Gabriel Mohr

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The Nature of Corruption

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Quick Facts

-An act is corrupt if it is purely selfish and detrimental to wellbeing at the same time!

-We can notice any corruption within ourselves, disidentify from it, and thereby take away its power!

-We can notice the nature of corruption in other people, and we can avoid them, help set them on the right path, or both.

Intro

Humans can become corrupt, even if we start out with the best of intentions! But why? And if we become corrupt, how can we reverse it and become pure again? Is it even possible?

Understanding how we become corrupt is definitely part of the prevention, and can even be part of the cure. And, if we can prevent ourselves from becoming corrupt (even in the face of total corruption) and/or become pure while being corrupt, our wellbeing and consciousness will skyrocket through the roof! So, let’s get started.

Corruption Compared With Purity

On the metaphysical level, an act is only considered corrupt if it meets two criteria at the same time:

  1. It is done out of self-interest.
  2. It is destructive to other living things.

If an act is destructive but done out of genuine concern for others, then it isn’t corrupt. However, if a boss yells at their employee else because they want them to obey, the act is corrupt; it is done out of self-interest, and it is destructive to their mental wellbeing.

Candy bar companies, manufactured food in general. Every time we buy a candy bar a portion of the proceeds goes to the big man, and since the candy bar is harmful to our bodies the company is considered corrupt. 

On an abstract level, companies who sell products that are bad for our minds (such as fake guru courses and classes), advertisers who market detrimental products, etc are still corrupt since their product isn’t good for our mental health.

Purity, on the other hand, isn’t necessarily the absence of selfish intentions and actions – if we take selfishness all the way we’ll soon discover that the wellbeing of others indirectly translates into wellbeing for ourselves! No, a pure act can be explained as an act that is regenerative to life and wellbeing! This is why love is considered to be pure, an act made from love is an act that’s regenerative on one or more levels.

Ironically, purity and corruption can intermingle into the same action. For example, a genuine act of love can be someone baking cookies for you; the act is regenerative on the metaphysical level, but degenerative on the physical level. Or, having the intention to love our partner but treating them with anger instead.

There are some people who genuinely don’t care if they’re corrupt, and in some cases, they attempt to be corrupt. Ultimately, if we have a desire to be corrupt it’s best to have healthy outlets for what would otherwise be detrimental actions, and having as much purity within our being as possible is one of the best ways to live a healthy and fulfilled life.

Reasons People Become and Stay Corrupt 

Okay, some people become and stay corrupt over a long period of time. Why is this?

One of the main reasons is because they have a strong sense of survival, but little to nothing else (morality, good values, high IQ/EQ, quality influence in their lives, etc). The ID in some individuals is over-developed while everything else is under-developed, so they don’t mind screwing other people over – literally! It’s not even on their mind, they don’t know and/or care that they’re doing it!

Some (I’d even say most) people start out as pure people and, gradually, become traumatized and poorly influenced over time. Some of us, though, are so traumatized, manipulated, and warped by the wrong people that they become corrupt – permanently. There’s little hope for these kinds of people because, unfortunately, corruption is all they know, and it’s all they care to know (when presented with better options).

Some of us consciously choose to do corrupt things for one reason or another. Living a pure life can be very difficult in a world of traumatized and corrupt people, and the temptation to fall to the dark side is great. In fact, it’s so great that many people do, even though they have the best of intentions.

And, some of us have always been genuinely scared from the beginning. Many women are like this, I see many many young women who are already anxious and already afraid of the world before they even experience their teenage years, and it saddens me to the core. However, if we feel scared and threatened we’ll often perform corrupt acts, especially if we grow up/live without a positive value/belief system, or any intention to inform ourselves once we know better. 

I feel it’s important to create this list since many of us, even if we are not corrupt by nature, have some corruption within us. Noticing it’s there and knowing how it got there is extremely helpful in healthily integrating our corrupt desires into our lives, and ultimately, disidentifying from the need to hold on to these desires.

The Ramifications of Corruption

Corrupt actions often have ramifications, but I don’t think the full impact of these actions hits us very often.

For example, let’s say we buy a bag of ordinary chips at the grocery store. Chips are pretty terrible for us since they’re processed, fried in oil, and covered with all kinds of salt. We eat them and they’re harmful to our bodies (especially our gut) and they’re in plastic bags. So, every time we buy a bag of chips we’re silently telling our grocery store(s) and chip companies that we love tasty-but-degenerative food wrapped in a substance that can only be made by harming the earth.

Does it sound like I’m going too far? I would be… If only one person were doing this. The reality is that millions and millions of us are buying food products like this every single day. I would be, except the cumulative effect is so large I don’t care to calculate it.

