Postman's Here!

The Red Flag on Your Mailbox, my Friends, is Now UP

What I’m about to write about is probably one of those ideas that when you first hear it, hits you as something incredibly mind-blowing, but at the same time, or at least very soon after—as something also starkly obvious.

This is a sign to me that it’s something we’ve simply forgotten. Something that perhaps has been pasted over and hidden.

That’s the way it hit me, anyway.

This morning Neil Postman is blowing my mind, as usual, in that deceptively humble, polite and humorous way he does, with his 1992 book, Technopoly. (I am only comforted when I think about the fact that Postman is no longer with us and can no longer actively continue to assist us in navigating the current numbing maze of technology—although I think he’s left all the crumbs we need to find our way—by how many many books he authored, and how many I have yet to read—hurray!). Postman is a genius. The end.

So what hit me this morning was a sort of spin-off of Postman’s analogy of a card deck. The deck of cards analogy is used to highlight that as Americans in particular (though also most of the world at this point, to varying degrees) we’ve lost our sense not only of history itself, but of the anchor that that history affords in ascertaining meaning in our lives. The deck of cards: one understands fairly quickly, when handed a new deck of cards, that there is an order to the cards: the king of spades will follow the queen of spades every time. However, if you shuffle the deck, a three of hearts appearing after a king of spades won’t phase anyone. Basically, the idea is that we’re living our lives within a shuffled deck of cards, which makes just about anything plausible (as long as it begins with “studies show”…—that’s also from Postman). Which makes us, as a side-note, sitting ducks for manipulations of all sorts. It’s technology that’s shuffled the deck—spewing clouds of information in no particular order, raining down on our unprotected heads at every moment. (Postman brilliantly goes on to say that our society is now living with AIDS—Anti-Information Deficiency Syndrome; our cultures’ “information immune system is inoperable”.

I know it’s easy to skim this stuff, but just take in the ingeniousness of that for a sec.

Okay—big breath in, and let it go—so that’s your backstory.

So I’m laying in bed reading this, and a thought rudely interrupts, “I need to finish this online course today before my first client.” And then I think about what I’m reading, and then about how sometimes it’s very difficult to sort out what I want or need to be doing at any given moment (when I have free time): do I read Postman or Pantanjali? Do I work on a client report? Organize my daughter’s bedlam of an art table? Grocery shop? How do I decide?

Being in the now of this occurrence occurring to me, of course there are analytical rubrics I could apply: what do I simply feel like doing, or what will cause me the most pain if I don’t do etc. (and in any given moment, the two may or may not be the same thing). But if there’s some breathing space, some peace and quiet, nothing is imminently required of me, and what I want to do is a little bit more diaphanous and unconfined, it becomes apparent that I could apply any rubric at any time, and thus, they’re all meaningless.

Wait. There it is! My first clue: Meaninglesssssssssssnesssss…. (please do me a favor and picture this uttered by the Cheshire Cat).

So finally (thank you for your patience), THIS is the thought that hit me first as mind-blowing and almost immediately afterwards as completely obvious: there are levels.

Levels?? Categories?

(ASIDE: Forgive me, but I like systems. I find that systems enable me to live life as a highly functioning person, which I enjoy.*)

So anyhoo, these levels or categories in descending order might go something like this in my life (all of them happening of course, in the eternal nowwwwwww):

1. Life Happening (making food, playing with my daughter, cleaning the house, etc)

2. Work (writing, creating, client sessions etc)

3. Organization/Structure (choosing what to do when)

4. Foundational Meaning (WHY)

**Let’s please for now just ignore the fact that these are somewhat arbitrary categories because of course we can label or un-label anything out of existence (“everything is nothing”/”nothing is everything”/”everything is love”/”everything is energy”/”there is nothing but now” etc.), and of course any time we use a word we highlight some things and hide others. Just roll with me here for a moment. **

Here’s the point: what we’re often missing is not only number 3, (organization/systems), but number 4—the meaning by which everything is structured and organized and from which everything else we choose to engage with flows.

As Americans in particular, we’ve been stripped of our traditional foundational meanings on a large scale and left to redefine them for ourselves (if we even know to do so) in an age, as the Postman would say, of the bottomless glut of shuffled-deck information that is the technopoly we swim in and breathe every moment of our modern lives. But they’ve not only been stripped, they’ve been surreptitiously supplanted.

I wonder what would be the result of asking 100 people on the street: what is the foundational meaning of your life?

Religion previously formed the foundation of people’s lives (and obviously still does for many). Beliefs used to be the foundation (and obviously still blah blah). Cultural life. Family. But now, I would hazard, for the majority of “typical Americans” isolated and stuffed with endless information, there’s merely a blank stare—a glance at a watch—a habitual gaze at one’s phone glued to the hand, already inactive for too long. A scrambling for distraction—something, anything but depth, anything to continue the masquerade that we know what we’re doing on any level approaching actual Foundational Meaning. It’s a sickness, it’s contagious and it’s deadly. It’s quite possible that for many, the glut of information, the shuffled deck, becomes The Thing in Itself, becomes the meaning: devoid, simultaneously, of Meaning. I see it every day, and so do you, if you’re paying attention.

Can you ask yourself: What is the Foundational Meaning of your life?

Because I’m sorry, folks (and congratulations), but you’re on your own with that now. And if you don’t ask yourself that question, you’re getting swept up in the raging river of Digital Nothingness. Observe! Let’s let’s look up from our screens, ladies and gentlemen, and notice that this river has already breached its banks. And it’s coming for you.

