To The Awake Middle-Aged Privileged Patriot
This week’s Learning Offerings via https://americarebooted.org/
I am going to be 43 years old later this month. And I can definitively say, I am eternally privileged to have had a childhood in the 80s. Yes, I am using that word privileged.
Back then, before the thought police wordsmithed language to create division and a negative emotional response, the word privilege had a totally different meaning. You’d often see it along with its sibling word “honor” because at that end of the day, experiencing honor and privilege was not seen as a bad thing. In fact, whatever the object or focal point for which one felt honor and privilege, the insinuation and mental shortcut was always centered on gratitude.
Always.
And I have always been grateful for the life I’ve had, which means that yes, I am privileged. The good, the heartbreaking, and the scary made me into who I am today.
I had an amazing upbringing with loving parents who are still married to this day. I had a goofy older sister who I idolized. We weren’t rich, but we also didn’t want for anything. The only word I can use to describe my upbringing is love. And I shouldn’t be made to feel guilty for having such a life. I will not tear down the good of my life because others have not been as fortunate.
If anything, I want to help heal our society so future generations can experience the same love I felt.
ALL PEOPLE DESERVE LOVE
And thematically, when I think of what makes me most privileged is I grew up in a society where we valued and promoted: connection over isolation, creativity over boredom or distraction, hard work over the lack of accountability, innocence over shame, and patience over immediate gratification.
CONNECTION
I am privileged to have grown up in an era when neighborhood kids wouldn’t stay isolated in their homes with their iPhones living under the illusion of connection. Rather we’d play with each other from dawn until dusk. Riding bikes. Playing Hide and Seek. Avoiding the mean old lady who listened to her tv way too loud. Fearing the house where cats seemed to disappear. It didn’t even really matter if we liked each other that much, we were always together. Like bees to honey, neighborhood kids wanted to be together and to play with each other. Our desire to seek fellow-kiddo connections was innate. We would not have had it any other way.
CREATIVITY
And because we didn’t have technology and social media to distract us every moment of our young lives, we were bored much of the time. Very bored. But out of the boredom and the mundane came creativity. We had to put our collective kiddo heads together to figure out what fun things we could come up with to occupy our time. We built club houses out of giant refrigerator boxes, created silly games that often made no sense, and my personal favorite gratis of my late older sister, we tried to turn our garage into a roller-skating rink for all the neighborhood kids to come together. Kids were kids. No phones. No technology consumed every moment of our lives. And we had to get creative to solve the problem of our boredom. We had a blast doing it! And it was the often process of getting creative that was more fun than whatever we created.
HARD WORK
I am also privileged to have grown up in an era when we learned the value of hard work and accountability because not everyone got a trophy. We learned that if you played well in whatever sport, you got to celebrate and you got recognized. I never got the big trophies. Were my feels hurt? No. Did I resent the kids that did get the big trophies? No. Why? Well, because I was really terrible at soccer. I mean, like really really terrible. My sucking at soccer didn’t mean others had to also suck to make me feel better. If anything, their being better players made me quickly learn that I didn’t want to play soccer anymore, so I moved on – a valuable lesson in life.
Not everyone can be all things.
We all have gifts. We all have talents.
What I am good at, others may be terrible. And what I am terrible at, others may be good.
And that is OK!!!!!!
Back then, we knew we all can’t be all things and it didn’t bother us. And just because we want to be something we are not; doesn’t mean we can pretend to be that thing. Pretending I was good at soccer would not have prevented me from getting my butt kicked literally and figuratively by the better players. This also applies today. Just because you pretend to be a cat or fish doesn’t make you a cat or fish, just saying.
But let’s just say for the sake of demonstration I still wanted to play soccer. Other kids being better players only would have made me want to work harder to be more competitive. Coaches would not have told their star players to run slower and score less goals to make me feel better. One person’s success should not take away from another person’s lack of success. These are forgotten life skills that have now become devalued and demonized. Why? I have my perspectives on the matter.
INNOCENCE
I am also privileged to have grown up in an era when there was no talk of sex, gender, or race. No pronouns. No focus on diversity. We were diverse just by virtue of being individual kids. We didn’t need others to tell us we were different. We just were. I didn’t ever see us getting clumped by demographics other than maybe the smart kids and popular kids. That was it.
In fact, for me personally, as a 2nd grader, my toughest internal mental struggle I faced was trying to figure out why they made paste taste so good if I wasn’t supposed to eat it (the same can be said for Playdoh). Yes, I was that kid that ate paste. And guess what, I don’t care one iota if you make fun of me. I survived. I am sure as kids we faced with lots of terrible dangers, but we figured it out. I can’t even imagine the pressures kids face today which compounded together lead to one outcome and one outcome only – mental brokenness.