But it’s not just the consumer’s fault – let’s say you’re an owner of a chip company or a cookie company. You don’t care or aren’t aware of just how much harm you’re doing to people because you’re either too busy working your butt off or you’re too busy taking a vacation to the Bahamas. They like their money and power and they’ll genuinely do everything they can to keep it!

Okay, enough about chips – let’s turn to emotions. Let’s say someone yells at someone else because they won’t get out of their way in a parking lot. What they’re essentially doing is they’re saying, “I’m worth more than you, so move or else suffer the consequences!” That’s going to hurt many people, and most of us internalize this hurt since a large part of many societies is centered around emotional suppression, and since emotional suppression doesn’t make the emotion(s) go away the people who harbor them act them out… Subconsciously. Then they begin yelling in a few years. And the cycle continues.

That’s a mild example when compared to larger suppressive entities like the government. Most governments would absolutely love their “subjects” to be 100% subordinate to them, and most of them strive to have such a power. This makes them one of if not the most powerfully corrupt kind of entity on the planet. Here in America, we have power over these people if we choose to band together and give our demands, but for now, I wish to note that their actions butterfly across the entirety of society, and not in a good way!

Need proof? Go to your grocery store and look around you. Look for people who are slouching, people who are insecure, people who are predatory, people who are scared. I guarantee you they’ve all been internalizing the corrupt actions that were/are performed against them, and that they’re silently acting out corruption themselves. It’s easy to say that it’s a grim time to be living in.

How To Counter All Of It

But of course, there’s a solution! In this case, multiple solutions. 

The first solution is a “this may work, and if it does you’ll be glad you tried it” kind of solution. If you ask yourself, “what do I consider to be corruption?” and it turns out what you subconsciously consider to be corruption isn’t genuinely corrupt, then your perspective changes for the better.

The second is to find the genuinely corrupt desires within your own psyche and disidentify from them. Finding them is as simple as asking and answering the question, “what are my deepest, darkest desires?” and writing them down. Disidentifying from them is as simple as saying, “I choose to disidentify from this desire. I choose to stop needing to have this desire. I choose to disidentify from the belief that XYZ is true.” Perhaps this part takes repetition, and perhaps it does not! But the beauty about disidentifying from a corrupt desire is that you don’t have to push it away – you can face it if you want to. You can face it, figure out why it’s there, feel the emotion and release it, learn from it, etc… You can also say, “I choose to no longer have this desire.”

When we do this for all of our corrupt desires we have essentially changed ourselves for the better! That’s good enough on its own, and when all of us do this, we live a glorious life indeed!

The third (and least recommended) solution is to pinpoint the most corrupt people in society (within reason) and force them out of their positions of power. We can assign them to a task that benefits us but doesn’t leave them in a position of power. Yes, we have the power to do this – the more our numbers the more unstoppable we are!

Final Thoughts 

I have heard some say, “the universe is simply a balance of light and dark, corruption and purity.” While it may be meaningful to live out this belief and balance the light and darkness within ourselves it’s still a belief that can be disidentified from and transcended. When it is, a state is reached that is enlightened from such a game, a state I personally prefer to the state produced by the belief itself.

It is possible to root out the corruption in our species if we get into the habit of ingesting psychedelics on a regular basis, particularly magic mushrooms. If we incorporate them into our diet as if they were just another food (with a tad more caution, in my opinion) we’d be very much better off in every way imaginable! 🙂

Conclusion

Thank you so much for reading my article! I am truly grateful for your presence and I’ll see you in the next one 🙂

The Hero and the Villian

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Quick Facts

-The hero and the villain cannot exist without each other, and the show they put on is absolutely incredible!

-There are states of being that are beyond hero and villain, good and evil, and these states are very meaningful and worth living in!

Intro

Talking about the hero and villain archetypes is something so many people have done for such a long time! It can be said it’s the ultimate show, the ultimate moral question, the ultimate adventure, and one of the most meaningful dualities to watch and live out in everyday life. 

Many of us wish to be the hero and many of us secretly wish to be the villain. Many of us want the battle to go on, the struggle to continue, and we see these archetypes play out in real life and, very often, in movies and cinematic films.

So what is the hero, and what is the villain? Why are these archetypes so meaningful to watch and play out? And, of course, what’s beyond the archetype duality when it’s transcended. Let’s have a wee chat :).

What Is The Hero and What Is The Villain?

Many of us consider the hero to be the protagonist, the one who saves the village from the dragon and uses the gold to repair the damages. The hero is the alpha, the leader, the one who strikes to protect and not to lash out in anger. The hero is the one most of us subconsciously identify with, which means we subconsciously disidentify from the villain.

