by Donald Croft Brickner
Per the Growing Importance of a Tenable Global World View — a Recommended Ontological Backdrop to the Essay that Follows:
Ours is not a primary reality. Everything in our cosmos is a construct of an invisible-to-the-naked-eye building-blocks foundational reality — whose operating rules are not only consistently different from those of our three-dimensional (and time enhanced) physical reality, but are blocked from interacting with it on any direct cause-and-effect level. This is not speculation. It’s an unavoidable empirical conclusion based upon repeatable studies in quantum physics. Yet to be scientifically demonstrated, on the other hand (…but, yes, a pretty solid bet, nevertheless!, are the in-and-out supply of similarly-"invisible" Individual Consciousnesses, whose existences both precede and survive our physical lives. Thus, it only follows: both our demanding-by-design, artificial reality and our physical bodies are illusory representations in what’s necessarily an illusory physical universe — one of Intelligent Design. Quality Anecdotal Evidence (QAE) further indicates that it’s a loving universe at the foundational level, random only by appearance — and one that was Created by a Being(s) who has opted never to interfere immediately in our year-in-and-year-out affairs. It does appear, however, that a pronouncedly rare, unique influx of renewed "Godly" energy "Interference" is underway as you’re reading this — and its strictly energy-enhanced impact is solely Big Picture-oriented, seemingly lacks any apparent Motive, and is highly cumulative — and as such is thus perceived by our consensus as natural and not of or related to a Divine Act — which in its way is kind of funny. It may additionally be suggested here that we are "born" into this reality with the primary and inviolate broad-strokes intentions of (a) Experiencing, and (b) Expressing via our Individual Consciousnesses. Such evocations are mandatory, and they are often difficult. A third major goal, to mature and evolve spiritually (i.e., beyond our known and highly limited senses) and emotionally, is a Choice — one depending all-but solely on the circumstances and desires of most incarnated participants. However — when a participant’s difficulties, based at times on survival needs, are invoked (usually emotionally), "Unseen Support" may step into this divine and purposeful Fray to lend a brief helping hand. As well — among such "loving non-physical entities (Unseen Support)," Courage and Constructive Wherewithal also are highly regarded. Thus this Support may assist any individual’s incarnation during what are compelling, artificial, and stressed temporarycircumstances. When we "die," we return to our Primary Reality "Home" — and commonly prepare to reincarnate anew. This physical reality is a "school," then — but it’s also much more. What we Experience here expands our Spirits. ~DCB
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Okay: so the dreaded (or embraced) End-of-Everything year — 2012 (brrr — shudder) has arrived. Ally-ally-in-free: we’re gettin’ taken out by the (O’m’god!!) Mayan Calendar. Or Nostradamus. One of them.
Or, maybe by some inhumane (get it?) band of A-li-en In-va-ders!! (Yaah!!!) We’re overmatched, regardless.
If it’s God, who’s finally had a snootful of His out-of-control Earthly Creations, well, we’re toast. One smash of His Mighty Hand, and we’re nothing but crumbled croutons.
Actually, I believe in God. Only He/She/It/They doesn’t pitch snits, or smash things.
It’s all going to end up okay. It’s just so simple: You gotta believe.
* * * * *
Yes, there are going to be some bumps — there already are a few, lying in wait just to spring: like EuroCrash or harsh Climate Changes, just to name two — but after the initial shock-and-awes, it simply isn’t going to be that bad. (Money will surely be lost, as well as habitats; and, who knows, maybe computers may crash globally.)
But the fuss we’ll make as the year unfolds will be a lot more loud and threatening, for real, than the big bumps themselves — deadly damages due to ever-stronger-and-sudden storms, and gigantic bankruptcies notwithstanding. We’ll likely be at each other’s throats looking for finger-pointing revenge (where no revenge is apt — see, Hubris).
Ultimately, though, the year is mostly going to be about change.
Big Change.
And that, after all is said and done, will be the initiating cage-rattler.
* * * * *
Undeniably, there’s something big going on here, this year. We’ll begin to see some major choices that we’ll need to make, just over the horizon. The nearer to topsy-turvy we get, the more obvious will be those choices.
