I watched a documentary this week called Stupidity made by filmmaker Albert Nerenberg.

Nerenberg examines the concept of stupidity from several angles: media and spin, interviews with average people on the street, and interviews with academics and thinkers, including an interesting professor named Avital Ronewell, and the extraordinary Noam Chomsky. The film deals with the history of the concept, the IQ test, and hierarchies like Idiot>Imbecile… and so on. One thing evident right off in the interviews is that it’s easy to make people look stupid if that’s your intention, if that is your lens. Each of us has blind spots, or forgets things, or stutters on camera; it happens all the time. It also doesn’t prove a thing. It doesn’t even remotely indicate IQ.

Ultimately, I feel that examining this human phenomenon has two possible aspects: one helpful, the other not. The helpful way of examining it is to look at popular culture and the general dumbing down of our society via entertainment and what is commonly called “journalism”, and how this allows exploitation, deception, corruption and profiteering by corporations and the politicians who serve them. Basically, an examination of stupidity in our culture: the how’s, why’s, and a few examples to help us recognize it.
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Do you think dreams can teach you something about your life, stuff you need to learn? Can they offer clues to the psyche: hidden fears or beliefs, or help you with crucial decisions? Or are they just scattered bits you took in throughout the day: input, stimuli and thoughts you might not even have noticed as they happened?

The confusing part, I think, is that they are both. Sometimes the details are just random. Sometimes they contain deep meaning, clues to our desires, anxieties, choices. I think these clues come more readily because we have to submit to sleep; the controlling part of us is disengaged. Other times, in my opinion, dreams offer proof that we can sometimes see the future.

One night a few years ago, I dreamt I was at a rock concert. Odd that it wasn’t a Prince concert or a Robben Ford concert, as that’s where I would more likely be, but I was at the show of a loud, heavy, aggressive rock band. At some point during the show, just before I woke up, the band brought out this huge, frightening, thirty-foot tall animatronic creature onto the stage. It was a monster: its legs so long I could barely see the torso or head. It had that strange, frightening un-reality, the oversized proportions you only see in movies and in you dream world. It was very tall.

I woke up.

The next day, a highly gifted music student named Bret gave me a CD by a band I had never heard before called Evanescence. This was 2003 or so, and I hadn’t yet heard of them. I put the CD in, and was listening to it at one point during my hour and ten minute long, rural, forested commute back to the Berkshires. About halfway home I turned a corner with the music up loud, and what did I find?

A moose. First time in my life. A giant buck sporting a full rack of antlers, and legs so tall that from my Volvo wagon I could barely see his head.
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Do you know what you are?
You are what you is.

-Frank Zappa “You Are What You Is”

I grew up in the Berkshires, home of the world famous Kripalu Yoga Center. A popular idea at Kripalu, one you can find on a bumper sticker for sale in their gift shop, reads like this: Life is not about discovering yourself, life is about creating yourself.

But do you think that’s true? I like the idea, but on the other hand, I think we do have a fundamental character and the more we live and experience, the more life brings it out. Joseph Campbell, the world famous professor of mythology and religion, said our life evokes our character. I’ve come to agree.

How fascinating if we were all just streaming protoplasm, shapeshifting at will. But I don’t know. I think each of us has a recognizable quality, and life is a process of discovering it, honing and refining it. I’m not suggesting this means we’re locked in to any one outcome, or that one could predict with certainty how we will behave in any given situation. Part of the deliciousness of life on this material plane is choice. We can play many roles in one lifetime. We can change ourselves. But even then we’re rerouting: choosing a new aspect which lay dormant, like a genetic predisposition of the soul.

Beneath it all, I wonder if there is a character, a basic makeup. Let’s imagine you built a company up from nothing, and within five years it was worth three hundred million dollars. Then let’s imagine it all came crashing down; within a month you were in the red. It was over. You were virtually homeless. So let’s imagine you started out again at the beginning, and you built the whole thing up from the ashes. You built it stronger this time, because you had learned from your mistakes. Now many would say that experience was character building, and I absolutely agree that it is, but I would also say experience would be character revealing.
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Most of my heroes don’t appear on no stamp.