Okay. So let’s now go back to the Levels of my Life.

When I understand that these levels exist, then I understand why laying in bed on a Wednesday morning reading Postman, who is pointing at the naked emperor, or Patanjali, literally laying out the science of living a meaningful life, is so damned important. Is so critical.

Certainly there is a time and place for every level, but when I take the time that I’m not otherwise occupied, as often as needed, to reassess and ask myself The Real Questions and realign, go back to 4, rather than getting caught up ceaselessly in the first three levels (oh so easy to do!), I’m investing, I’m anchoring my life in Meaning.

We as a culture are missing Meaning—entirely. Unimpeded access to unending, disordered and often dubious information via technology can act as a fantastic servant, but is a serious cluster-fuck of a leader. Because it is devoid of Meaning.

We might compare information technology, quite aptly it occurs to me, to the mind. Not only does I.T. consume the ego-mind, but it mirrors it: the ego-mind is madness, directly due the the truth that its activity is devoid of Meaning. Without Soul, or whatever you’d like to call the guiding part of you that is Truth, Oneness, Knowing, etc., information is only mind entertainment. Like info tech, the ego-mind is a useful worker but a shit boss. Technology in general, and AI specifically, is devoid of Meaning, while dangerously poised to play God, to usurp Meaning. In many ways, it already does.

When the cat’s away…

(The cat, my friends, is away.)

If you as an individual fail to recognize this turn of events, this even-more-watering-down and destruction of Meaning, you’ll simply and without apologies be swept away in the raging river of meaninglessness. But mark my words, you’ll be told it’s a pleasure cruise—and you might even believe it.

It’s every man for himself at this point. They’ve infiltrated your entire life with technology, with information. From morning til night we are in danger of so subtly, so unobtrusively, so easily, being coddled along by the nothingness of information, of systems, of life choices built on nothing.

So they can be your number 4.

Wake up, Mr. Green.

Here’s my call to arms this morning. My clarion call:

Fucking find your level 4.

I’m not advocating just desperately grabbing onto whatever life raft you spot first—having a baby or hanging onto every word of a YouTube guru or getting married or joining a stupid cult or something. These can be (as almost anything can be) just more distraction and aren’t the road to Meaning. Beware of anything your ego-mind may urge you to use that is merely more giving over of your power and responsibility for your life. I’m talking about getting yourself the F to shore.

Believe me, if you’re not entirely asleep or sold-out, on some level, even if it’s subconscious, everyone is looking for level 4. Which is why we become markets for marketers. Don’t be a market. If you don’t consciously wake up and do the work to define for yourself your level 4, someone else will define it for you. And believe me, it will benefit them, not you. Don’t engage cruise control and go to sleep at the wheel just because Tesla made it possible, because it’s easier, because you’re too distracted to do otherwise, or because you taking time out to assess your life and determine your 4 is inconvenient and well, just not that entertaining.

Getting yourself to shore and to 4 probably looks like some form of meditation. Of turning away from the noise and going inward. Sitting or walking in nature with no agenda. Finding out what’s inside you besides an echo of the outside noise. Consistently. And then creating a life around that.

It’s so simple. And so easy to forget to do. There’s just so much to distract us.

But here’s the thing: you only have one life—at least in this incarnation. You only have so much time. Don’t relinquish your humanity to become a market for someone else’s product and profit. Be the infinite being you are. Remember your Meaning and LIVE. Without level 4, you’re not just drifting, you’re being methodically and intentionally swept towards the drain at an alarming rate. And this isn’t metaphorical: are you eating what the indoctrination machines tell you to eat? You’re going to get sick, become a market for pharma and die. Are you spending your time on what the machine tell you to do? Basing your life on popularity, or Instagram fame or whatever stupid thing is the thing right now? You’re becoming a market for social media and consumption. You’re going to die spiritually. You’re going to cease to exist in any meaningful way.

I’m telling you, your very life is at risk here.

Without defining your level 4, you don’t have real peace, you have endless distraction. Your structure is meaningless, and your life is a house of cards. And deep down, my friend, you know it.

We have to distill our focus.

We have to take responsibility for ourselves and stop allowing ourselves to be, as another brilliant Neil Postman book warns, entertained to death. Informed to death. We have to find our level 4. When we find that, everything else falls into place, everything else makes sense. But here’s the catch: it takes un-learning. It takes effort. It takes the ability to be with pain. And it takes time. A myriad of forces large and small want to make sure we don’t have that time, that we don’t un-learn our indoctrination, and that we don’t understand that we need to make an effort. Certainly they want us to turn to our screens at any hint of potential pain. It’s not in their best interest for you to wake up—they lose their markets. But if you don’t, you lose your life.

It’s a slippery slope, information, technology, and don’t I know it.

But I’m awake. I’m reading in bed on a Wednesday morning. I’m in my level 4 work, which is the most important thing I could be doing right now. And so, just by reading this, are you.

Excellent work, us.

Have a fantastic day, and I wish for you in this holiday season Meaning and thus, true Peace.

*As someone with a history of being (I feel unfairly) lambasted for enjoying my systems so much, I was validated and encouraged by the Netflix series, Alone Australia (and probably the U.S. one too, I just haven’t watched it), in which individuals are dropped off in the wilderness with 10 items of their choice to survive as long as possible and win a cash prize. Here’s why I was validated and encouraged: it became quite obvious early on that they had to organize—wait for it….SYSTEMS—to survive! How to get food, shelter, etc., everything distilled into a system for survival. I realized that this is what we do as humans. I’m just being human—and it’s my level 3 gosh darn it.