The villain, of course, is the one who attacks to destroy. The villain almost always has a story, a terrible series of unfortunate events that inspired fear, hatred, and rage to form inside of him and control his actions. He exists to be defeated, to lead his army against the hero, and ultimately fall, and this is the story we love to watch and live out!

The hero and the villain can sometimes be swapped, or they can develop opposite traits as the story progresses – Raskolnikov in Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment started out as something of a hero until his decisions slowly made him into something of a villain. It was highly considered that Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War was a strong villain until he gave his case and made us wonder if he was the hero. This happens in real life as well, someone may think they’re a hero and wish they’re a villain or vice versa since one archetype tries their best to suppress the other!

In a sense, who the hero is and who the villain is determined by which side of the moral scale they’re on. Who has the passion, the will to protect, the regenerative warrior outlook on life? And who has the negativity, the spite, and desire for revenge? Whoever makes the first attack (usually the villain unless you’re watching/reading a sequel) is less morally developed than the one who defends the attack, and this is the biggest clue!

And of course, it’s the most meaningful story in the history of mankind. Good vs. Evil! Many people wish to identify with some kind of hero, and these archetypes are so old and so buried deep within our psyche that even just mentioning them conjures feelings and images the likes of which are extremely powerful!

Why Is “The Story” So Meaningful?

The stories are emotionally gripping! We want to see the good guy win and as soon as the bad guy gets the upper hand we feel down because we want to see regenerative power take the day! 

That’s partly why they’re meaningful but another reason is that these stories are the playing out of old, archetypal patterns that we can see and observe in our mind. Did we create them long ago, or do they exist within our collective consciousness as an objective fact? Either way, we attach so much emotional meaning to the playing out of these stories that if the entire planet were to turn into a hero vs. villain dynamic we would live very meaningful lives.

But the strongest reason why “the story” is so meaningful is that we attach our own emotion to it, consciously or subconsciously. Even though it provides archetypal meaning there is a higher sense of meaning to be found beyond the story of the hero and the villain, and you deserve to know this since it’s been so overplayed and so overused by our lovely modern-day corporations.

What’s Beyond It?

First I’d like to address the question, “how to go beyond it?”. I personally enjoyed watching heroic movies and reading heroic novels for a long time, and that was part of what led me past it – immersing myself in it and paying attention to my thoughts and feelings at the same time. I’d come across all kinds of desires and insecurities, and once I sorted out my psyche I stopped feeling the need to watch The Avengers for the 9th time in a row! I simply grabbed ahold of my personal power and ran with it instead of receiving it from outside sources!

And then of course, what’s beyond “the story?” I feel like it will be different for everyone but for me, it was straight emotional and psychological fulfillment, a series of meaningful spiritual happenings that didn’t occur while I was watching these kinds of movies, a kind of lifestyle that’s very introspective yet very extroverted at the same time, states of meditation that completely dwarfed any meaning I found from “the story…” and more, of course!

I guarantee that if you’re captured by the stories of the past that there’s more waiting for you if you choose to receive it 😉

Conclusion

Thank you for reading my article! I apologize for the short post on such a popular topic, but I want to help you transcend it (or even transcend into it) as much as I possibly can!

Thank you for reading my article! I’d greatly appreciate it if you meditate before reading the next post 🙂

The Alucard Effect: What’s Great About Hellsing Ultimate

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Quick Fact

-Alucard is a great character to study, especially when we want to obtain confidence, fearlessness, transformation, a positive sense of eternity, how to consciously embrace our dark side, and more!

Intro

Hellsing Ultimate, the show that shows us the darkest side of human imagination in the most ingenious fashion. It’s not a blood-and-gore flick meant to keep you fixated on sickness but an actual work of art that subtly explains the reasoning behind war and why leaders create it and thrive in it!

Enter Alucard, the main character of the series, a total and complete monster that… Roots for both sides? And goes out of his way to kill for the good guys? Yep and yep! He isn’t the average “killer of the series” that we’ve come across so many times before, he’s much more aware of his situation to be insulted as such! Calling him a “mindless killer” would not only be inaccurate but distasteful once his true nature is revealed, and I argue that his character contains many qualities which we can observe and benefit from! 

Fair warning! This post will contain spoilers of the show, I highly encourage you to watch it before reading the rest of this post.

About The Show

Hellsing Ultimate takes place in England sometime in the late 1990s (depending on which timeline you follow) where supernatural beings are the norm and dark, misty nights are revered by all (apparently). Sir Integra, directly funded by the Queen, is in charge of keeping these abominable threats from taking the lives of millions. However, Integra is only human while these creatures are immortal and impossible to kill, so how is she supposed to keep these monsters at bay?

