power so long as they uphold the paradigm of the dark force.

We like to think we have free will, but that authority has long ago been taken from us. Because of that people have increasingly moved away from taking responsibility for anything, relying on being told what to do and say and think because to do or say or think otherwise would be counterproductive to the system.

We have not really advanced as a species since the birth of civilization. Our hunter-gatherer ancestors were more connected to the world and lived in greater balance and harmony than have we since. Instead, we continue to spin around and around as unwitting slaves to a corrupt system of deceptive agendas rooted in greed and profit. We are largely blind to an outdated and corrupt reward system of unnecessary and obligatory consumption, with the major readily reconciling their lives to being herded like sheep, fearfully trying to remain in compliance with the hope of receiving praise, rewards, or increased wealth. Compliant consumption keeps the wheels of the machine well-oiled and lucrative.

The predator's energy is well entrenched in the minds of much of humanity. The illusion that this is just the way it is, to accept it and make the best of it, is the prevailing, largely unquestioned notion. Most people are not even aware that they are prisoners of the system. They are entirely sold on the idea that the system exists solely for the advancement and benefit of humanity. Perhaps the greatest sadness is that most people are happy with the way things are, satisfied to reach for but never achieve the unattainable carrot that has always been held out of reach. Rather than attack the system, many people would prefer to defend and protect the preservation of the status quo and their right to their continued habit of consumption.

The predator is well on its way to succeeding in its agenda as they hold sway over a majority who still believe they have choice. It is positioning itself to take control of everything, removing any remaining claims to freedom, vision, or creativity. But more and more people are awakening from their slumber, beginning to pull at their chains and fight back. The thought of worldwide totalitarian centralized control is terrifying enough that many have reached a tipping point of toleration.

It is shocking how many people still defend their enslavement to the prevailing paradigm. The drawn out battle between the forces of light and darkness is by design, with all its gory detail on display to awaken the sleeping masses, to get people to look the predatory square in the face, to acknowledge that the darkness exists and that it is consuming them.

Acknowledging the existence of the dark force in the world is the first step in casting off its shackles. To end the game, one must come to the realization that each of us has the power to create not only our own identity, but our complete reality. The predator must be given permission to control us. Until we take back control of our free will, we shall remain slaves in an imposed reality. Look closely at the mirror-age, the illusion, and see yourself emerging from the darkness into the new age of emerging light. To see the world differently, we must each remake our own self-image. That is where we must begin.