Comments on: “The Secret” of NIMBY

By: AV

AV — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 16:20:34 +0000

Brilliant! I have a masters in Consciousness Studies and when I saw “The Secret” I had the same reaction. Your analysis is spot on.

When I was getting my degree (this was 1996) some of my professors would state that the people of the Earth and especially America were about to “wake up” and take a huge psychological evolutionary step. I would look around and I could see “some” evidence of that and a lot of evidence against it. I would present the evidence and ask, “what makes you think that we are going to make that step?” They would reply, “we will because otherwise we would destroy ourselves.” And I would ask, “why do you think that can’t happen?” Sometimes they would have no reply, sometimes they would say that they felt that looking at that possibility invited it.

Over the years I came to realize that these professors and in fact most human beings suffer from the “exception” syndrome. It works like this: imagine a man who has never gambled walks into a casino. He is given the rules for the games and $1,000. At the end of three hours he has won an additional $1,000. If you spoke to him at that moment do you think you could convince him that gambling in a casino is a sure fire way to lose money? Even if you could prove it to him by showing him all the other peoples loses do you think he would simply say, “well I must be the exception, or well I must be smarter then them, or I must have stumbled upon a ’secret’ means to success.”

That is the problem - we look back on our piddling 200 years of success in this country and think “this can never change, we are blessed, our system is the greatest on the plant and cannot fail”. We even look back over our very short human span on this planet and say the same thing. In all cases we may simply have been lucky so far and it may be time for the odds to even.

By: Tim

Tim — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 16:57:12 +0000

Thanks, AV. Great example. Yes. The great cosmic roulette wheel is turning now, and our luck has suddenly changed. Do we go home broke? Do we get kicked out of the casino? Or do we get escorted to a suite on the top floor? The ball is bouncing even now…

I appreciate your checking in on me and Todd.

Tim

By: Amy

Amy — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 13:44:48 +0000

Tim,
I have not watched The Secret. I did listen to a 60 minute sales pitch with excerpts to entice me into purchasing a 20 hour take-off on the Secret. I agree with everything you say but I would like to take a step in a slightly different direction. A direction that I will call Hope. It should not be surprising that so many Americans have boarded this boat. You could say that is even predictable. But this does not have to be bad. If you look at the underlying pricncple that in order to ‘have everything’ that you want, you need to take a relly good look at yourself. Some call it ‘climbing up the emotional scale,’ others call it the release technique. It doesn’t matter what you call it. Surprise of surprises- you get someting you didn’t even consider in that ‘wanting.’ You make your spiritual connection. If you tried to market that, no one or at least a few, would not buy the program. But make it about abundance, make it about getting what you want, you have a much wider appeal. We have been the subjects of mass marketing for all our lives. Guess what else you get. You get a new conciousness awarenes, duh. I am a mere mortal who does not know all the ways that ‘that consciuousness’ can be achieved. We all resonate at different levels with different things. So I say - what ever it takes to get there is fine by me.

By: Dan

Dan — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 17:54:12 +0000

Perhaps I missed something in Amy’s response, but…hope - a good thing? As in, I hope somebody will stop global warming, I hope we’ll get out of Iraq, I hope species extinction will slow down, I hope we’ll have enough food, soil, water to survive in the future. Hope let’s us rely on somebody - Big Brother, Jahweh, them, whoever - to fix things and save us. Not a helpful concept. As Derrick Jensen says, “I don’t hope that I’ll sleep tonight. I’ll just do it. I don’t hope that the salmon will survive. I’ll do everything in my power to ensure that they do.” Don’t hope for improvement in the global situation. That ain’t gonna help.

By: Amy

Amy — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 00:34:50 +0000

Hmmmm… I didn’t realize that ‘Hope” was a subtitue for a’call to action. I think you can do both. Hope is relying on somebody - actually it is relying on everybody to do thier part.

By: Jill

Jill — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 14:08:14 +0000

To reiterate something I’ve read in Tim’s writings, in the Erich Fromm book “The Revolution of Hope: Toward a Humanized Technology”, and I believe also in Derrick Jensen’s writings, we need to distinguish between “hope” and “hoping”.

“Hoping” is a passive reliance on or belief that someone else will take care of things or that a difficult situation will magically resolve itself. “Hoping” is what Dan, above, and Derrick Jensen, whom he quotes, assail.

However, it can be beneficial to hold “hope” in our hearts and consciousness; that is, allowing for the possibility that our individual actions are effectual. While we need to understand that we cannot “fix” the state of the planet or “correct” civilization, we might still make a difference in our individual lives and take babysteps toward the transition from our culture of destruction to one that supports the community of life. Since we have no idea how our actions might affect the collective whole, we may choose to step into our power of effectiveness to minimize our harmful impact on the Earth’s ecosystems and our fellow beings in whatever ways we’re moved to do so. In contrast to “hoping”, “hope” is tied to personal responsibility. IMO, to deny this “hope”, this possibility that change is possible, is to accept the most deleterious form of nihilism. I mean, why not party while the ship goes down? Because we hold hope that acting on our conscience will make a difference.

By: todd

todd — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 11:46:59 +0000

hi amy I know tim wanted to respond to your original thought but hes been away for a couple of days so I thought Id respond after all Im supposed to be helping him right so it sounds like youre saying maybe things like the secret arent so bad because even if theyre off base they may lead people around through the back way to the right place they think theyre learning to get rich but theyre really learning a new level of consciousness is that right I asked the same thing but that part didnt make it into the blog and what tim said was that while this is certainly possible and its even something sally has pointed to in the past for him its a matter of costs and benefits and timing that things are moving too fast now things are too crazy and there isnt time for that slow process and the damage the secret does far outweighs the positive effects it will have on those few who move beyond their ego desires to their more essential needs and wants he feels like by sounding the alarm hell have a greater positive impact in the world more people will wake up that way than the other way its an assessment he makes I hope that makes sense and I hope you can read this this is the first time Ive written on anything but a sticky and Im not sure if itll work Im sure tim will chime in when he gets back bye todd

By: Amy

Amy — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 15:45:22 +0000

You brought a couple of interesting concepts that I want to explore with you. The first one is time. Time is a constant based on the rotation of the earth. What actually changes is the rate of something. According to Einstein, without rate, time stands still. It only appear that things are speeding up or slowing down. For instance, if you are driving your car and look ahead, things appear much slower thatn if you were to look out the side window where things appear to whiz by. Time has not changed. You will not reach your destination sooner by only looking out the side window. Now let’s look at that same time as it relates to our planet. Quantim physics tells us that matter and energy are the same thing and it is all interconnected. Energy appears as matter when it becomes dense. The planet earth is a living system comprised of a living cell in a human being; a human being as part of the planet; the planet as part of the solar system; and the solar system as part of the universe. Energy, regardless of it’s form always acheives balance. This process is known as evolution. Our thoughts and actions are interconnected forms of energy continually changing to achieve balance. Even what we perceive as destroying our planet is part of this. So here comes time again. We know it doesn’t repeat itself. So can we return to a former state where we had an abundance of natural resources? It will never be the same. We can’t turn back time. Before the industrial revolution, there was very little need of oil. But who then would have thought, or predicted, or even knew what affect it would have on us. Was that not part of evolution? So my questions are, Is our attempt to save the planet, really our fear of losing what we know and have (safety and security) being manifested? Is this just resisting evolution? I will continue to do my part to reduce, reuse and recycle. How that ultimately fits in to the overall balance is beyond my realm of comprehension. Remember the car. Where you are sitting can look in balance or out. Which one is right?