With a monster, of course!

Her father died and made her heir to the throne. His brother, who was standing next to him when he uttered the words on his deathbed, set himself to kill Integra since he was “supposed” to be the successor. Really he just wanted the money and power.

He chases Integra to the basement where there lies a creature that appears to be dead, in a straight jacket. He shoots her in the shoulder and some of her blood lands next to its feet, and to everyone’s surprise, the creature begins lapping it up and using it as food to gain energy. He then proceeds to protect Integra and kill her assailants while taking many pistol shots to the face in the process, thereby sparking the master/slave relationship between Integra and Alucard and a way for her to fulfill her newly found responsibility.

As the show progresses and the threats become more intense we see Alucard give away some of his character. Mind you, he’s not developing, he’s giving it away – a welcome breath of fresh air in an era of “he started out like crap and now he’s completely on top of everything” which grows old and stagnant after a while.

And what he gives away is so solid and so applicable that I couldn’t help but share it with you today! So buckle up and prepare for some of the most cinematic genius the world’s ever seen!

He’s Not Afraid To Kill. And He Does. A Lot.

This is the most in-your-face quality about Alucard that turns many people away – his kill count. I won’t spoil it for you but he’s definitely racked up a couple of lifetime sentences between his gun, his brute strength, and his superpowers, not to mention the fear he instills in people upon his arrival.

Granted, it’s his job to kill supernatural threats, but there’s a big difference between killing because it’s your job and killing for sport. Alucard admits he kills for fun, and that’s early on in the series – he has no bones about it! 

Something we can take away from this mindset is that going through the desire to harm, in our minds, while suspending judgment is actually a healthy thing to do! Maybe we shouldn’t act it out, but we do have a collective “okayness” with killing and death because of our primal past, something which shouldn’t be denied and should be accepted in stride!

He Has No Fear

None whatsoever. This is his greatest quality, in my opinion, his fear of death is completely and utterly not there.

Most of us alive today are afraid of fear, evil, and suffering. We avoid it like the plague and any mention of it brings a certain sickness to our stomachs – not Alucard. He simply goes and does what he wants to do, often smiling and laughing in the process. It’s quite remarkable really, considering the dark things he’s tasked with doing. 

This is a huge takeaway for us – having no fear in our system is the equivalent of being enlightened, that is, we feel “light” because there is the absence of “heaviness” (fear). Just because we don’t fear something like killing or death doesn’t necessarily mean we should do it, it’s simply an alternative to being bogged down by suffering.

He Is Fear

This may seem like a contradiction to what I just wrote, but it makes sense in a certain way. If someone like Alucard decides to completely accept fear and turn it into seriousness he will be filled to the brim with fear and be fearless at the same time. He is completely okay with feeling fear (even if it’s only the fear of his enemies) and therefore transcends it by “becoming” it, by being himself in its presence, by acting through it.

How we can apply this in our everyday lives is by accepting the things we cannot change – for example, there will always be death. If we accept death then we accept the fear of death, and if we accept the fear of death we can transcend it.

His Confidence Is Off The Charts

This guy… Has no bounds to his confidence. None at all.

Later on in the series, he’s stranded on a warcraft carrier because he crashed his aircraft into it and killed an enemy of war. He floats on the remains of his ship to England where he’s met with WWIII, two different armies attacking the same city. He leaps off of his ship and lands in the middle of both armies, smiling a devilish smile as the two warlords approach him and grimace, inches from his face.

He’s unstoppable, so why wouldn’t he?

Many of us today are not confident for one reason or another. Part of it has to do with propaganda, part of it has to do with detrimental beliefs, and part of it has to do with lack of proper experience. Choosing to have the kind of confidence that Alucard possesses, the confidence of someone who is truly unstoppable, is a serious advantage in life and a fantastic way to experience wellbeing.

He Fully Embraces His Desire To Be a Monster

He doesn’t hide it one bit! At the end of the series, his arch-rival is about to turn himself into a monster to defeat Alucard. Alucard says (paraphrasing), “Do not turn yourself into a monster who could not bear the weight of humanity, as I have. Only a human can defeat a monster like me.”

This goes hand-in-hand with what I’ve written above – does he care what other people think? Not really! Does he care that other people consider it wrong to kill, maim, and murder? Nope! He has no gripes with being a monster, and this is something we can sort of apply in our lives as well; we embrace our desire to become the thing we wish to become, even if it happens to be a monster. The opposite is suppressing our desires, and this brings undesirable results – it’s far better to know what we truly desire so that we can think it through rationally.