I am privileged to have grown up in an era when there was an unspoken boundary and level of respect between the parent, child, and teacher relationship even if we didn’t recognize it at the time. We didn’t have teachers muddy the waters of what was already confusing by projecting their own unprocessed confusion about the world onto us. The last thing children need are emotionally broken people looking to children to validate their existence and lifetime of poor decisions. Growing up we had enough pressure to conform to not be a social pariah among our classmates. We didn’t have our teachers pressuring us to conform to their ideological social norms that inevitably will lead to nothing but further confusion and again mental brokenness. I could go on and on here, but I hope you get the point.
Also, we didn’t have technology that was used to augment our already deep-rooted insecurities by virtue of being a kid, especially in the middle school years. We had no social media. No selfies. Our lives weren’t recorded 24-7. Kids today, and apparently Hunter Biden too, spend every moment recording themselves and taking hundreds of pictures of the moments of their lives to the point that they never actually are living their lives. Rather than enjoying the beauty of the moment, they are more consumed with trying to get the perfect photo for their Instagram (or laptop) to show off their lives rather than just being present in the moment. It’s sad.
Our world did not consist of faceless followers, but rather the local classroom kids where you undoubtedly had to find your place in the pecking order. There were the popular kids (in-group) and everyone else (ranging from headbangers to goth). I was in the “everyone else” crowd. Again, there was pressure to conform, but at least the bubble of who I needed to conform to was limited to the classroom and neighborhood kids. I didn’t have to look to social media to tell me what was cool or stupid. I didn’t face an onslaught of propped up false Gods like the Kardashians whom I would have been pressured into trying to emulate.
And I am privileged to grow up in an era where really the only filters through which I judged the world were again either cool or stupid. Racist, homophobic, xenophobic, hateful, bigoted, or anti-X (whatever the expectation) was nowhere in my mind.
Sadly, children today have been programmed to think that my lack of recognition for these concepts is an example of my “hateful” privilege.
But I will hold on to the belief that my beliefs are a demonstration of innocence, rather than whatever derogatory belief they expect me to have where indiscriminately no one is accountable for anything, and yet everyone is to blame for everything.
I don’t like the world they want us to live in.
PATIENCE
I am also privileged to have grown up in an era where we were taught patience rather than instant gratification. I could not binge Family Ties, Growing Pains, Small Wonder, The Wonder Years or whatever show I loved. Rather, whatever show I’d watch was a treat I’d look forward to each week. I had to wait. And sometimes, that week between episodes was unbearable! But the anticipation and build up was often just as enjoyable as the actual show itself. There was no immediate gratification.
I also got to experience the pure excitement that came from hearing the ice cream truck blocks away on the one day a week it’d come by. And, if I wanted a new toy, I couldn’t just go on Amazon and have it show up the next day. No. I had to wait. And during all those moments of waiting, those large chunks of unoccupied time again led me, my sister and our neighborhood friends to get creative in how we filled our time.
CRITICAL THINKING
Add all of these life experiences together and ultimately the end result is critical thinking. Through connection, we worked together to creatively solve problems. We made decisions together on what to do to stay engaged and fill our time. We worked hard to win or be successful in whatever task we faced, whether it be soccer or building my refrigerator box club house (which mine was super cool by the way).
And also, because we didn’t have social media and our iPhones with Google readily at our fingertips, we had to learn to find answers to whatever questions we had. We naturally practiced willful curiosity and intellectual fortitude because we didn’t face immediate gratification. We had to search.
We had to learn about the Dui Decimal System and open these things called books. We had to check these things called books out of these places called libraries. Crazy, I know.
But I probably knew more about the world including geography compared to kids today. I’d spend hours studying the giant coffee table Atlas we had just sitting there waiting to be read. Do kids today even know about the awesomeness that is an Atlas? I’d dream of the places I wanted to visit. I’d study every detail of the maps to figure out how I’d make my way through a country to ensure I’d leave no place unvisited.
It was fun.
It involved my brain.
It made me think.
My curiosity about the world would also be met by reading our encyclopedias. Yes, I know. Who reads encyclopedias? Well, I did. Not always because I wanted to, sometimes I had to for some school book report (How else would have learned about Gaspar de Portola or the California Missions?), but again I was curious. And I had much more free time.
I couldn’t just turn on my phone and mindlessly scroll through social media to keep me preoccupied.
Empty time, if it wasn’t spent with neighborhood friends was generally spent playing, creatively thinking of new games to play or learning. That was it.
Where am I going with all this?