Chuck D
Fight The Power by Public Enemy

I invite my readers to read a short story called Sleepers. It’s a sweet little piece about two young twenty somethings who hide out in their apartment as if from an apocalypse, burn candles, eat yogurt, and talk late into the night. Enjoy!

Tristan L. Sullivan

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“I’ve kicked the habit…
Shed my skin”

Peter Gabriel
“Sledgehammer”

I came home last night after looking at a new house and meeting some potential roommates, and what did I find in my studio? A snake! A tiny garter, pencil thin.

For some reason, I knew instantly this was a sign. I was hypnotized by its sinuous, serpentine motion as it snaked across the floor.

If this was an omen, what did it mean? Was I about to be tempted? I spent some time last night and this morning studying the significance of the serpent as symbol or archetype. There were two interpretations spoke to me the most. Well, a third possibility is the return of my ex-girlfriend Natalie, a dangerous beauty who’s spirit animal is definitely the serpent.

But that’s another story… . So, two meanings, from this symbol:

One, I had just the day before been reading about awakening Kundalini at KL Masina’s be Conscious now weblog, so I was fascinated to find out this morning that the snake is associated with the stirring of Kundalini energy. Not surprising that it showed up, as this is how life tends to unfold.

Two, I had just been looking at a house and potential roommates. So that brings us to another association with the snake: change. The snake sheds its skin. It changes, and steps into a new life.

I eventually brought Snake outside and set him free in the beautiful wild woods of the Berkshires, but I regard this as an auspicious omen. A good sign.

Tristan L. Sullivan

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I read a quote recently that said you are finally a grownup when you can laugh at yourself. Whether or not that’s true (I think it’s children who are good at this, and adults need to relearn it), this is a beautiful quality. It lightens things up and lets us reach a higher place.

Last week I was in my studio practicing, and for some reason I was in a mood where everything seemed funny.

Right at the height of it, this girl called from a credit card company. We chatted back and forth a bit, and I liked her accent so I asked her where she was from. She said Guatemala, and I said, “oh, cool.” in an awkward, clueless way. For some reason, this immediately struck us both as so funny we could barely finish the call. We were both pushing down the urge to burst out laughing, which of course made it more outrageously funny. I can’t say why this happened, except that it was just in the air.

I think I brightened her day a little, and made an actual connection with a human being. It felt good.

Tristan L. Sullivan

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Driving home late Wednesday night, I heard on the BBC World Service a high ranking executive from the US auto industry speaking on C02 emissions. In defense of his company’s automobile’s carbon footprint, he pointed out that there has been a massive increase in population since the year 1970, and reminded us that humans exhale carbon dioxide.

Now, let’s be clear; this man was not on the radio to educate us about the earth’s population, or to advocate birth control. He was implying, of course, that since humans breathe out C02 and since our numbers have greatly increased, we can hardly criticize his company’s automobiles for doing the same.

What pitiful logic. A freshman in high school could see through it. It reminds me of a comment I saw a dentist make a year or so ago, on a live call in show on local television. The dentist was asserting that the heavy metal toxicity inherent in silver fillings is neglibible. If you eat seafood, he stated, which contains heavy metals (due to toxic waste dumping, though he didn’t mention that), you might as well not worry about the mercury in a silver filling.

Another logical trap! One he clearly failed to think through.

At first he got it by me; it almost made sense. But then I realized, hold on, if you eat seafood, then that’s all the more reason not to get a silver filling.

This man’s logic was akin to a doctor telling you that if you work at a toll booth all day breathing auto emissions, you might as well have a cigarette when you get off work.

Pretty weak.

I saw a television ad recently that I believe was from the Reagan era, in which they tried get over an even worse kind of thinking. Humans breathe out carbon dioxide, the narrator pointed out, and plants need it to live. Thus, they implied, there was no need for tougher regulations to curb industrial C02 emissions. Industry was in fact helping the planet thrive!

Deliberate obfuscation, greed, and an inability to face up to the facts may work for a while, but people are catching on. I believe there is a worldwide movement toward consciousness, compassion, and sanity. The dinosaurs of a bygone era may still have some momentum, but their days are numbered.

Tristan L. Sullivan

To my loyal fans: please note that my first video release is just around the corner. I will probably post it tomorrow, or even later today. Stay tuned!

Highest praise to KL Masina, who brings us Be Conscious Now’s Carnival of Truth #2