He’s Been Through The Deepest Metamorphosis From Fear to Self/Selflessness

Near the end of the series, he speaks to Walter since Walter considers Alucard his “monster to defeat.” He explains that, by facing him, Walter is going through “the metamorphosis that we all went through (speaking about himself, the main warlord, and his arch-rival),” a metamorphosis that began with extreme suffering, lead to extreme fear, lead to extreme anger, and finally ended with the end result – a fearless monster. This metamorphosis isn’t just science fiction – it’s a process that can happen in real life as well.

When someone goes through, for example, extreme poverty, they probably live in a lot of fear. Sometimes this fear can turn into anger since anger is supposed to be primal energy that keeps the fear from becoming reality. Anger, then, leads people to do shady things such as joining gangs, robbing people, homicide, etc etc. They become fearless monsters, and yet they’re completely consumed by their fear and anger.

The takeaway from this is subtler than I like it to be – instead if going through the process of fear → anger → monster in the physical world, we should go through the process only in our minds. Some of us have so much momentum going in this direction that positivity is a no-go, so going through the metamorphosis in our minds (without letting it manifest in the physical world) is the next best thing. Plus, it looks cooler this way.

He Has (Almost) No Mental Boundaries (No Societal Boundaries/Pressures)

He has a few boundaries – he doesn’t use his full power unless he consciously drops his limits and he has to obey Sir Integra. Other than that he’s boundless, and having a boundless mind is the equivalent of having a completely free and fearless life.

Strangely Enough, Despite All Of This, He’s Fully Conscious

“But Gabriel, a killer can’t possibly be fully conscious and awake! That’s just not right!”

…Except he knows about and consciously acknowledges the 3rd eye.

In the middle of the series, his apprentice is tasked with holding down the fort against an army of Nazi vampires with an army of hired hands. Everything goes great until the leader of the army starts attacking them – and she’s 100 feet tall, immune to their weapons, and wielding a giant scythe! They don’t stand a chance, not one, molecule of a chance!

His apprentice begins to telepathically communicate with Alucard while he’s on the ship… First of all, they’re telepathically communicating while he’s on the ship!

She begins to give him the rundown of the situation and he tells her, “you have a 3rd eye. You should use it! It’s just an illusion!” She opens her 3rd eye, sees that the actual woman is 6′ instead of 100′, and shoots her while inside the mansion. The 100-foot behemoth begins to topple, and the “damage” she created was “reversed” instantly.

This is the most stunning and direct instance proving that his 3rd eye is blasted open but the entire show gives it away too – his interaction with the other characters really brings his own character to light, one that is completely aware and completely conscious of the entire situation at all times. It really makes me wonder, “how awake can we really be until we truly answer the question, ‘why not kill?'”

The Alucard Effect

Combining all of these characteristics produces The Alucard Effect – IE, someone who’s confident, fearless, monstrous, able and willing to act, and strangely wise all at the same time. 

I am of the opinion that doing some introspection while watching Hellsing Ultimate is an amazing way to be even more mentally healthy than we already are. For example, asking ourselves questions such as “why is this show so intriguing, exactly? Which characteristics do I want to expand on in my life? How can I be more awake? Do I desire to be a monster and/or do monstrous things?” may hurt or be uncomfortable at first. But, choosing to give yourself the qualities you desire is the first step to achieve/expand on your mental health! I recommend you watch the show, the entirety is an amazing work of art!

Conclusion

Thank you for reading! This is a different kind of post, but I had a lot of fun writing it. Let me know if you want to see more like this! I’ll see you in the next article 🙂

Truth As Reality – Why You Should Tell The Truth

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Quick Facts

-The word ‘truth’ can point to a concept (“she’s telling the truth,”), a felt emotional state that we can live in, or both!

-It’s possible to be innocent and not know the truth, but to know the truth and ignore it is a whole ‘nother ball game.

Intro

Today I’ll be writing about my discoveries about truth, and why it’s one way we can live a (mentally) healthy life. I’ll be writing about the extent I went to to get this information, and how we can think about truth from a different (and I argue better) perspective. Enjoy the read!

The Incident

Some of us instinctively suspect that telling the truth is better than lying. People who lie often have terrible lives in one way or another, but I wanted to know why that is; I wanted to know why there is such a tremendous penalty for lying and such a rewarding experience for telling the truth. I’ve put a lot of research into this post, and what I mean by that is I let myself spend some time in county jail to observe the people who were there.

