Importance of Media Literacy

It was in 2002 that I understood the importance of media literacy for the first time. Back then I realized how I had been brainwashed by the mainstream media about one controversial issue between two countries. Until then I naively believed one narrative repeated by one of these states and even supported uncritically by the mainstream media of the other country. I happened to check the other narrative by the minority of people in this second country. To my surprise, the more I read about this issue, the more utter lies and distortions I found in the first narrative. Now more and more people, not only in the second country but even in the first, support the second narrative.

When another controversial issue arose in 2020 that interested me no less, I checked two opposing narratives of both parties involved within one country. Here again I found what the mainstream media repeated less trustworthy.

Since about two months ago I've been experiencing what amounts to the third controversial issue for me, which affects us much more than the above mentioned two issues. I was stupid enough to blindly believe the narrative by many mainstream media outlets, which have been repeating what one of the two parties involved in the issue has been claiming. But after a while I also started checking the narrative of the other party involved, and this time I also started checking analyses by several third-party investigative journalists.

Little by little I've come to realize, to my amazement, what these journalists analyze matches the narrative of the second party. All the supporters of the first narrative I've met and spoken to categorically laugh off the second narrative as the propaganda of the second party without knowing anything about this second narrative except what they heard through the extremely colored lens of the first party. So this very categorization of theirs seems to me to be nothing but the propaganda of the first party they believe uncritically.

I must still belong to the minority over this ongoing issue. I'm especially struck with the sincerity and integrity of one of the investigators I've been following. This is the second time that he has decided to speak up for truth while the whole world may be against him. I've just discovered that when he did this for the first time in 2007, he was literally the lonely voice and many influencial people seem to have discredit him in an unfair matter. But later investigations have proven that he was right. I've never read or heard more thorough and convincing analysis and argument than his.

Compared to him, many so-called journalists in mainstream media outlets and many self-proclaimed experts look like ignoramuses as none of them seems to have studied one crucial aspect of this issue, which he not only studied but even experienced first-hand. His prediction about how this issue will come to an end is clearcut. Time will tell, hopefully soon, whether he is right again or not.

In the meanwhile I see that a number of individuals and organizations who support the first narrative have been trying to discredit him again, which for me is an eloquent proof that these people are desperate in trying to hide from the public what is not convenient to their narrative.

Farewell to Facebook as a Means of Personal Communication

I started using for the first time in August 2016 right after I got married. But having seen that it had a negative impact on our married life, I stopped using it after six months. When I had to start using it again in July 2018, my original intention was only to start a business page for my new business of Jewish life coaching. But right after I reopened my Facebook account I was innundated with friend requests. So I told myself why not and wad dragged into using it rather unconsciously for the purpose I hadn't originally intended - personal communication with "friends".

Earlier this week I made a conscious decision to rectify what I came to consider as a costly mistake. The mistake was costly as it cost me my mental wellbeing. Facebook as a means of personal communication became the main source of my daily stress because of a huge gap I felt between the kind of online communication I had desired and what I experienced in reality.

It didn't take me a long time that most people I made "friends" with on Facebook, including those I also know offline, have a totally different, seemingly unconscious, agenda in their use of Facebook for personal communication with their respective "friends" - mutual instant gratification of their ego, which was and still is the last thing I wanted and the first thing I wanted to evade.

Nevertheless it took me almost three years to make this conscious decision to stop using Facebook for personal communication. During this period I had an illusory hope that I might be able to have the kind of meaningful personal communication with enough of my "friends". I had only one such person with whom I could have such communication on a regular basis - one of my ex-teachers in Chabad Chassidus.

Before making this decision I minimized the number of people I remained in touch with personally on Facebook. The maximal number of "friends" I had on Facebook was about 150, which happens to be the so-called Dumber's number. By the time I made the above mentioned decison I had reduced the number of "friends" to about 50. In spite of that the posts of most of them didn't interest me as they seemed to have stemmed from their ego for instant gratifications. I'm sure that this feeling was mutual. Most of them must have found my posts boring.

