The Power of kNOW

Information. There is a mind boggling amount of it out there, flooding the information super highways, inundating the main stream media and saturating the Internet. This astronomical library of information increases exponentially every day and even though the voluminous quantity of it is enormous to the point of being completely incomprehensible, the quality, in many cases, leaves much to be desired.  It is a militant parade that marches past us in brigades, armed with as much fiction and fabrication as facts and figures, as many faked photos and staged footage as true to life photographic journalism and in the field embedded reporting, live in real time. The pomp and circumstance of the pageantry steps out and promenades arm in arm with its comrades ever onward, never minding what lies beneath, trampling everything in its path. The untouchables, emboldened by their anonymity, leave calling cards hidden in plain sight and blaze ahead to achieve their main objective: to cover as much ground as possible in the least amount of time as possible.

Media. It is a procession of American royalty, prominent families on display, portraying the lives of the rich and famous for us to envy and emulate; Hollywood power couples and teen idols and their paparazzi photo ops plastered all over entertainment news and gossip magazines for us to ogle and drool over; celebrities with charities and politically correct pet projects and masters of disguise with honorary degrees and exclusive club memberships for us to wish we could trade places with, are all trotted out to distract and divert our attention away from our own pitiful, boring in comparison and seemingly inconsequential lives. Then, there are the puppets and their puppeteers dancing and dangling above grand stages, the shrunken talking heads bobbling inside little black boxes and larger than life personalities and actors all suited up and wired for sound, propped up on platforms, positioned behind podiums, and shoved in front of cameras to read cue cards that pull at our heart strings with one hand while they loosen our purse strings with the other.

If knowledge is power, then information sharing is a power grab. These purveyors of information know people only have so much time to read and watch and surf the Net because they are too busy going about the busy-ness of surviving the American dream. So, the sources and speculators, news readers and spinners, gossip spreaders and scandalmongers have to hawk their wares the loudest, have the largest presence in their domain or come up with a new take on what is currently trending to get the most attention and pull in the most revenue.  In an Information Age, when anyone can have a website or blog, Facebook page or YouTube channel, information gets reported and repeated, rewritten and redistributed every minute of every day.

People have taken news gathering and investigative journalism into their own hands. In a Gallup poll, it was reported that 60% of Americans do not trust the main stream media.  What we have now is You News, firsthand accounts and interviews of high level executives, experts and insiders with top secret clearance, all collected and commented on, by and for the people. And so, with this insurgence of citizen journalism, common man and lay person contributions and alternative media outlets pouring into the vast ocean of information, tsunamis form and tidal waves rush in, washing over us constantly and continually. There are literally thousands of television channels, millions of blogs and DIY video channels and billions of websites. Who can keep up without being swept away and pulled under by the strength of its fast moving current? How many ways can the same information be presented without the public catching on and questioning the legitimacy of false flags and unwittingly submit to trauma based mind control programming? How many hours can they report on the same breaking new story without viewers becoming distrustful and disinterested and deciding to change the channel to their favorite “reality” or cooking show? The monumental overload of information is an icy glacier creeping along on its belly, spreading outward in every direction without pause for reflection of its purpose or consideration of its path. It's not cognizant of its content or mindful of its context. Just copy that is swiped and repackaged before being posted again on another silken and sticky thread of the tangled web that has been woven for the entrapment of the human consciousness. Just scripts full of rhetorical questions and hysterical exclamations, juvenile silliness and witty banter, broadcasted live all day and well into the night.

Unfortunately, much of this avalanche of information that gets dumped into our newsfeeds, inboxes and digital laps is sorely lacking in originality, legitimacy and substance. It's intentionally designed to get top ranking on popular search engines with carefully crafted headlines and catchy subtitles, tantalizing descriptions and alluring teasers. The verbiage accompanying the photos and the clickbait titles of videos are misleading or name dropping to get more engagement and watch counts. Topics are sensational and salacious vehicles that create a 7 day a week rush of traffic to blogs resulting in scoring more website visits and article views. Blogss are drafted with judiciously positioned keywords, constructed to include well placed buzzwords and then tattooed all over with the visually annoying interjection of hashtag this and hashtag that.  Billboards of sexually explicit propaganda, agenda thrusting campaigns and cleverly conceived marketing ads inked in symbolism, target sub groups of the population of “breeders” and “useless eaters”. They are chock full of subliminal messaging all riding the coat tails of hurriedly compiled articles and hastily written op-ed pieces flung out into cyberspace, barely before being spell checked, fact checked, and edited for format and style, but not for reason and relevancy. All of these intoxicatingly juicy concoctions are measured and mixed, “shaken, not stirred” and poured down the throats of well-intentioned people interested in staying abreast of current events, intelligent individuals who spend their free time on continuing their education and concerned citizens motivated to stay informed.