No, I didn’t ask the guards if I could stay in a cell for the night; I let myself get caught and charged with possession of psilocybin mushrooms and marijuana, which landed me in prison the “legitimate” way. I was only there for 5 days, which seems like a shame, but here’s what happened. I was put in the same cell as a “war vet” (that’s what he called himself, but I’m not sure if that’s the truth).

He showed me scars on his head from a bullet wound, scarring on his chest from open-heart surgery, and what was supposedly a bullet in his knee. His first two scars held true – there was a scar behind his ear that was definitely from a bullet zinging past his head, and there was a scar on his chest that was definitely from open-heart surgery. However, his behavior over the five days was interesting – it was as if he had to prove something to me and that he couldn’t take no for an answer.

He kept telling me about the war and how gruesome it was; he kept telling me about his PTSD, how many prisons he had been to, that he was homeless by choice, that he had a part-time job, and the only reason he was there was because of a drinking problem… In other words, he wouldn’t speak unless he was building himself up. He listened to what I had to say with one ear open and the other closed. That meant helping him solve his problems was out of the question; I simply listened while he spoke and provided emotional healing whenever I could. The others in the jail were more corrupt but only two are notable, and since I never learned their names we can call them Bobby and Randy.

Both of these guys were on their way to state prison, and one of them had been sentenced to 14 months in the county jail alone, which was slightly unusual. They were allowed to spend a lot of time in the main room since they were sentenced to prison. Because of this, Bobby was able to walk around the main room – and did so, constantly. He (seemingly without a care in the world) walked along the outside of our cell doors as if he were the guard making sure we didn’t escape. The reason I say this is because I made sure to stare at him whenever he would pass my cell door, and if he met my eyes I could see the frightened child he was trying to hide.

Randy never did this, but there was something strange about him as well; he was trying (and failing miserably) to play the fool by laughing it off. He disregarded everyone as foolish as well, and often his laughter had a tinge of sadness thrown in there for anyone who was listening closely. Now, these two were best buds, and for good reason – they had never met outside of the prison, but somehow it seemed like they knew each other as childhood friends. They talked for hours and hours about prisons, deep Mexico, where they’ve been, and what they’ve done…

The chatter only ceased when they were in their individual cells or eating their meals. They managed to piss the rest of us off quite successfully.

These guys had something to prove; Bobby had to prove that he was the man by patrolling our cells and Randy had to prove that he wasn’t a complete fool by telling us about his experience and his knowledge. When they met each other in jail they saw each other as “friends” because they were very sad at the core of their being.

This happened on a subconscious level, of course – if they had been conscious of their efforts to cover up their sadness they probably wouldn’t have committed the crimes that got them locked up in the first place.

Having Something To Prove vs. Telling The Truth

Outside of jail, I’ve seen many people share the information they know to cover something we aren’t supposed to see. It’s often unknown to the individual that they’re doing this, and if you ask them what they’re hiding and why they’ll look at you suspiciously as if you were the monster. Enter: Being knowingly ignorant vs. being innocently ignorant.

Being truly ignorant means having absolutely no idea as to the truth of the situation while being knowingly ignorant means ignoring something that you don’t want to face.

All of us are innocently ignorant of many aspects of existence but only some of us are intentionally hiding (probably also ignoring) something. If we hide something (doesn’t matter what it is) we’re concerned about our own safety, but perhaps it’s best to figure out what you’re hiding if you don’t already know and ask yourself, “Why am I hiding this exactly? What do I gain from this?”Otherwise, it starts to build up.

You’ll start to become afraid of other people exposing your secret and you’ll feel the ever-growing need to prove yourself so that the thing can stay hidden. This, then, begins to build and build and build until you find yourself in prison, wondering why society has to be so messed up while probably boiling up in a cauldron of resentment.

The Truth

Once someone thinks it all the way through something interesting happens; they often decide that lying can only bring about unnecessary suffering, so they start telling the truth. Usually, it stings at first, and their friends and family look at them as if they were from another planet – however, somehow this pain feels better than the pain they felt before; this kind of pain is justifiable since they are telling the truth. And, of course, the initial sting slowly transforms into a kind of confidence and self-worth that people can’t help but admire and appreciate.

But why, exactly? Why does covering something up land you in prison and why does telling the truth garner respect? It is simply because lying and truth-telling are both words that point to actual variations of the felt reality. When you lie you are cultivating and living in the felt experience that people tend to label, “Shady, suspicious, sketchy,” etc. When you tell the truth, however, you are cultivating and living in the felt experience labeled as, “Honorable, respectful, reliable,” etc etc.