Unfortunately, I couldn't stop using Facebook completely as I have to continue using it for my business page there to market my rather new private business of Jewish life coaching. But I could finally gett rid of that part of my use of Facebook that had a negative impact on my mental wellbeing. In this process I deleted all my posts and unfriended everyone equally.

Though it's only a few days since I stopped using Facebook for personal communication, I already feel enormous improvement in the way I feel and function in my daily life - far better!

Of course, I'm not denying the use of Facebook for personal communication categorically. It may be useful for certain people. It simply wasn't and isn't for me. If you are like me and thiking of stopping your personal, if not professional, use of Facebook, you may also benefit from two YouTube clips I listened to again and one book I read again before making this decision: What Do You Think about Facebook by Eckhart Tolle and Quit Social Media by Cal Newport; Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now by Jaron Lanier.

This decision is also in tune with my annual ritual of finding a personal "exodus from Egypt" during the Passover (we'll start the seventh of the Passover this evening). My "Egypt" this time was Facebook. Peace.

Soul, Body, and Life

Rabbi DovBer Pinson, who is a renowned Chabad rabbi and prolific writer, explains the relationship between the soul, the body, and life so beautifully: the soul is the author, the body is the book, and life is the story. Some time ago I myself came to the same realization as this metaphor. Since then I've gradually been liberated from my mind-made prison. But ironically, I've come to encounter more and more lack of understanding by those I dare to share this realization of mine with.

Many of them seem to understand at least conceptually that they are not "their" body, but when it comes to actual behaviors, most of them seem to speak and behave as if they were "their" body, and they seem to project the same illusion to other people.

I haven't met more than ten people in my entire life who are not only trapped in the confusion of the "story" with the "author" but also behave accordingly toward both themselves and others. This "story" of life is actually a large collection of substories, including birth, death and everything in between that our soul experiences through the "book".

Here again I feel how powerless language is in conveying something non-conceptual that resists verbalization. So if you don't understand what I tried to explain conceptually, please don't blame yourself. Hopefully, you'll soon be able to understand non-conceptually through your direct experience what I mean and appreciate the above metaphor.

Conceptualization vs. Direct Experience

One of the most important roles of our intelligence is thinking, and one of the most important roles of our thinking is conceptualization. One great danger lies in conceptualization - the moment we conceptualize something (or someone), we label them instead of directly experiencing them and have an illusion as if we understood them. The truth is that there is a fundamental gap between knowing about something (or someone) and knowing them.

Let me give a couple of examples that show the fundamental difference between conceptualization and direct experience. The menu at a restaurant is conceptualization, and actually eating foods that are in this menu is direct experience. Nobody can satisfiy their hunger just by looking at the menu. Similarly, hno matter ow many books someone has read about love, they will never know love as long as they have no experience of loving someone else or being loved by someone else.

The fundamental difference between conceptualization and direct experience must be apparent in these two exmaples. But the confusion between the two often occurs, especially when the conceptualization in question is very abstract and elaborate. Then a map is confused with a territory.

This confusion becomes especially subtle when it comes to religions (especially their mystical traditions) and spirituality for spiritual direct experience constitutes their very foundation and it refuses conceptualization.

Let's take another example. If we conceptualize Hasidism by defining it as Jewish mysticism, we only know about it, but we don't know it without directly experiencing it, nor will this knowledge become life wisdom.

The so-called academic research of religions, including Judaism, and spirituality, is especially problematic as it excluse personal spiritual direct experience as part of its methodology. How can we truly understand love just by reading and talking about it without directly experiencing it? Such knowledge won't be able to make our life truly meaningful, either.

If someone thinks that the intellect is the highest human faculty, they are completely wrong. There are two types of what the intellect can't comprehend - what is below the intellect, such as superstitions and some dogmas, and what transcends it. Spiritual direct experience transcends the intellect.

Knowledge becomes wisdom only if it's applied to our daily life as direct experience. Words that are based on direct experience can even transcend their very limitation. The truth is that the Chabad branch of Hasidism uses language to transcend the intellect. This is like using diamond to polish itself.

PS: This post is a bold attempt to conceptualize the inherent problem of conceptualization with no direct experience.