Exceed Your Programming
People are bad. Some intentionally. Some by ignorance. Some by manipulation. Many and diverse reasons are involved in making people bad. Accidentally being bad may be the most common reason people are bad. The subject demands an incredible amount of elucidation. Words must be narrowly defined and plain enough to negate the possibility of misinterpretation. Concepts are difficult to develop and still more difficult to articulate. Even then, articulation is not enough. The best written or spoken discourse more often than not is not received as intended. Communication is at best crude still. Human consciousness is too complex to align with another in accurate transfer of thought by words. Ultimately, everyone is left to decide and do alone. Communicating is still being attempted and the influence of the effort adds to the complexity of reasons people are bad. Let mankind gather together in great numbers and persist for long periods of time and the badness of people is multiplied while the complexity of the human mind, communication difficulty, and accidents combine to perpetuate the badness. A human born and grown to maturity develops psychology influenced by all that is experienced. That influence is so profound it can be considered something like the programming of computers. Anyone and everyone receives their programming, and, according to the psychologists, much of it is subconscious. People become powerful beings acting on the complex psychological state of their minds mostly unmindful of what they are doing. It takes nothing extraordinary or special to act in synchrony with one’s psychology. It is virtually automatic. To change the repeating history of mankind from bad to better, something different must happen within each human. Psychology must become a product of intelligent design. In other words, we must exceed our programming.
A vast litany of outbursts erupts from people when you say people are bad. When you attempt to inform an individual that he is bad, the outburst can be violent. Humans are programmed from birth to respond to stimuli. Before clarification is possible, a stimulus of words that say people are bad results in involuntary responses too complex and subconscious to comprehend. This alone proves the statement. From a convulsion of incomprehensible and unrecognized psychology a response manifests outwardly. It is automatic like the response the key on the keyboard has when pressed. Unlike the key, people do many things when stimulated. Actions are done and the mind is modified. All experience modifies the mind. This is the consequence of consciousness, but it is incomplete consciousness riddled with errors. One could and many do spend a lifetime studying the responses to stimuli demonstrated by human beings. As human history is known, responses to stimuli by humans is a new area of scientific study. In all accounts of human history, the consideration is found, but it has reached a new level recently.
Many prominent historical figures have gained acclaim by discovering elements of human psychology. Herman Rorschach https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermann_Rorschach developed a system that could detect personality traits using responses to inkblots. Ivan Pavlov https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Pavlov conducted heartless experiments on animals to develop concepts of reflex responses, conditioning, and more. As time passed more and more people advanced the study of human mental functions, behavior, and responses. While Pavlov was conducting his experiments, and being bad, others were using the new science to develop ways to manipulate human responses and behavior for specific purposes. Walter Lippmann https://www.britannica.com/biography/Walter-Lippmann published Public Opinion based on the manipulable nature of human psychology. His work was complimented by Edward Bernays https://www.britannica.com/biography/Edward-Bernays in his development of means to shape the responses of large numbers of people. In his books, Crystallizing Public Opinion and Propaganda, proof of the means was demonstrated by real life events. What we know as Public Relations in business was created by this man and his helpers. His business was contracted by the tobacco industry to increase cigarette sales by changing the attitudes of the female population from abhorrence to smoking to acceptance. The company was successful, and the tobacco industry enjoyed a near doubling of customers for cigarettes. All these men and many others stand as historical figures who pioneered and proved that human minds and actions are not the result of comprehensive and accurate information or rational processes. The responses to claims that people are bad being just one tiny example.
That people are bad requires expounding if reflexive responses are to be managed. There is a litany of responses that must be ignored to understand what I mean. There are too many responses, and anyone can guess what they might be. Let us construct a line of thought that should bring anyone into agreement with the statement that people are bad. This is not to condition or persuade. It is simply a means of expounding the thoughts behind the statement. They are mine and mine alone. You can consider them as you will, but when you read the words before you, you are being influenced by them and me. So far, this is a fact of life that I cannot escape. It may be an inviolable natural law, or not. What is important to me is that people recognize what I have to say.
