Divide and Conquer: Here We Go Again
Dealing With Differences in Opinions When Emotions Are High
We have all been in this situation: we are having a hearty conversation, it is fiowing smoothly, and then suddenly, a “wrong” opinion is uttered, and all hell breaks loose. Passions and accusations start fiying — traitor this, idiot that, how dare you think this way — and it suddenly feels like somebody had hung a dusty coat over the room of well- intended people, the good spirits have left, all bets are off now, etc.
We have gone through a lot of this dramatic community breakdown in the past 3.5 years because of “COVID.” Now, we are seeing another round of it due to the differences in opinion about situation in the Middle East. I experienced this kind of dynamic very viscerally a few years ago when the Russians and the Ukrainians, formerly mutually affectionate members of the Soviet expat community, inadvertently found themselves in the opposite corners of the political boxing ring. All of a sudden, the people who had partied, drank and celebrated together for years felt uneasy and hostile toward each other, and any “wrong” word on either side easily led to angry outbreaks. Thanks for nothing, international war mongers and intelligence agencies, you succeeded at messing with people's heads for now, and I know your success is temporary, but jeez, thanks.
We Get Pulled Into Hostilities We Don't Benefit From
That particular experience from a few years ago was so heartbreaking. It felt like a dead end. It was as if the old camaraderie that had existed among all different Soviet expats “died studently,” and the good vibes said goodbye and left. It was even more heartbreaking given the fact that modern geopolitical hostilities and big wars are nothing but mob battles and money laundering. They have little to do with what's good for us, good people on the ground. Big wars happen against our best interests, and they hurt us deeply no matter which side we find ourselves on. Regular people usually don't want to be forced to drop everything and go to war just because some cold-blooded jerk upstairs wants to get richer and more powerful. The people on the ground don't want to be fighting in a war! We don't want our children to be dying in any war! Only the ones whose children are safe from being sent to war want the war! It has always been this way. Most of us desire to live our lives in peace, to love our families, to stay out of trouble, and — a few inevitable everyday grudges aside — to get along. The blood-thirsty profiteers of war typically have to resort to tremendously sophisticated trickery and “people squeezing” in order to drag regular people into their dirty wars. The profiteers know how to do it, though. They are expert liars and squeezers of ordinary people. History is proof that they have been quite successful at creating massive suffering, and then some more massive suffering — and then some more. Shame on them. A million times, in a million heartfelt voices, shame on them. Here is a short and greatly oversimplified rendition of the story of the Christmas Truce. Even an oversimplified rendition makes the philosophical point.
We Are Allowed to Have “Special Loves”
Let us talk about the cancel culture for a second. One of the major attributes of the cancel culture is that everyone is supposed to toe the line. Everyone is expected to have the same preferences, the same concerns — and to dance to the same drum. But we, human beings, are all different! We come from our unique and respectable ancestries, we learn different stories growing up — and besides, our souls all have “custom” missions here on Earth that require us to have “custom” loves! Only a tyrant enjoys a world where everyone agrees with him on everything and feels only what he allows them to feel. Personally, I don't get “triggered” one bit (what a word!) when people speak from a place of a special affection for their — not mine, their — “tribe.” Why wouldn't people have affectionate feelings for their ancestry? I have affection for mine, so why wouldn't they? It is healthy and natural to feel affection toward one's ancestry and to honor it with love — as long as one's love for their own doesn't turn into cruelty and abuse of the people on the outside. When that happens, when the people go along with the temptation to forego their conscience, we can say that the tricksters who wanted to “guide” the people toward narrow-mindedness and the betrayal of their innate spiritual depth have succeeded for the time being, and the seed of suffering began to germinate. Unfortunately, by the law of physics, the result will follow.
Love for One's People Is Not the Same as Cheering for Wars orGenocides
It is tragic when that happens but we know that it happens quite a bit. When conniving, power-hungry manipulators transform the natural love and respect that the people have for their “blood family” into a drive for unfair and cruel behavior toward others, the seed of suffering does begin to germinate. How do the tricksters do it? They use the existing imbalances and the suffering of the ordinary people — often created by the likes of them — to weaponize the people against the innocents. This is the psychological dynamic that makes unjust, devastating, large- scale wars possible. People get so overtaken and blinded by their own suffering that they agree to betray their souls and their own long-term best interests in exchange for the promise of pain relief. I consider such manipulation to be an act of sophisticated spiritual warfare. Using various lies, the dominators trick goodhearted people into becoming traitors. When good people do dark things, it weakens their own spiritual protections, walks them over to the dark side, and — as if to illustrate the balance of Yin and Yang — it places them at the start of a long journey, in the course of which they will have to go through new trials and tribulations in order to swim out of darkness and back to light. In the end, there is always light, and by the time the journey is completed, the souls grow and glow — but the journey out of the darkness and toward the light can be long and trying, and so the tricksters really don't do the people whom they weaponize against the innocent any big favors — no matter how advantageous it may look in the short term. This chicanery has happened so many times in history, to so many people, on so many occasions! One would think that we would collectively know to see through this trick by now — but no. We still happily fall for it.