This is the fact that most of us don’t know; some of us think we should get what we want, however, we don’t. One thing to know, however, is that the means of obtaining what you want will determine the emotional reality you cultivate while you’re reaching for your goal. We’ve all held on to a lie and had it eat us up on the inside and we’ve all told somebody the truth and felt amazing while we did so.

Conclusion

If one were to ask themselves, “What am I hiding and why” and answer themselves honestly and truthfully, something good will begin to happen. If you consciously decide to live in truth all of the time you will begin to see the beauty in life and you will begin to succeed in every way imaginable. Perhaps you already have; if that’s the case then you know what I mean 🙂

What Judgment Is, And How To Handle It

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Quick Facts

-Judgment is the process of gathering information and coming to a conclusion or decision, and usually, the end result is based on commonly accepted law and/or morality. 

-The fear of judgment goes back to our primal days – if we were negatively judged we were thrown out of the tribe, and back then, we couldn’t survive the harsh elements on our own.

-Some judgments are grounded, which means they are based on physical evidence that is obvious to others. Some judgments are ungrounded, which means they’re either false or of things that are subtle and/or the evidence is not obvious to others.

-Becoming a stellar judge yourself (not necessarily in the legal sense) is a great idea if you’d like to counteract the bad judges that are out there!

Intro

Today we’re going to dissect judgment and see it for what it really is! We’ll also be taking a look at the fear of judgment, since this is what plagues many of us today, and we’ll figure out how to resolve it! Enjoy the read!

The Beginning

Negative judgment (especially when it is subconsciously acted out) is one person (or a group of people) acknowledging another person (or a group of people) and rejecting them for one reason or another. This can be extremely hurtful for everybody involved, the judger and the judged alike, and it’s driven many people into isolation, anxious states of mind, and sometimes even suicide.

Positive judgment has some underlying problems as well; if we judge something in a positive manner that means we automatically (and often subconsciously) negatively judge its opposite. This is the same for negative judgment; if someone negatively judges something in a negative manner they automatically positively judge the opposite. With the duality exposed, we can begin to realize the truth about judgment, but it’s required to go far more in-depth than I have so far.

What Is Judgment, Exactly?

The first thing that’s important to note is that it used to have a major impact on the life of an individual when humanity was in a much earlier stage in its development. If an individual did something that was against the tribe’s well-being the tribe would judge him/her and forge a punishment for them based on whether or not they felt like they should. If an individual was exiled from their tribe they would eventually die since you needed your tribe in order to survive the harshness of the times. This fear of rejection (aka being negatively judged) seems to have carried over into the modern-day seeing as we take both happenings very seriously, more seriously than most other life events.

While the word “judgment” seems to point to a feeling that’s felt when we see the word “rejection,” and since “judgment” also doubles as an abstract concept that describes the process of one person or group of people accepting or denying another person or another group of people based on their requirements for acceptance, we already have the second thing to know about judgment; people accept or deny based on their own requirements for acceptance. You can go into an interview and absolutely crush it, but as long as the interviewer sees that you don’t meet their expectations (even if they’re hidden or unknown) you won’t get the job. This is the same with a mate, a friend, a business comrade, a family member, etc etc. 

The third thing to know about judgment is that it shouldn’t just be brushed aside. If someone rejects you or judges you in a passive or openly harsh manner that probably means there is something about you that’s negatively affecting everybody else around you. This may not be the case (we’ll talk about that in more detail below) but it’s always best to ask yourself if what they’re saying is true and to answer yourself honestly. If you find it difficult to answer yourself honestly then that may be (at least part of) the problem.

Grounded Judgment vs. Ungrounded Judgment

You may remember a previous post that discusses the differences between grounded and ungrounded anxiety/confidence. Judgment works the same way; the act of judgment itself can be either grounded or ungrounded and the feeling of rejection can also be grounded or ungrounded. Distinguishing between the two kinds of judgment is crucial if we’re going to learn how to deal with harsh judgment.

Let’s say that a couple is having a fight and one of them is sensing “defeat” coming around the corner. If the individual is immature they may throw out a random insult that has nothing to do with the subject they’re fighting about; “you know, my ex was better than you. Maybe I’ll go back to them.” This is a harsh blow to the face; Person A just made a general judgment on Person B about their entire being summed up in one single sentence. The fight would probably continue with something like that going unnoticed but this is ungrounded judgment at its finest. 

We can spot ungrounded judgment by placing any judgment we come across with this particular filter; the more a judgment is meant to serve the judger and not the judged the more of an ungrounded judgment it is. Obversely, the more a judgment is meant to serve the judged and not the judger the more grounded in reality the judgment is. 

