We always see what we want to see, from inside who we think we are … until we don’t

I’ve been following the Lance Armstrong debacle since it began … in 2004. That’s when the sponsor of the Tour de France offered a $5 million dollar bonus to the winner, and immediately demanded that Lance Armstrong be charged with doping and forfeit the prize when he won the race. It’s a joke …

Not just the demand in 2004, but the entire fiasco of pursuing and charging Lance Armstrong with doping. Not because he didn’t do it … I don’t know for sure … and neither do you … but because it doesn’t matter!

Let me begin at the beginning for you … early morning today. I’m going to assume that you woke up, at some point went into your bathroom, or toilet, and looked into a mirror. Who looked back? Who did you see in the mirror? That’s the beginning … knowing who you are.

“I’m not afraid.” …

Of course this is ludicrous because almost no one knows who they are, not because they can’t …. because they won’t. This is the most terrifying thing you can possibly do, i.e.: confront the truth of who you are, experience the “real” you.

Think of Luke Skywalker and Yoda asking him if he was afraid to go into the tunnel to confront what was down there, and after Luke assures him he’s not telling him, “You will be … you will be” … that’s the reality of looking into the mirror and seeing who’s really looking back.

Don’t be afraid though, you’re unlikely to  ever confront that reality. Society has organized it to make sure it’s so unlikely that the vast majority of people on the planet, we’re talking 99+% will never even consider it.

You’ve been conditioned to accept “reality” as society has framed it for you, despite all the evidence to the contrary. Despite that fact that you are confronted daily by the insanity that the consensus reality you live in presents to you … war, famine, genocide, environmental decimation … the list could on, but that should suffice for my example … you continue to believe that what you’ve been told is “how it is” … and you go on believing

“Listen to your parents … be a good boy or girl … get a good education … listen to your teachers … be a good student … graduate from a good school … get a good job …be a good worker … find a good person … be a good partner … have a family … raise your family … be a good parent … take good care of your family and yourself … be a good wage earner … put money away for the future … be a good citizen … pay your taxes … be good … be good … fit in … fit in … fit in.

From “State of Perfection, Your Hidden Code to Unleashing Personal Mastery” by Joseph Riggio, I.M. Press 2011

I’ve been on about this idea for years, i.e.: you are conditioned to “see” the world through a set of beliefs that have nothing to do with what’s real. The beliefs you have are just that, i.e.: beliefs, NOT a representation of what’s real.

The beliefs you hold for the most part were inculcated into you before you ever began doing anything like “thinking for yourself” … and by the time you could “think for yourself” … it was too late.

Instead of thinking you simply repeat the patterned responses installed into you by others … first at home – parents, siblings, family … and then more at school – teachers, administrators, coaches, friends … and that continued with your “normal socializing” – news programming, conversational dialogue … and deepened when you entered the working world and were told by employers and coworkers how things worked … and you believed. You had no choice.

From your point of view the world as it was represented to you was/is more “real” than any evidence your senses present to you. For instance many of you “believe you have political views that are your own” … WHAT A F*$KING JOKE!!!

If you believe you are a Democrat, Republican, Liberatarian, Social Christian … whatever … you are just another puppet in the system, and you don’t even know the puppet master pulling the strings … BUT YOU BELIEVE DAMN IT … YOU BELIEVE!

• “This time we’re going to see some real change!”

• “This time my guy/gal is going to change things.”

• “This time we’re going to take back government and restore … equality, peace, fairness … whatever …. to the people!” 

You’re going to pull the levers you’ve been trained and inculcated to believe you should. You’ll do this because you think you have an opinion, and that your guy/gal represents what you believe.

This time it’s going to be differnt … right? BULLSHIT!!! This time it’s going to be just the same … only more so. Until you wake up it’s always going to be someone else pulling the strings, and you’ll dutifully believe, because it’s all you know … despite that niggling sensation that something else is going on.