When You Love Someone, You Want Them to Heal, Not to HurtForever
Politicians have deep pockets, and their pockets are full of not just bribe money but also wicked tricks. One of the tricks they like to play is making the people obsess with their trauma and pain — and milk that trauma and pain for their, politicians' gain. Wokism is one example but it is just one of many, and this pattern keeps playing out again and again. Let us use an exaggerated metaphor. Imagine, you are a parent of a sweet child, the child gets abused by a criminal and develops PTSD. Imagine that as long as your child has PTSD, you get paid. As a parent, would you rather your child leave the dreadful memory behind and completely heal — or stay traumatized for as long as possible so that you receive the aid? I believe the answer is obvious. Only a parent who is a total mess — and I mean a total mess — would desire for the child's trauma to linger for a long time. But if somebody — an external party, a manipulator — has no heart and no desire to care for the child, they would make sure to keep the child in a traumatized state. And get paid. For that reason, in my own life, I don't trust any political entities milking pain. People' trauma may be real, and solutions for healing may be necessary — but if anyone is trying to use the existing pain to create divisions, animosities, and new pain — I don't listen to them.
Weaponizing “Rational” Ideas
As I recently wrote : “As a general rule, I don't put a lot of weight on people's ideas. It has been my entire life's experience that ideas are the tail that wags the dog. They are just self-directed marketing brochures that the brain reads out loud to us as it works to justify our right to act on our emotional desires. We, human beings, tend to use all sorts of ideas to “validate” our emotional desires — and so we act on our love, our courage, our jealousy, anger, insecurity, etc. — and then tell ourselves fairy tales about why we did that. If history is any evidence, it seems clear that both acts of outwardly beauty and bloody atrocities have been committed — again and again — in the name of every religion and every ism! An important caveat is that our brain's self-directed adverting brochures are often composed by various tricksters who “slip” those ideas into the people's heads and then convince them that the ideas are their own. It works like metaphorical sorcery. Alongside the ideas, the tricksters often slip “ideas adoption incentives” (economic, psychological, social, and otherwise). The “advertising” effort is usually made in combination with the effort to disconnect the people from their souls by exposing them to violence, humiliation, fear, lies, distraction, etc. — which sometimes leads the people to lose faith in the sanctity of their own sovereign souls and become perpetually sad — or go toward another extreme, get arrogant, and commit acts of cowardice and betrayal. Once s person commits an act of cowardice or betrayal, for example, his intellectual mind may be in denial of his act of cowardice but his soul knows — and so his “helpful” brain would double down on defending the fairy tale that “validates” the questionable act. And that is how a human being starts on a philosophical journey of separation, the destination of which is always remembering and reuniting with the soul.”
It Is Possible to Disagree on Things and Still Respect EachOther's Souls
Personally, when it comes to discussing opinions — political or otherwise — I separate between the “factual correctness of their narrative” and the intention or tone of the debate. It is fairly easy to talk to the people whose “information” is in my opinion incorrect but whose hearts are in the right place. If they are willing to accept me and respect as a fellow human being even though I may have a reading of the world that is different from theirs, they are acting in a mature fashion, and I certainly feel the same way about them. On the other hand, when the other person acts like a hungry ghost and cannot be at peace unless he establishes a “victory,” if his sole intention to be “right,” I don't invest too much effort into that debate. It is noble to try and there is always a chance of a miracle but at the end of the day, people think what they want to think — and they are entitled to that. At the end of the day, the only person we can legitimately control is ourselves. There is a lot of trauma in this world, a lot of dogma, and a lot of people who are not themselves . This is a spiritual condition, being dogmatic is a sign of being starved : “When good people cling to “ideas” militantly and get triggered by the fact that your reading of the world is different from their reading of the world, it's because their connection to their own soul is weak, and they are under a significant infiuence by a “handler” ghost. When they feel an impulse to convert you to their faith against your will, or to humiliate you and then do a little dance on top of their mental hill, it's not them running the show, it's their handler ghost.”
Conclusion
We are living history, and in every challenging situation, there is a lesson and opportunity for growth. Learning how to remain even-headed and grounded in spiritual honesty under pressure is a very valuable skill. Once we learn it, we can use it to our own advantage and to move the world a little closer to healing. Nothing we go through gets wasted. Everything is an adventure for our soul. Each of us is a miracle, we are tiny dots filed with infinite love and courage, moving along the mysterious trajectory of human history that spans hundreds of thousands of years. And no matter how dificult our journey may be, how many painful or regrettable things we go through, how twisted the route, the destination is always healing, and the point is always love. There is no other point in this mess besides remembering the love.
About the Author
Read the full article at the original website
References:
- https://tessa.substack.com/about
- https://takecontrol.substack.com/p/all-wars-are-bankers-wars
- https://tessa.substack.com/p/wokism
- https://tessa.substack.com/p/dominators-a-bumpy-road-to-love
- https://tessa.substack.com/p/swimming-with-zombies-how-to-protect
- https://tessa.substack.com/p/swimming-with-zombies-how-to-protect
- https://tessa.substack.com/p/dominators-a-bumpy-road-to-love
- https://tessa.substack.com/about