This is where it gets tricky. Everybody is selfish and has selfish intentions (whether the intentions are realized or not), so one might be tempted to say that all judgments are ungrounded and that judgment itself is something to “awaken” from. It is important to note, however, that our long-ago ancestors were properly able to survive based on a series of judgments that distinguished poisonous from healthy, safe from dangerous, hot from cold, etc etc, and so I argue that grounded judgments in the modern day are just as important as they were when we were simply surviving as a species. Let’s take a look at this example below to see what I mean.

We have John, Linda, and Thomas, three fictional characters in a fictional scenario. John and Linda have been dating for just over a year when Linda starts noticing something strange about John; he’s becoming more aggressive, more paranoid, more controlling, and more uncaring as the relationship moves forward. She starts to become concerned with this so she goes into his room and tries to find out what’s wrong; maybe she’s expecting a prescribed medication, or maybe a booze bottle hiding in a drawer somewhere, but she didn’t expect him to be looming over the doorway when she turned around because she didn’t know that he was coming home from work early that day.

Starting to become frightened she hires a private investigator named Thomas to help her find out why John has been acting this way. Thomas looks into his life away from home and reports that John has started going to the stripper clubs in the musty part of their town. This includes sex (which he aptly pays for), drugs, (which are normally given to him for free), and lots of promises that he’ll get a lot more if he comes back next weekend. John confesses to these faults and now Linda has the capability to make a grounded judgment as to what should happen between them as a couple.

She begins by thinking that it’s over between her and John, but she suddenly remembers something about John’s past; the last time she went to visit his parents for the holidays, she noticed that his dad was an overbearing, overly strict alcoholic who could loosen up a little bit. When she asked John about it in private he said that his father was always like this and that he never gave his children any respect unless they brought him a beer.

Then she remembers the time when John broke down crying and admitted his feelings for another woman who was in his life at the time. He never went with her but the implication that Linda wasn’t enough for him stuck with her for a long time.

Finally, she remembers a time when she found a bag of cocaine in his drawer. When she brought the bag to his attention he admitted that he had been taking the drug two weeks before she found the bag and that he’ll stop using it immediately.

Each memory Linda has let her become more and more capable of a grounded judgment for the situation at hand. She decides that John obviously has a core issue with his self-worth based on what happened in the past; she decides that he’s in a lot of emotional pain and that he is somebody who needs to be helped, not hurt. Instead of a nasty breakup that has the potential to hurt John even more than she decides to break apart from John with the promise that she will help him in any possible way she can while he gets himself together as an individual.

While this may not be the best decision it certainly wasn’t the worst decision, and the reason for this is because she made it based on real-life events that happened between them while keeping John’s own well-being in mind instead of making a snap judgment that could have proven hurtful instead of helpful. 

How To Handle Judgment Properly

Now that we’re aware of the two types of judgment it’s important to note that no judgment is completely grounded and no judgment is completely ungrounded. Most judgments will be a mixture of the two, and it’s our job to take a judgment that has been thrown our way and decide if it’s more grounded than ungrounded or vice versa. In other words, learning how to handle judgment is the same as being a good judge as to whether or not the judgment was accurate or inaccurate and then taking action based on your decision. Since this is the case it’s vital to learn how to judge people/situations properly, we do this by being aware of the reality in which we live.

We don’t need to be aware of every single grain of sand on the entire planet in order to be a sound judge, but we do need to be aware of what’s happening in the situation at hand and be willing to consider the well-being of everyone involved if we’re going to be a grounded judge.

I’m certainly far from perfect in this area of life; I find myself making snap judgments and ungrounded accusations about the people around me throughout the day, and it’s something I’m in the process of changing. For those plagued by the judgment of their friends/family/acquaintances, however, it’s important to become a grounded judge and you can do this by asking the question, “Why do these people keep saying or doing the things they do? Don’t they know it’s hurting me and probably everyone else around us?”

When this question is followed through (which may require some proper investigation into your judger’s past depending on who they are) you will then have enough information and confidence to make a grounded judgment about the individual/group in question and you will have an easier time deciding if their judgment is grounded or ungrounded.

The more you are able to distinguish between grounded and ungrounded judgments (I.E., which judgments are hurtful and which judgments are helpful) the more your confidence grows. The more your confidence grows the more negative judgments tend to become “swallowed” by your confidence. The more negative judgment that’s “swallowed” by your confidence, the less you will be negatively affected by it. Then you’ll feel better about yourself in general and you’ll have an increased capacity to help others get to the same place as well.

Conclusion

Judgment can be harsh, and the solution probably wasn’t what you were expecting (I sure didn’t expect it to be like this), however it is a relatively simple solution to a pressing issue in American society. I hope this post helped you answer your question, have a great day!