[Note: I accidentally left off 1/3 of this article! I have added it at the end, and in purple…]

Were you watching the Trump Impeachment Proceedings?

WHY?

I’ve received a half-dozen emails and messages this past week, prefaced by something like “In these dark times”, or “I’m so depressed about the state of things”. 

The impeachment and its media coverage is about an old, dying world. You will die along with it, if you keep paying attention to the negative energy, while ignoring the positive, the visionary all around you.

The purpose of the mainstream news is to depress you.  [“The purpose of a system is what it does.” Cyberneticist Stafford Beer.] It’s there to depress you.  Whether you subject yourself to it is your choice.

[This week, I will be talking about how to go on a “News Diet”.  Stay tuned… your sanity is at stake!]

The purpose of a horror show is to scare and disgust you.  Hollywood produces ever more realistic gore for ever-increasing audiences.  Most people watch horror movies less than two hours per month (0.003% of the time).  Most people watch two hours of news PER DAY.  The same thing, over and over again. 

We revolutionaries are birthing a brand-new baby, while the media tries to focus you on the broken placenta.  They don’t recognize that breaking the placenta is absolutely necessary to the birthing of a baby.  People lament the passing of the placenta when they don’t see the baby.  When they haven’t taken the time to see the baby.

It’s time to recognize that all of this Mess is for a purpose.  King George’s onerous rule catalyzed the birth of a new form of governance.  Donald Trump’s Presidency, along with the Corporate Congress, is catalyzing a wholly new way for humans to exist on this planet. 

Generally, most people watch “The News” because it’s a habit.  A habit that has become an ADDICTION.  Like any habit/addiction, it can be managed or eliminated.  However, if you are not aware of the addiction, if it seems benign, seems “normal’, if EVERYBODY ELSE IS DOING IT, you won’t know

that this is a problem that needs to be resolved.  (Like the good ole days, when drinking Coca-Cola meant you were getting your daily (hourly?) fix of cocaine.)

The daily News is as addicting and damaging as the daily CoCaine.  And, you can stop it (or at least cut down drastically) whenever you want to. 

I recently astonished a friend when I told him that I have no idea what Donald Trump’s voice sounds like.  While I have seen a variety of his facial expressions in still photographs, I’ve never* seen a video of him.  Or Pelosi, Pence, Sanders, Biden, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex…

I know the power that resides in moving images.  Therefore, I very carefully filter when and how I view them.  When it is IMPORTANT, I will view them.  And, it hasn’t been important, for a long, long time.

I’m very cognizant of what’s happening in the world.  It doesn’t take hours per day.  It doesn’t take exposing myself to despair and depression.  It doesn’t take viewing endless cycles of the same facts, over and over.  Most importantly, it doesn’t take exposing my consciousness to that which robs me of mindfulness.

How do I achieve this?  It’s not rocket science… just a smart phone, a stopwatch and a little bit of discipline.  I’ll show you how…

Peace,

Shariff

PS: “Never” of course is too strong a word.  I’ve been in restaurants with TV screens, I watched his Inauguration speech, I was in a plane where the next seat passenger was watching a Trump video… But, of course, those exceptions prove my rule.  Seeing Trump for 20 minutes every 3-4 years has a very different impact from seeing him for 10 to 20 minutes (or more) every day.