Propaganda + Marketing

Me, Myself and I, the 48 year old version

I didn’t want to come back. That’s the truth. I was exiled, abandoned, a failure, but I didn’t want to come back. I found peace in the garden and I am still reconciling the need to be in society, survival, identity and telling the truth.

I am still grieving this experience of disability and all I was attached to and why. Does it matter now? Is any of it real anymore?

Afraid to admit how I really feel, I attempt again to compartmentalize in order to exist. That can’t happen now. Not after everything. It’s another risk, it feels risky, because I was attacked so powerfully in the past for saying anything. For valuing my freedom above commerce and above fame.

It seemed like people weren’t actually there.

As soon as I crossed the invisible line, suddenly it was just like a minion was dispatched from “central” to slap me be back in line. Not sure exactly how they do that, but male musicians seem to be particularly indoctrinated.

So I am nervous even writing this right now.

Do I sound crazy? Well, the entire experience feels pretty crazy. Maybe rock n roll really just had too much power, so, what’s done is done. Not gonna let that cat out of the bag again. The revolution was flawed for sure, but it was a revolution. It upset the balance, and so, the empire strikes back.

At least I am starting to relax a little and not feel so terrible about everything I do. Just can’t take that anymore. It’s exhausting. The fear. The vigilance.

It is what it is. I surrender. And I pray.

It might be appropriate to explain myself at this point, but I am not going to.

Heart of the Beast

This is my most “successful” post I have ever had on Threads. 50,000 views and counting. I’ve never had super popular accounts, honestly, despite that supposedly being the point, a lot of engagement is nerve wracking. I’ve always been very conflicted, so, long ago I created my own personal strategy of how I used social media, since I wasn’t really in the world properly anyway.

I engaged with it as process. That’s it. I experimented. I expressed. I explored.

It’s changed a lot in the last decade, so, I don’t feel that freedom anymore. I am getting more intentional. But in that intention, I am unmasking more, not less.

I am overcoming fears and attachments and observing the general consensus on marketing and strategy and what buttons are being pushed and what narratives are unconsciously being bought into.

Just as before, I am observing, experimenting and engaging in process. I am not getting on board. I am figuring out what is happening now because I have largely not been participating in a long time. I have been in my own world.

Inviting People In

Despite my comfort with solitude, I am attempting to make friends and develop community. My past tells me this is generally a bad idea and my current efforts are a little rocky, but it must be done. I have great hope that at this time, I am in a good place to establish real connection and be in the world as I am with others who are being the same.

Propaganda uses art to sell ideology and marketing uses propaganda to sell product.

But what if we just make art and communicate?

I know, it’s a lot more complicated, but just set that aside for now.

Let’s go back to the basics.

The Sky is Blue

We are so enamored with brilliance and intellect, we become un tethered from reality quite easily. It becomes difficult to recognize simple truths. And truth gets turned into The Truth and epic quests are formed to discover, conquer and own it.

The only way to communicate honestly is to be honest. And the only way to be honest is to be totally aware.

Because, we are the minions from central. We are the unconscious program that gets triggered. We are keeping each other engaged in a conceptual reality of oppression, often under the guise of so-called freedom.

Human Being

I wanted to learn the tools to use them for my own protection. I didn’t want to walk under some one else’s symbol, I wanted my own. My own identity, my own meaning.

And I wanted to understand the mechanics of symbols and meaning and how they can be used inversely… for actual freedom.

Where this journey fits in the landscape of now, I really can’t say I know, but I have senses. Things I am drawn to do. That’s the unknown for you. It is unknown.

The more I transform the unknown to known, the more I create and allow my voice in every form, the more at peace I feel. I sense that I must establish myself. Not through systems or particular achievement, but through existence.

I must establish my reality, through form, so that I may exist.

And it must be done honestly, and I can tell when I am being tempted to stray from the path, no matter how well intention-ed or otherwise helpful that influence may be.

It’s easier to stay true.

I am so physically and psychologically burdened by false identities, it’s simply impossible for me to sustain. If my life or someone else’s is threatened then silence is a powerful protection, for the time being.

But long term silence is difficult. It’s effective. It erases. So, evidence is required. Fortification. Breadcrumbs. Language. Stories. Symbols. Infrastructure. A way to stay alive. To not be erased. To remember.

So propaganda is gaslighting. It creates reality. It changes the mind, physically. The mind is physical. It’s alive. It is conditioned by experience.

It’s a power people are very addicted to. The antibody for me is compassion. And that is a practice that requires a lot of experience. It’s a physical thing also. Not just a thought or even a system of practice.