The information warriors do battle with each other for their fifteen minutes of fame. They know that if they want to play they have to get invited to the party. So, they do whatever is necessary to be found, like a needle in the haystack, among the multitudes of other such aspiring informants with their pitch fork full of digital clutter. The war is on between these wizards of words and sorcerers of spells, competing for each other’s fan base, fighting to reach new levels of notoriety, to gain more fans and followers, subscribers and loyal viewers and to receive free exposure, higher rankings and better ratings. It’s a dog eat dog world out there and they get the people to do all of their promotional work for them by telling them ad nauseam to like and link, subscribe and share, follow and re-tweet. Self-promote and play the search engine game or get overlooked and thrown out with yesterday’s old news. Jump into the arena and battle it out with the gladiators of gab and gossip who talk endlessly about everything from the glamorous to the grotesque. Forget last season; if you don’t got game, what you have to say will be “so 27 seconds ago”. You'll be so late to the party that when you arrive all you'll see are empty red cups and people passed out on the lawn.

Seeds are sown, artificially inseminated in the petri dish of think tanks and inserted into the test tube of public opinion. Then, they embed themselves on the interior wall of the collective mind to gestate and grow like a parasite within a symbiotic organism, hijacking the human consciousness. Instead of being conceived in a rapturous expression of ardor and passion; carried to full term with glowing countenance, conscious awareness and thoughtful reverie; labored in unconditional love and inspired creativity and brought forth in orgasmic birth, major reports and minor ramblings alike, are cloned from subjects, splattered like paint on an expressionist’s canvass cloth stretched out across the expansive wall of the world wide web. Rumor has it that content is abducted and spliced from the extracted ‘DNA’ (digital notations of artistry) samplings of the common man’s musings, the scholar’s referenced deliberations and the literary’s expertly woven narratives. The well-meaning blogger and the investigative journalist, the staff writer and the fame whore alike, sell out and phone in article after article or read off the teleprompter report after report in a cut and paste, nip and tuck outpatient operation.

Everyone tells you what to do and what’s good for you.  

They don’t want you to find your own answers.  They want you to believe theirs.

~ Socrates

The majority of articles read by the masses are written not to provide insight or inspiration but to inform the public of what they think people should be interested in or what they want the general public to believe. Sex sells and they are not afraid to use it to make their indecent propositions to get you to click the bait. You are not encouraged to think for yourself and come to your own conclusions. Conclusions are made for you even though “fair and balanced” news channels tell you “We Report. You Decide!” You are not prompted to do your own research or investigation, undertake a field of study or broaden your world view through books and travel. Instead, you are told to stay tuned and that they’ll be back to spoon-feed you more pre-digested and regurgitated news and stories and talk “after these messages from our (corporate) sponsors”.  What you get is the Reader’s Digest version, summarizing what is happening in the parts of the world they can put a condom on, whitewash or candy coat for your viewing protection or pleasure. They don’t even take the time or bother to ask, “Was that good for you?” In S&M fashion, once you are tied and bound, even safe words don’t get you released without enduring some pain and suffering. They’ve got you hook, line and sinker and reel you in again and again.  