Well, again, I am going to be 43 this month, and so, like most people privileged enough to grow older it makes you think and reflect. I can’t help but reflect on the life I have had and how privileged I am to have such memories.
And as I progressed through my own life and growth, somehow some way I decided to focus my life on human behavior. Prior to 16 years old, I was oblivious to the concept. But it was my very first job as a pie hostess where I started to pay attention to the dynamics of how people think and interact with other. I noticed group and power dynamics that I never saw before. So, I suppose you can say it’s not surprising that I decided to pursue my education in psychology and eventually a PhD in Organizational Consulting Psychology. Looking back what find I most ironic about the path I am currently on is that I was never really a good student. In fact, I was quite average. I found school boring. However, one major common theme of my life is the only time I was every truly engaged was when I was driven by passion.
And right now, that’s all I got.
I have passion to find and speak truth.
And, I have had the privilege of having an excellent career to date. And every experience, the good, the bad and the ugly has put me on this path in this moment.
I am grateful to have been able to walk away from a six-figure income to try to apply everything I’ve learned over the years to right now. I am doing what I can to try to make sense of our world.
I am breaking down how we got to this place as best as I can and sharing what I have learned with you so you can hopefully take control back of your own life.
Just a reminder too, I am not making a dime on what I am doing.
I am doing this out of pure love for my fellow humans, even the ones who are currently lost and consumed with hate.
And sadly, this road to discovery has brought me to one of the most painful and toughest concepts I have had to accept as an Awake Middle-Aged Privileged Patriot:
While I was enjoying my childhood there were evil people in our world plotting to steal the childhoods of our children, our children’s children and all the future generations to come.
Which is again, why I want to do my part to give back and help heal our society so future generations can experience the same love I felt growing up.
Here are the raw and painful truths I have come to know as it relates to the very people (the “they” I refer to below) who have spent decades slowly and methodically tearing apart the very fabric of our social norms that promoted connection, creativity, hard work, innocence, patience, and ultimately critical thinking much like I experienced in my childhood. By design.
MY INSIGHTS TO DATE
They know that when we are overwhelmed, stressed and too busy we essentially outsource how we make decisions, pass judgement, or solve problems onto “others” (Mental Shortcuts). Which is why all the empty time of our youth that would have been spent on creativity and connection is now consumed with meaningless distractions.
They know that we tend to rely on “others” to inform what should be top of our minds, what we should focus on, what emotional reactions we should have and what we should think about others whether they are the same or different than us (Mental Shortcuts). Which is why we look to media, big tech, politicians, academia, and Hollywood rather than our families, friends, and neighbors to inform our beliefs, attitudes and thoughts. This is also why I believe so many families are so broken right now. People are looking to these outsiders for what to think about their own family members rather than their own one-on-one interactions.
They know we have an enormous amount of data to process, and that it’s impossible for us to truly make sense of it all without help (Cognitive Biases). Which is why we resort to headlines and cherry-picked data points rather than digging into the weeds.
They know that when it comes to the mountain of data we are to process, we must do what we can to filter information to get to the nuggets of data that are worthy of our attention (Information Cognitive Biases). Which is why there is an emphasis on “trusted sources” and pressure to refer to these sources rather than to expand our sandbox of where we gather our data.
They know that we tend to selectively search for information that aligns to our existing beliefs (Confirmation Bias) and dismiss information that does not (Selective Perception Bias). Which is why there are technologies that promote content related to what you have already searched or sites you frequently visit perpetually narrowing your focus.
They know that when we’re too busy, we’re too overwhelmed, we’re too bombarded with trying to make sense of all the data we are to process, we tend to just avoid it altogether (Ostrich Effect). Which is why there are meaningless stories of celebrities and social trends that serve as distractions and guilty pleasures intended to keep us focused on the topics that provide no real value to your life.
They know that because we are unable to possibly filter all the information that comes our way, we need help interpreting what all this data means (Meaning Cognitive Biases). Which is again why there is an emphasis on “trusted” propped up sources that we refer to rather than our own family, friends, and neighbors.
They know that we have an innate tendency to think people in positions of authority (formal or informal) will be perceived as more credible and trustworthy (Authority Bias). Which is why there is an emphasis on status, education, credentials and experience over results and outcomes.
They know that we have a tendency to prefer people like us (In-Group Favoritism), which also leads to this tendency to assume that everyone like us thinks, feels, says and behaves like us (False Consensus Bias). Which is why they emphasize division and tell you what they want you to think is good versus bad or right versus wrong. They don’t want you to decide this for yourself.
They know that when we trust authority, and that authority’s message aligns with the message of those like us, we will overestimate our ability to make decisions based on the collective’s point of view (Illusion of Validity). Which is why they expect you to blindly believe whatever message they tell you rather than to think for yourself.