In the months to follow, it will be a big help to learn figuratively (and at times literally) to be light on one’s feet — as changes in 2012, both major and minor, will continue to capture the world’s and nation’s headlines, and flood over into the brighter years that will emerge in their aftermath, further changing just about everything.
* * * * *
I’ve made a very big deal over initiating tenable changes in the consensus World Views we hold as individuals, and nations. Sure, we can’t know the answers to everything, and we still don’t. I still don’t — and that’s my life’s primary arena of investigation. What I’ve provided, at the beginning of this essay, is a statement that, if not precisely true, is tenable and consistent, A-to-Z — and that includes its capacity to effectively explain/deal with any anomalies that may invalidate aspects of other existing long-term belief systems.
For our disparate belief systems are presently not only killing us, they’re continuously pushing us futher apart — and that can’t help but sabotage our recovery. Here’s a piece of logic I’ve clung to ever since my South Florida early childhood:
At best, only one existing religious, spiritual or secular belief system (regarding who we are and how the universe works) can possibly be correct, while all of the others are necessarily incorrect — and thus, in all likelihood, then, any opted-for final decisions that are made on the matter and claim 100 percent certainty are not only premature, but just plain wrong — and on all kinds of levels.
The odds that one’s pre-fab beliefs are actually 100 percent correct is beyond infinitesimal. We still don’t know squat about our origins.
Yet that doesn’t prevent everyone and their grandmothers from deciding on uncompromisingly final, end-of-topic determinations.
It’s, I’m right, you’re wrong, and never the ‘twain shall meet.
That’s hubris.
Not good.
* * * * *
If what I’ve just suggested sounds scary, that’s not my intention. In fact, none of what’s going down now bothers me a great deal. Like so many of my (silent) countrymen, I already have very little to lose.
What’s exciting is what will be possible, maybe even likely, after our preposterously materialistic societies all Hit Bottom — for that’s what’s really taking place. Think along the lines of the First Step in A.A.’s 12 Step Program: We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable. What seems to be the end of one terrible thing after another is really a brand new beginning in disguise, a gapingly-wide-open True Beginning.
And throughout that new Beginning, there will be effective ways to ameliorate the brunt of our personal difficulties.
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What follows next are some recommendations to help guide one’s way through the Fray. They’re mostly based on my experiences and actions I’ve had to invoke these last four-plus years, just to survive here in America, where a large number of folks are afraid, in denial and often just not very nice.
Being as pleasant as possible now is my first such suggestion. If everyone’s pretty-well bummed out (and they will be), why add your own way-grumpy reactions to this, that or whatever into the building din?
Pretend each person you talk to this year is really Hannibal Lecter. You already know how the fictional Dr. Lecter chronically reacts to rudeness and disrespect, don’t you? Yes, Virginia, he’ll eat you.
You don’t want Hannibal Lecter to eat you.
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Keep informed daily: one major curiosity for me is how uncurious U.S.-based network news outlets appear to be in their overseas coverage of events — particular for Euro Zone economic updates — that could all-but immediately affect the lives of most Americans.
I suspect we’ve been living in a country (maybe the only one in the world) where, from a stock market perspective, there’s a great deal of unspoken pressure from Big Money influenciers for us to keep mum about possible (read that, probable) events and activities that could paint the market and its leaders in, you know, a cruddy light.
Quick: how many "bears" are still working at CNBC? Not too many.
And that’s pretty much true across this country. The implication is that if the televised American majority "acts" like bull-marketers, the stock markets will remain solid and stable — consumers, or no consumers, who purportedly drive 70 percent of the real economy.
I.e., both all consumers at home, and nations overseas, who "buy."
Only now free marketers (it’s difficult to solidify the word, "market," isn’t it?; which type of market, "free" or "stock," is being discussed on any given news telecast?) … our free marketers appear to be doing everything they can to keep profits poring in somehow, with or without consumers.
Can free marketers do that: ignore the consumer? Well: can they?
No. They cannot. Seriously. The Detmer Curve has just passed its own fail-safe point: https://www.groundreport.com/Opinion/Profits-in-Collapse-the-Detmer-Curve/2863703
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So — about the only place one can actually keep up with pending disasters overseas — specifically, the still-unresolved issues for the increasingly-threatened Euro — is to watch the following half-hour newscasts on your local PBS/Public Television station: NHK World Newsline (Japan); DW-TV Journal (Germany), and, of course, week-nightly live BBC World News.
