Wednesday, April 25, 2018

Conspiracy

Have you heard the one about the man in the bush?
Or the Deep State of "Forrest Gump"?
The Govt. has been putting fluoride in all of the water because kids don't brush their teeth!

Disclaimer: Anyone I know that is a believer in "Conspiracy Theories", this is not about you :)
(well maybe a little, but not really)

I love a good story, as much as the next person.
I love a mystery with complex details and plots that in the end wrap up into a great movie or book.
I am a child of the 70's that grew up watching TV all day and night.
I lived in the fantasy world of the television. I believed that life was like the Brady Bunch,
just not at my house. I thought that the good guy always got the girl in the end and that the bad guys
were always brought to justice. This, of course, is not true at all.
Life seems to have no rhyme or reason most times. Most times, no one gets the girl.
The "bad" guys were not as bad as we thought they were and the "good" guys were not so good.
Crazy huh?  We read history books and go to school and learn what is put in front of us as the truth.
No one ever considered that maybe the history we were learning was biased to the country we lived in.......that maybe if we had been born in Russia, our history lessons would be quite different, not just with the aspect of the country, but the outcomes and disputes with others.
Throughout history, many things have happened that are atrocious, blinding and unexplainable.
Wars that have torn through the fabric, hateful genocide and destruction.
Things happen and we need to explain them away some how.

The first "Conspiracy Theory" I ever heard of was the assassination of JFK.
I think I heard something about it in high school in history class, but kind of jokingly.
It was fascinating to say the least. Then a few years later the Oliver Stone movie came out and
I became very interested in this possibility. It was time consuming and very mysterious, I loved it.
What if this happened? What if the Govt did this? What are "they" not telling us??
You get the gist of it, it's exciting because it's not real life.
In reality the story seems so boring. A lone gunman shot the President from a tower in Dallas.
It just doesn't seem very fitting or mysterious at all........but as far as we absolutely know........
that is exactly what happened. In the end it doesn't really matter anyway, the man was killed.
He is dead and that is that. We can all agree that John F. Kennedy was shot to death in Dallas, Tx.
If there is a deep, dark secret story to this outcome.......he is still dead. And more importantly, there is nothing any of us can do about it at all. If "they" can kill the President of the USA, they surely can wack a half-ass blues musician. 

I believed most of these theories for a long time.
The more I used drugs and alcohol, the more conspiracy I believed.
The truth was never good enough, there was a deeper story to all of this.
In the end it took the responsibility away from me, I was free.  Why should I pay my bills
or taxes when this Govt. is corrupt and committing "sinister" crimes against it's own people.
911 was an inside job man.......

I watched two planes fly into two buildings on the morning of September 11th, 2001 live on tv.
I saw the second plane make impact with my own eyes. That happened.
It was brutal and awful and heartbreaking. How is this story in our history not enough.
Terrorists committed these awful crimes and killed thousands of people.
Believe what you want to believe, but thousands of people died that day for no good reason.

Ok, I cannot go through each and every conspiracy and tell you what I think, in the end it doesn't really matter what I think, it matters what you think.
My point is on a more spiritual level than anything else.
Once I worked the steps of my recovery program and began to follow the spiritual principles in my life, I made a commitment.....a commitment to the sad, awful truth.
The sad, awful truth is that life is painful at best. It hurts to be alive. Our bodies get older and breakdown and life around us is not always pleasant. My mind is sick and thinks on it's own and it makes me do awful things that I regret in the end. Once I realized the sad, awful truth.....I became responsible. I became responsible for taking the necessary steps to overcome the pain of living by following the spiritual principles. Spirituality was the only way to ease the pain of living and to at best sleep good at night. I am now responsible because I know the truth, I cannot claim ignorance anymore.  I am responsible for my life, my mind and how I treat the world.

What does this have to do with Conspiracy Theories???
Well, when I was using drugs and drinking heavily, I never believed the truth, I believed the lie.
I believed in whatever took responsibility away from me because I was irresponsible.
Today I cannot do that, I have to follow the truth whether I like it or not, that is my path.
The nature of believing in most of these Conspiracy Theories is that it explains away our responsibilities. We are no longer responsible for the world around us, because something more powerful is working against us. These "theories" create an untrusting mind. We do not trust others or the world because we believe their is a sinister plot underneath it all that is working against us,
much like belief in the boogie man or the devil.  If we clear away all of this mistrust and look at the sad, awful truth.....we are responsible.  If our Presidential choice was not elected, then it must be something larger than life that made this happen, we certainly could not have lost!
Global warming is a hoax! This cannot be true, science is a lie.......it must be, because if it's not a lie
we are truly responsible for the outcome.

We could argue all day about each and every conspiracy and I will say that some probably have good basis and I am certainly not suggesting that we all go along blindly accepting the world like sheep.
I am suggesting that this distrust is viral, it has created distrust in us all and for our fellow man.
It's infectious and awful and has to be stopped.

It seems easier to believe something that is so ridiculous than it is to believe the sad, awful truth.
The sad, awful truth is to take responsibility for our actions.
We play a part in all of this, we could try harder and do better.
Instead of blaming someone or something, try to step in and do our part to make it better.
Even if you think Global Warming is a complete hoax by the scientific community (my God that sounds so fucking ridiculous to even type), why wouldn't you want to do better for our planet and our future generations???
What if your candidate just actually lost because they did not get enough votes?
If that were the case (and probably are), we are mostly responsible.
We did not get the vote out and do more and stand up and take part in the process.

We always play a part in everything and are somewhat responsible for every outcome.
I am a true believer that the Conspiracy Theory is the plague of the modern adult.
It has created such a distrust and irresponsibility in us all that is going to continue to do harm for years, unless we get our heads out of our asses and take responsibility for our own lives.

Chances are - what happened, happened. There might be more, there might not be,
in the end we can do better.

The shortest distance between two points is a straight line.

I am certain than many people will read this today and take away a point to argue,
but I ask you to consider trusting the process and believing the sad, awful truth for a change.
In the end it has made me a better person for my family and the world around me.
I still have a long way to go, but life is much easier when you trust others.

Peace, Love...Zito