They know that with the curse of being bombarded with a mountain of data, we also must do what we can to process and interpret the data in a speedy way (Speed Cognitive Biases). Which is why a carefully worded headline deliberately designed to show up at the top of your Google search while burying and often censoring less acceptable headlines has reinforced thoughts, attitudes, beliefs, and actions.
They know that because we have a preference for our In-Group and tendency to trust authority, we tend to assume everyone thinks, feels, says, and does like us (False Consensus Bias). Which is why they use bots to augment the expected thoughts, attitudes, beliefs, and actions while censoring those that counter their expectations.
They know we have a tendency to value our own perspective and opinion above all, so long as something passes the smell test of our egos, we’ll quickly integrate the information and move on (Egocentric Bias). Which is why they focus on boosting moral superiority and propping up virtue signaling behavior as acceptable while dehumanizing people whose behavior they consider unacceptable.
They know we tend to be overly confident in our own decisions (Overconfidence Bias) because we have an unfounded belief that we actually know more than others (Dunning-Kruger Effect). Which is again reinforced by those carefully worded headlines deliberately designed to show up at the top of your Google search while also promoting stories of the propped-up authority figures and celebrities to give you an illusion that whatever decisions you make are the right ones.
They know that we have an innate tendency to only remember useful information of our pasts to help make sense of our futures (Memory Cognitive Biases). Which is why they are trying to make you think negatively of your childhood by reframing words like privilege into something bad and something you should feel intense guilt and shame for experiencing.
They know that we tend to mostly focus on the negative (Negativity Bias) and that overtime, we tend to make a shift from specifics to generalities to inform unconscious associations, beliefs and attitudes towards others whether they be from the group we favor or the group we do not (Implicit Bias). Which is again why they continuously demonize the past and how we got to a place in our world where the youth think someone as brave and honorable as Abraham Lincoln is racist when he freed the slaves.
And lastly, they know that when it comes to how you think and process information, we might remember things that did not happen which can lead us to think someone hurt us in the past when they did not (Misattribution of Memory). Which is why they want us focused on them and what they tell us to believe rather than our own families, friends, and neighbors.
I could keep going, but will refrain.
These are the types of concepts I dissect and analyze in my Deprogram Your Mind Learning Video Series. So, my hope is you will take the time to learn with me. This week, I did 3 videos for you to again expand your mind and grow.
LEARN: Recognizing Propaganda by Understanding How You Think (30 Minutes – CLICK HERE)
In this video, I walk you through the building blocks that lead you to experience Faulty Thinking (Mental Shortcuts) as a result of falling for propaganda: 1) Innate Errors in Thinking (Cognitive Biases), 2) Deliberate Influence on Thinking (Psychological Manipulation), and 3) Augmented Errors in Reasoning (Logical Fallacies). It’s time to get technical so you can become impervious to the tactics of those who wish to control what you think, feel, say and do.
INFORM: You Are the Carbon They Want to Reduce (Podcast 22 - 69 minutes)
In this podcast I do a performance review of the UN’s Agenda 2030 Sustainability Goals. I focus specifically on the Climate Action goal as it relates to their other goals and the actions they’ve taken to date. I conduct the performance review through two perspectives: 1) the Acceptable View expected of people to have around these goals in that the Agenda 2030 Sustainability Goals are intended being to Save Humanity and 2) the Unacceptable View, and generally silenced perspective, that the Agenda 2030 Sustainability Goals are a disguise for ushering in Totalitarian control with the intended outcome being to Enslave Humanity.
Using the framework from the documentary, Doomed to Repeat It, I walk you through a analysis of the evidence. It’s up to you to look at all the data and decide for yourself what it is you are to believe. Is humanity on the course to being saved or enslaved?
DISSECT: Fallacy in Focus – Argument from Authority (22 minutes)
Recognizing this logical fallacy is the first domino needed to deprogram your mind. Becoming impervious to Arguments from Authority, will make falling for any other logical fallacies nearly impossible.
In this Deprogram Your Mind Learning Series Video, I walk you through how you can recognize the Arguments from Authority Logical Fallacy, which had been used to reinforce and solidify the acceptable views, behavioral social norms and expected mental shortcuts needed to drive compliance. I connect the dots between this fallacy, and the mental shortcuts, cognitive biases, and psychological manipulation tactics associated with seeing this fallacy in action. I conclude the video with what you can do to combat this fallacy when you encounter it in the real world.
All my learning offerings for you can be found on: https://www.americarebooted.org/
Until next week… God Bless and be well.
Dr. Deprogram