Hit me baby one more time! ~ Britney Spears

We've become information junkies. Content is consumed much like a happy meal from the nearest fast food joint, ravenously devoured when we get to our next brief pause in our day, be it stop and go traffic or soccer practice; scarfed as we lean over the kitchen sink or stuffed into our faces as we sit in front of the television screen. Internet sites and television stations know that humanity is hungry for knowledge. So, it pimps out its highest revenue earners, by showing some leg and flashing a come hither smile. They present their digital products as all you can eat restaurants; open all night or a dry humping, jump your bones quickie and everything in between. In an ‘entertain me’ world, the public pays the cover charge at the door and after a pole dance, lap dance and strip tease is lured into the bed of iniquity. The consumer’s appetite for highly processed and tasty bite sized meals are served up every few seconds in the virtual media world as dead poet philosophical clichés easily swallowed whole or 140 characters sucked down through a straw. Five minute videos for those who don’t read. 400 word articles for those who have three minutes while they stand in line at the grocery store.  List articles that boast of being able to divulge the ‘10 Ways to do this’ or ‘5 Secrets to get that’ for those who only skim and just want the bullet points. Twenty minute talks for those who don’t have the time to read the speaker’s book. Lust for instant gratification combined with very short attention spans and the high people get from notifications about likes and comments and new followers or subscribers make for some pretty wasted information addicts. It’s time for an intervention.

Information comes at us too fast and too furiously. Our virtual world is a veritable whirlwind of headlines and classifieds, captions and quotes, affiliate links and provocative images. We are literally bombarded with a barrage of made up news and recycled stories, copycat articles and nonsensical blogs, repetitive associated press releases and conflicting studies, misleading surveys and manufactured statistics. We are solicited to join hang outs and visit chat rooms and seduced into instagramming and pinning. We are invited to attend live streaming events and given access to video channels 24/7/365 to watch trailers and highlight reels, monologues and montages, music videos and movies. We are accosted with uploads and downloads, broadcasts and podcasts, emails and ezines, videos and vlogs, posts and tweets. We share pictures and status updates and are compelled to like them, comment on them and share them on our own wall. We spill our guts, post pictures of our dinner and agree or argue with strangers on a virtual medium where we can sweat the small stuff. We are all trying to stay on top of this mountain of information and not let it pile up around us or bury us alive. We watch the latest episodes of our favorite shows and stay informed on current events with alerts on our phones so we have something clever to add to the conversation at the office watering hole. We steal from our own pockets to buy drugs, cut the lines to self-medicate and snort to escape the agonizing realization of the sellouts we’ve become to get our piece of the American pie. Will we get clean and sober before overdosing?

The Merriam-Webster dictionary says that the meaning of the word information is: “knowledge that you get about someone or something; facts or details about a subject; the communication or reception of knowledge or intelligence; knowledge obtained from investigation, study, or instruction.”

Information is not knowledge. Knowledge comes from experiences, more specifically, your own experiences. Information that comes into your experience might resonate with you or ring true or lead you on a path toward finding your Truth. But to know the Truth is an experience only you can have. The Truth cannot be taught or learned. The Truth may or may not be something you necessarily “like” and most certainly will not be something you will want to share unless you don’t mind getting unfriended and blacklisted. Truth is a knowing that comes from your own insight, your own realizations, your own Aha! moments of awareness.

Everything in the universe is within you. Ask all from yourself.

~ Rumi

You are the answer to your own questions. Who you really are already knows everything you want to know, everything you need to know and everything that there is to know in this NOW moment. Your soul is the soul-ution to anything that is off its energetic balance, out of dimensional phase or out of vibrational alignment. In the NOW moment, all is well. The you that you are right NOW cannot unknow what you know today; nor can you know what you will know tomorrow. It is only in the NOW moment that you have the power of kNOW.

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Pearls of Wisdom is a personal blog of the wisdom writings of Dara Eden that fall outside the realms of feng shui, The 8 Elements and her other personal energy work. Established in 2014, the blog is an expression of her highest values: Sovereignty, Truth, Wisdom & Inner Peace. It’s devoted to increasing awareness, expanding consciousness, bringing knowledge, sharing innerstandings and offering wisdom to the sovereign souls inhabiting the Earth.

Dara Eden is a writer and wisdom keepHER. The name, Dara, means “pearl of wisdom”. Pearls are formed when a microscopic irritant, like a grain of sand, embeds itself within the soft tissue of a shelled mollusk. To protect itself, the oyster or clam covers the invading gritty particle with concentric layers of iridescent crystalline calcium to form treasures, pearls of great beauty and worth. Gifts of the sea, pearls are the oldest known gem and the only gem that does not need to be cut, shaped or polished. Pearls are associated with elegance and luxury and are a symbol of mystery and purity. Pearls represent priceless knowledge, the rare wisdom that begins as a tiny, random, common irritant.