The best of these channels for keeping track of daily Euro doings, in my opinion, is Germany’s DW-TV Journal which, despite its hard core support of global capitalistic markets (especially theirs), rarely blunts the truth about up-to-the-moment developments, good or bad. They (unlike us) seem to want to know ahead of time whether their European mainland currency system (England has effectively dropped out of the Euro Zone) is about to crash and burn … or not.
The BBC also does solid reporting in this regard, while Japan’s news has got to be seen regularly to be appreciated: it’s unique.
The German and Japanese daily news shows (Japan’s NHK World Newsline often reports in depth about China’s economic woes, which they actually have) tend to run back-to-back in the mid-to-late afternoons here in the U.S. Midwest, while BBC World News commonly runs across from the late local news.
I can’t encourage Americans enough to keep up-to-date with these foreign-based stations’ broadcasts, because American TV news outlets are all-but exclusively U.S. focused, and are economically undependable. And given that if-and-when the Euro does collapse — likely prior to our presidential elections in the Fall — we’ll all get an advance look at how their populations deal with this gigantic tidal wave, which will immediately cross the Atlantic and douse us.
Europe’s fallen, however, could realistically fare better than most people expect.
Greece appears primed to be the first in the Euro Zone to opt to withdraw, rather then struggle with European capitalistic neuroses.
For the American who, like it or lump it, is about to stumble and fall headlong into his or her long-overdue "Great double-recession" — recession, ha!; can anyone call it by its real name? — staying informed is not just an option for lessening the impact here, it’s got to be viewed as a locked-in requirement.
* * * * *
Finally, for now, this:
Don’t be "proud" about not seeking out local, state and national assistance to help you and your family through this situation once the economic collapse is underway here — no matter how limited it might appear to affect you: This has been a hard, lifelong lesson for me to learn. During various financial crises over the years, I’ve allowed my guilt for crossing into "inadequately poor" (read that, destitution) to prompt me to drag my feet before taking much-needed, serious corrective actions. The cavalry has never come charging over the hill to save me. Plenty of individuals have, but I’ve learned that’s not their job to do. That’s why America has so many social agencies. Learn the lay of the land, agencies-wise, in your area.
And, please — use them. That’s why they’re there.
Dump the pride and the guilt. Food stamps (you’ll need an EBT card) and even various local free food sources are there to help.
* * * * *
You’re in the midst of not only a change in your financial status, but you’re entering into The Humility Zone, which is actually a terrific place to be.
Keep your chin up. And be grateful. These strangers are doing God’s work — and you’re the deserving recipient of that work.
You just won’t believe how many Americans out there really care.
Smile. Or, tear-up. Whatever. It’s all part and parcel of Big Change.
* * * * *
I hesitate to go into very much further detail about the what-could-likely-be’s for the balance of 2012. Not all of it is as yet that clear to me, anyway — and I’m at my best when I stick to Big Picture overviews rather than specific events, which consistently surprise even me, as one who’s bent on striving to anticipate all of it. Only I simply can’t do that.
Early last season, big-time MLB baseball fan that I am, I picked the Boston Red Sox to win 112 games — and to take the World Series.
That’s an outrageous win total, by the way. Even 100 would be.
Instead, they finished third in their division, and didn’t even make the bleeping playoffs.
I’m learning my unlimited limits.
* * * * *
I’ve also busted a lot of chops over the years — six years total now, writing these ontology-driven editorials — and I defend having done that because the topics were consistently those that evaded public discussion.
Never one happy with being patronizingly patted on the head (and sent on my way), I had finally decided that I would just try to speak the bigger truths as I saw them — and yet even I’ve been surprised with my now-pretty-nifty track record for being correct with Big Picture appraisals — my having stepped on countless toes in the process, notwithstanding. How does one get people to respond when they seem bent on doing anything but?
I remain committed to this work, regardless — whether I get paid or not, whether my isolated lifestyle improves or not. This is what I do.
It’s become who I am. I’m at peace with that.
Yes, and, this: it’s mostly been fun.
Life is, and should be, an adventure.
And what a lively adventure awaits us all now in 2012 — and in all of the years that will follow.
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