Good Old Stinky!

Our brains are so wonderful it's really too bad that we misuse them. Building a grudge is a great way to misuse your brain. Here's how it works; just think about a situation in which you felt threatened and voila! your pissed! Don't believe it? Just think back to the last time you had to deal with traffic. I bet someone out there did something really stupid or offensive and it scared you! Your reaction to this threat was probably to get pissed. You might have even cussed out loud or shot them the bird. As you remember how stupid or offensive they were you're probably getting mad all over again. That's because you have a well functioning brain.

I really liked Kurt Vonnegut. He had a theory that, the reason we are unhappy and cause so much trouble is because our brains are too big! We are an evolutionary dead end due to our dysfunctionally large brains. He may have had a point. But you know, it is not just us ordinary people who misuse our own personal brains in order to hang on to anger and build a grudge. Our leaders deliberately manipulate us into building grudges. It's how they control us! But you almost (just almost) cannot blame them, it's just so easy! Besides we manipulate each other into building grudges all the time too. Don't believe it?

Have you ever had a really crummy boss? Of course you have. Did you and your coworkers get together on break and share with each other all the stuff you hated about your crummy boss? Sure you did! Shoot I remember this boss we nicknamed "Stinky" because he was. We used to share all kinds of disgusting stories about Stinky. It helped us hate him more. You've done something similar and you know it. We talk to family about in laws, to siblings about parents, to friends about spouses, and to everybody about traffic. Let's face it we're pissed! And we do everything we can to stay that way.

Oh back to how our leaders exploit our proclivity for resentment; they constantly remind us of who we should fear, who we should be pissed at! The media is their tool in carrying this out. Sometimes unwittingly as when they remind us to be pissed at the media (now that's some kind of mental judo!). And like lemmings running toward a cliff we do just what our overlords want us to do even when it is not in our own best interest. By the way, do you know that the Walt Disney Company actually herded those poor rodents over the cliff in that movie? Sick bastards! See now we can hate Disney! But back to the point, our leaders remind us to fear the terrorists, the liberals, the Tea Party, the immigrants, white people, republicans, democrats, those dirty hippies occupying Wall Street, the bankers, the French, rich people, welfare mothers,etc. etc. etc.

Basically some fear monger or other is always busy telling you to be afraid be very, very afraid! And you comply! If they can keep us scared and pissed they can con us into doing what they want. And it almost always works too. But hey this is only the beginning! This is just the first baby step on grudge building, but the journey to never ending war begins here.

(more to come)

Russell