The F*$KING Joke Is On Us …

I don’t know if Lance Armstrong doped, but I know he’s the scapegoat for the system, for the society this time around. Hell, somebody’s got to take the rap … somebody’s got to be held accountable right?

There you are in your comfortable chair reading this thinking, “Well he’s a cheater, he doesn’t deserve that fame, money, praise!” Well here’s what I say to anyone who’s thinking that, “You self-righteous prick!” You’ll cheat on your taxes, maybe cheat on your wife or husband, take a little “extra time” off of work now and then, surf the Internet on company time (heck, maybe your surfing right now) … and you have the audacity to get all high and mighty with Lance???

Well as your throwing stones from the porch of your glass house let me share one more thing with you.

We live in an age which demands that we destroy our heroes.

And, like just about everything else that’s going on we’re doing it “legally” … letting the lawyers, judges and courts replace our sense of personal ethics and morality

The general rule is that if it’s not illegal it’s not wrong … you can do what you want as long as you aren’t breaking the law or getting caught. AND … if you happen to be wealthy enough or connected enough, nothing is against the law or wrong … you’ll walk. There are a thousand and one examples of this, if you’re really interested you don’t need to look too far, but start with the bankers … try a search for Jon Corrizine, former NJ Governor and before that Goldman Sacks guy.

In the meantime let’s get back to Lance Armstrong. He’s guilty as charged right? A doper, a cheat … and he deserves all that’s coming to him, right???

Well here’s a bit more from the record of the sport of cycling …

“His ultimate legacy most likely is out of our hands. Fans who may not yet be alive will decide who he was. To us, today, Eddy Merckx is the greatest cyclist who ever lived, not a fraud who tested positive for a stimulant while leading the 1969 Giro d’Italia and had his 1973 Giro di Lombardia win stripped for the same. Joop Zoetemelk is the hardman who started and finished 16 Tours—a record—and won one. He’s not a reprobate who was caught doping at the 1979 Tour, received a paltry penalty of a 10-minute time addition, and maintained his second-place podium spot. Jacques Anquetil is the five-time Tour winner who in 1961 took the yellow jersey on Stage 1 and wore it all the way to Paris, not a boastful cheater who said, during a French television interview, “Leave me in peace—everybody takes dope.” And Fausto Coppi is il campionissimo, the champion of champions, not an admitted doper who said on Italian television that he only took drugs when necessary—”which is nearly always.”

 

We live in a different age, one that may not allow the forgiveness of Lance Armstrong, that may hold him to be the creator rather than the product of the era he reigned over. We might even judge this champion’s cheating and lying too vile to permit the remembrance of the part of him that, even now, convinced that he doped to win the Tour, I can’t stop being a fan of: the plain fact that he was, as even his bitter enemy Floyd Landis told me when we spoke last year, “a badass on a bike.”

Excerpt from: “Lance Armstrong’s Endgame” Bill Strickland, Bicycling Magazine

 

Like I said, “We live in an age which demands we destroy our heroes.”

We can’t allow anyone to rise above the mediocrity that we’ve been trained to become a part of ourselves. It won’t work if some folks are allowed to be “better than others” … even if by dint of hard, relentless work and talent. The corporate hegemony won’t stand for it … if you haven’t seen it yet watch, “Rollerball” … the original with James Caan and John Houseman,  I was sixteen when I first saw it, and I got “IT.”

Well, I’m tired of looking the other way.

Lance Armstrong, was a “badass on a bicycle” … he’s still one of my “heroes” … and that’s that … THE END.

Joseph Riggio, Princeton

It’s Almost That Time Again … MythoMania 2012 

28 – 30 November, Wednesday – Friday
10 AM – 5:30 PM Each Day

This is your opportunity to experience some of the unique MythoSelf Process work, engage with MythoSelf trainers and facilitators, hear about some of the latest developments in the MythoSphere from Joseph Riggio, Ph.D., Architect & Designer of the MythoSelf Process and Soma-Semantics … as well as others who are busy applying and developing the MythoSelf Process model

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Full Details Here: MythoMania 2012