When a human does something, and that includes the simple fact of existing, effects happen. Every person is responsible for the effects and distance, ignorance, defect, and all other considerations cannot change this fact. What we do causes all it causes. Simple. Being causes, too. So, existence and actions combine to create effects that radiate across the universe in cascading continuance forever. Diminishing effects are like gravity, both exist even though they diminish to imperceptible levels. One thing effects another and another until the end of time and space or whatever. Responsibility is not eliminated by diminishing effects. It is only made less perceptible. Are we to cease to exist because we cannot know all the effects of our being and acting? Ceasing to exist is an action. There seems to be no escape. So, we are left to live and try to be good or not. Try as we may, we are as yet unable to ensure, even to verify, that all we do is good or whether it is bad. If we are too ignorant to do so, we cannot be all good or all bad. If we are some of both, we must be bad. For some bad is still bad and being mixed causes of good and bad by definition means we are bad. To be all good is the only way to usurp the statement. It can equally be said that we are good by the same reasoning. So, we are at best a mix of good and bad. If you can be the controller of your mind, you can choose which way to see it.
Regardless of outlook, people are bad, and people are good. What will help us the most is becoming all good. Everything we do and everything we are can be good. All good effects can radiate from each of us. There are abundant reasons to become all good. We can become all bad, too. History shows us a lot of bad. We may be becoming more bad than good or more good than bad. The factor that bears on what you choose as your outlook, good or bad, is that it is easy to see people as good and loose the motivation to correct the bad. All humans can do the things they are naturally predisposed to do. Being cordial and friendly comes easy for many. It does not require any special effort for them. Being mean does. Likewise, a mean person has no difficulty being mean, but being cordial and friendly does. In other words, programming is being run. We are programmed by birth characteristics and experience to think, feel, and behave the way we do. Everyone does what they are programmed to do, think, and feel. To become all good, that programming must be exceeded.
I have made the case that we must exceed our programming. How? How can we exceed our programming? That is the question that ultimately comes from the thought. One thing seems clear to me. The relaxing of effort slows the accomplishment. Someone said we should not rest on our laurels. We can spend our time utilizing our strengths and abilities, or we can give some to our weaknesses and inabilities. Progress toward becoming all good must depend on improving. What is improving if not using our best assets to improve our worst ones? If we are to exceed our programming, we must become more capable in both our strengths and abilities and our weaknesses and inabilities. If we look at people as good, we could lose some of our motivation to improve. If we see people as bad, the motivation might be increased. Either way, the choice is yours. Don’t let my words define limits for you. There is a third option to the question of whether the glass is half full or half empty. Clearly, it is both. People are good and bad, but the bad is the part that I want ended.
The longer I study and observe, the more I come to the thought that there is far too much bad to permit ourselves to choose the view mankind as good. Indeed, there seems to be some who are so bad they may be all bad. Human history and current status are awfully bad. The glimmers of goodness that have persisted all along and today do not change the fact that bad has been bad. To exceed our programming, we can take an objective and rational approach. That is likely the most common approach. But there is another way. We can give our emotional capacity more say in our lives. Such is the case for love.
Love has always been said to be the answer. It is true. Love is the answer when it is unconditional and greater than self-love. Love that is not greater than self-love is not the answer. This is proven by history and reality today. Love in romance is way too common to be the answer for if it is the answer, we would already have answered the questions and history would diverge from its current path. Instead, the path of man seems to be headed toward our extinction along with as many other living things and inert things as we can take with us. The words before you are proof that there is a force acting on the momentum of mankind to deflect it onto a better path. That path is beyond expounding here. A glimpse of the future on that path would enrapture the most obdurate among us. It is not a destination. It is a starting line. Unless we turn, we will cross a finish line. Our tendencies are compelling us. Our tendencies come from our programming. We must exceed it. Love will do just that.
Love can benefit the universe if humans attain it. All good. Bad is the opposite of good, but opposites do not have to manifest. So, don’t fall for that old sophistry. Love will answer all our needs and questions. It will put us on a path of ineffable adventure and happiness. It is clear that man has relegated love to a conditional feeling that is exceeded by love of self. When we love our children, and in some cases our lovers, we put their wellbeing ahead of our own. Not everyone does this, but many do. Here in is found the love that is the answer. To attain the manifestation of the answer, we must exceed our programming. We have been programmed to love conditionally and temporarily. Unconditional love beyond self-love never dies. It cannot be killed or diminished. It lasts through all forever. Anyone who attempts earnestly without giving up can attain love. It requires that we go from where we are to a certain place. That defines the path for each of us. We all go from where we are. None can do otherwise. So, the path is unique for each individual. Patience may be required. Time and effort may be necessary. Exceeding your programming will be required. You can do it.