“The real hopeless victims of mental illness are to be found among those who appear to be most normal. Many of them are normal because they are so well adjusted to the world around them, because their human voice and mind has been silenced so early in their lives, that they do not even struggle or suffer or develop symptoms as the neurotic does. They are normal not in what may be called the absolute sense of the word; they are normal only in relation to a profoundly abnormal society. Their perfect adjustment to that abnormal society is a measure of their mental sickness. These millions of abnormally normal people, living without fuss in a society to which, if they were fully human beings, they ought not to be adjusted”
Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
What does it mean to live a normal life? In today’s world, it means to be brainwashed at a very young age for over a decade by what we call education, to then work as a wage slave and compete with others for almost the rest of your life so as to merely be able to pay bills and survive, to consume products without end because manipulative advertising convinced you to while you unconsciously damage the life support systems that sustain you, to slowly poison your body with disease causing foods, to obey the rules and blindly follow corrupt authorities, to be passive and uncreative, suppressing yourself in countless ways, living in suffering yet doing nearly nothing to deal with it other than distract yourself with mindless entertainment and consumption.
We consider this normal and even healthy because we’ve been programmed to do so, but if you stop and think about it, it’s clearly not normal and healthy at all.
Yet those of us who are better adjusted to live this way are actually rewarded and considered successful, whilst those who choose an alternative path are ridiculed and considered weird and crazy because they don’t follow the herd.
Of course we need to be part of society and work to earn a living and put food on the table. But the worrying trend is how acquiescing to this dystopian Matrix world is causing us to become almost inhuman without us even realising it.
So below are 8 keys that I think you can use to see how plugged in you are to the dystopian Matrix we are living in, and how you can start to unplug yourself and reclaim your soul!
8 Keys to unplug yourself from the Matrix
1.You have more digital than real world interactions.
Constantly looking at screens and being online, choosing self checkout in shops, playing video games and emailing and texting as forms of communication are examples of leading a digital life. There is nothing wrong with doing this but the more we do it, the more we are connected to the Matrix and disconnected from reality and ourselves.
Real world interactions are face to face with people, animals, nature and your own creativity. Acknowledge others and smile and say hi, listen and watch the birds, look at the night sky, create something whether it’s cooking, writing or artwork or take a walk in nature.
2.You give your power away to authorities and celebrities.
It is assumed that the government, royalty, celebrities and the like are somehow ‘better’ than everyone else and have the right to tell you what to think and do. But the track record of many of these authorities show that integrity is not high on their list of traits.
The only person that has any power over you, is yourself. Maybe it’s okay for everyone to find their own way in this life and listen to their intuition, since there don’t appear to be many trustworthy sources on the matter. It’s hard to know what is the truth and what is deception. So inform yourself, follow your truth, take responsibility for yourself and reject authority, trust yourself.
3.You are always in a state of being busy.
Having a purpose and goals and working hard towards them is essential for a fulfilled life. Working to earn some money is also essential to survive. However, our minds have been corrupted and brainwashed by the indoctrination we’ve had telling us we just need to ‘work harder’. Western culture glorifies being busy all the time. This can take over our mind and make us feel guilty whenever we are relaxing. But this ‘fight or flight’ state leads to burnout at some point.
Try balancing doing with just being, just relaxing with no immediate goal to accomplish. Being taps into your intuition and imagination. Being allows your subconscious mind to work for you. Being taps into your innate creativity to form your own thoughts about yourself and the world. This leads to self awareness and knowledge of what you really want.
It also allows you to be mindful of what you are doing in the present moment to enjoy life for what it is. For example, not shovelling food down you as quickly as you can. Rather, you eat more slowly and savour the taste – that is being mindful and is a much healthier, happier and even productive state to be in.
4.You easily fall for divide and conquer strategies.
All polarised labels like political left and right (both as corrupt as one another and are serving their banker and corporate overlords, not you) black and white, man and woman etc are all deliberately used to divide us. While we are busy fighting and arguing with others over the meaningless labels, the divider conquers all of us.
Let go of the idea of labels and judgement. We don’t look at things how they are, we look at things how WE are. Being open minded and listening to opposing views in an attempt to understand them is one of the most mature traits you can have. When there is a ‘mainstream’ promoted debate with two opposing views, ask yourself why are they promoting this as something we should debate about? What are the objective facts and who benefits from the resulting division? Is there any objective balance to this debate or just two extremes?
5.You are chasing money and a job title.
Money is created as debt out of thin air. The interest you pay on a mortgage or credit card doesn’t exist. The bank creates it and makes you work your life away to pay it back to them. An economic system based on fraud and infinite growth on a finite planet is immoral and doomed to collapse.
As long as you have your basic needs covered, research has continually shown that chasing money and things doesn’t increase happiness and can actually have the opposite effect. Avoid credit card debt unless it’s to put food on the table or provide shelter. Choose experiences that are free such as those listed above in real world interactions as your source of happiness.
6.You rely on doctors and pharmaceuticals for your health.
Doctors are becoming sales reps for the pharmaceutical industry. Whenever we have a problem we are usually told to take a pill or drug to treat it. There is no profit in making people healthy. It’s become sick care rather than sickness prevention. The treatment is always a pharmaceutical one, not a natural one.
By all means, listen and be informed about what qualified people give advice to you. But just because they are a doctor does not make them God. The only person who is God for your health, is you. So take care to eat well and live a healthy lifestyle.
7.You rely on mainstream and social media to inform yourself.
“He who dictates and formulates the words and phrases we use, he who is master of the press and radio, is master of the mind.” Joost Meerloo
Never before have such effective means existed to manipulate and control people’s minds. Phones, tv, internet, social media and algorithms to censor unwanted information. People willingly subject themselves to propaganda and made up political theatre because it’s addictive. But this makes them take for granted the world they are looking at – no time for reflection, no critical thinking, no questioning, no informing yourself.
Much of what we see in the media has an agenda and glorifies the wrong things. It’s applied psychology designed to control your mind without you even realising it. By all means, read books, independent peer reviewed science and inform yourself from primary sources, but be very careful what information you allow your mind to consume.
8.You consume more than you create.
Every human has the innate desire to create and add to the world. Every human must also consume. Consumption is necessary for survival from food to cleaning products. However, since the Industrial Revolution our minds have been captured by manipulative advertising training us to consume more than create to ‘keep the economy going’. And we buy into this lie.
Many people today consume things they don’t need – but you cannot get enough of what you don’t need. So you just keep consuming more to fill the void you feel. But for most of us, this void is a creative void. We don’t need to consume more, we need to create more. Cooking, painting, writing, building, growing, whatever it is there are many hidden creative talents hiding in us all.
Mature wisdom is being open to question your beliefs
It’s funny how of all the many desires people have, the desire for their own minds to really be their own and be purged of false beliefs barely features. Some want for themselves, some want for others, but hardly anyone even considers the possibility that the mind which forms those wants could be deluded.
But taking action on the above pointers will help to reclaim your own mind and soul. You always have a choice to accept reality for what it is and adapt accordingly.