No Patience for History Books

Since I was a small child, I've always loved books. When I was still in academia, I read mostly those books I had to read for professional knowledge, and they gradually came to interest me less and less. Since I left academia, I've been able to allow myself to read those books I really want for life wisdom and spiritual growth, but I also continue to read for knowledge and skills in a wide variety of areas.

There are, however, three genres of books I have no patience for. History books are one of them. When I was still a student at junior high and high schools, I disliked three subjects. One of them was history.

Since I left academia, I've tried to read quite a few history books, but every time I tried, I couldn't continue to read beyond the first ten pages or so. When I recently saw that I had no patience even for a history on one subject I've taken a renewed interest in, I realized that I really have no patience for history books.

The English words history and story are the so-called doublets, that is, they have split from the same etymon. They are expressed in a single word in some other European languages such as Russian - история, which means both 'history' and 'story'. There is no wonder why I have no patience any more for literature.

This week I stumbled upon one history book and found the following quote as the very first paragraph there:

"History is created, manipulated and written by those who are predominantly on the victorious side of the nation which has supreme political, and especially military, dominance. Any 'truth' which has the slightest potential of weakening their total hold over the masses is not tolerated. Any truth which can impact their power is squelched or cunningly hidden by them, usually in a manufactured media release to the unsuspecting public, often in a jovial manner to render the information a laughing matter and display it as harmless." - Former NASA astronaut, Clark C. McClelland

Since then I've been unable to stop reading this history book. If I should continue reading it with this enthusiasm, it may be the first history book I'll read until the end.

I may have instinctively sensed something fishy when I read conventional history books as if they had been trying to brainwash their readers with their narratives to perpetuate the collective ego of a group of people through their authors. Similarly, I find many literary works as products of the individual ego of their respective authors.

Blind Faith and Truth

In the past three years I've been consciously observing people who have blind faith in three things. The common denominator between the three is that I also used to have blind faith in them until I woke up about three years ago.

The most subtle and problematic type of blind faith is that you have blind faith that you have no blind faith. Even observing the above mentioned people, I can't say with certainty that I have no blind faith that I have no blind faith, if not in these three things. Even after liberating ourselves from one matrix, we can never be certain that we aren't trapped in a higher-dimensional matrix we aren't aware of.

One of the main characteristics of many of those who have blind faith in something is that they aren't interested so much in truth as in depending the object they have blind faith in or their very blind faith itself. They already have a foregone conclusion.

This leads to another common characteristic of these people. They are not open to other views. Instead, they are only interested in "proof" that strengthens their conclusion and reject any counterargument as nonsense. This way they unconsciously decide to remain ignorant.

They also have blind faith in propagandists and propaganda tools that support the object of their blind faith and use them, whether knowingly or unknowingly, uncritically even after they have been proven wrong in order to stick to their blind faith.

In the past three years I've been encountering more and more people who have blind faith in these three things. Of course, I'm fully aware of their apologetic argument as I used to have the same blind faith. But few of them seem to have studied counterarguments and can refute them without emotionally blaming those like me who dare to challenge their blind faith. The moment they start using this "tactic", I simply stop arguing with them and ignore them.

Double Standards

Double standards are among the few things I simply can't tolerate, especially when some individual or collective intentionally violates all the rules it requires others to stricly adhere to. This is also known as exceptionalism.

In the past few years I've come to notice this exceptionalism practiced by one collective and its vassals as the worst kind of double standards as it has caused so many misfortunes to so many people around the world for so many years.

Every time I observe it, I ask myself when this can be stopped once and for all. One consolation is that many other players in the same "arena" are waking up to their double standards and saying no to them.

What is no less disgusting is how they justify their double standards. The most straighforward way is to make their "spokespersons" lie with a straight face or a smirk. I can immediately think of some of the most disgusting faces of such serial liars

A more sophisticated form of lying is to use propaganda tools to brainwash a wider public of people. Thanks to the Internet, especially two social media platforms, more and more individuals are waking up and saying no to these propaganda tools. As one of such people I can't help warning those who still seem asleep, but I often fall on deaf ears.

Spiritual Compatibility

I realize more and more clearly that if I am to begin and maintain meaningful relationships with other individuals as well as social collectives, I need to have a sufficiently high degree of spiritual compatibility with them, by which I mean that we share more or less the same state of consciousness.

Before I came to this clear realization, especially when I still worked as a linguist, I used to think naively that linguistic and cultural compatibility is the most important one. I wasn't even aware of such things as spiritual compatibility and the state of consciousness.

In my present state of consciousness linguistic and cultural compatibility, such as sharing the same language (in the literal sense of the word) and (more or less) the same cultural background, may still be a necessary condition but definitely isn't a sufficient condition.

In retrospect I can see clearly now why I couldn't stay any longer in such social collectives as academia and the Esperanto movement because of their respective collective ego, which in turn affects and subjugates the majority of their members.

I don't single out these two social collectives because only they show a low state of consciousness. I wish I were wrong, but I'm more and more inclined to think that the majority of members in any social collective are inevitably trapped in its collective ego. I'm also becoming more and more convinced that I'll never be able to feel comfortable in any socia collective.

In the past one year I've discovered the hidden face of some of the people I know personally. I still find it very difficult to accept the fact that they are so deeply (and dangerously) brainwashed by the collective ego of one social collective that I had to make a difficult decision to walk away from them, telling myself that my soul isn't for sale.

Collective ego can be far more dangerous than individual ego, but this doesn't mean that the latter doesn't have a far-reaching negative effect on individuals. Since I know its damage on both myself and my relationships with others very well on my flesh, I feel deep compassion for these prisoners of their egoic minds. But I don't think I can begin and maintain meaningful relationships with them mainly because their true self is blocked by a thick layer of their ego, so inaccessible to me.