The Eyes That Guide Us
Images from merchants call out to us, preying on our insecurities and earlier deprivations as we climb the ladder to wealth. These desires draw us in, luring us to buy happiness through the latest gadget or experience, a vacation, a diamond ring, a new car. The true teacher shows us that cravings result from a lack of engagement with the ecosystem around us. When we are aware and in balance with our surroundings, we do not become slaves to consumption.
The Eyes That Guide Us
Rather than focusing on man’s higher senses that harmonize with the surroundings and promote realignment of the ecosystem in which he lives, scientists over the past two centuries have focused on the vulnerable states of man. By utilizing the potential to make the vulnerable and low-thinking man impact society, a small group of men can harness profit by influencing man’s unassuming, imprintable brain.
Understanding the power of visual images over the human mind, America became a pioneer in the past century, developing technologies that engage the receiver and work on altering the mind and belief systems. The knowledge of the power of the energy of light on man’s brain was capitalized.
The first moving images in America were used to sell products and ideas. Moving a series of still frames slightly faster than the conscious eye could create the illusion of movement. One could watch drawings tell stories over time. Studies found that inserting a frame of an image of a desirable thing, such as a ray of sunshine or a clean glass of water, between other images influenced the viewer to feel the desire for sun or thirst. The animal instinct dominated over higher humanistic values.
This evolved quickly, studying the demographic population of men with wealth and buying power and using images that were desirable to them, such as a scantily clad woman, a large home, a stack of money or a hearty indulgent meal. Quickly, the power of addiction to force the spending of money was linked with products, and the advertising age began.
The images called out to cravings that occurred in people who were deprived of something, anything when they climbed a ladder to wealth. It drew them in to buy happiness through the latest gadget or experience, a vacation, a diamond ring, a new car. What it never taught was that cravings result from a lack of engagement with the ecosystem around us. Our families, the natural environment, connection with the community, having a little less in order to give more, and giving service to those with less ability are the greatest source of fulfillment of our cravings. But they do not drive revenue.
As America became strategic in increasing revenue, it traded its services and goods to promote the greed, envy, lust, pride and wrath that fuel wars, accepting payment from the fighters in gold. It eventually dominated the global ownership of gold by 1944 and converted the world’s financial reserve to US dollars. To stay wealthiest, America must promote avarice in its own people, selecting immigrants who want to participate in the game of capitalism and teaching wealth as the basis for happiness.
Called education and socialization using the power of psychology, experts target young minds and ignorant newcomers. By teaching and influencing a value-based system that prioritizes survival through wealth and acquisition of material assets, modern society has created a profitable and virtually unending cycle of revenue. Increasing interdependence on technology and not on nature allows those connected to the land to profit immeasurably from its wealth, through mining, real estate, drilling, and agronomy.
Over the twentieth century, those people who believed in the natural ecosystem, such as the native Americans and Mexicans, freed slaves, and Japanese, Punjabi, Chinese and Gujarati immigrant laborers, were demonized. They were forced into hard labor, unfarmable land reservations, and lacked many human rights. Gifting, trading and volunteering were discouraged from people who could generate revenue. When these people stood up and demanded to be included under the American constitution, they were shot, imprisoned, or ignored. Human rights were prioritized for white-skinned people who could associate with wealth and show their willingness to play the game of polarized revenue creation. The power of gunpowder in building economies was idolized by distributing Alfred Nobel’s vast riches through The Nobel Prize.
Today the power of visual images is being used to provoke people who have made choices that have misspent their money. The energies of man are manipulated, wilting those who do not participate fruitfully in profit creation and inflating those who love bling and boasting. We have purchased and promoted a society that reaps harvests from our insecurities and less perceptive vision.
week32. TheSouthAsianTimes
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Dr. Bhaswati Bhattacharya is a Fulbright Specialist 2018‐2023 in Public Health. She serves as Clinical Asst Professor of Family Medicine in the Department of Medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York, NY. Her bestselling book Everyday Ayurveda is published by Penguin Random House. To order an autographed copy, write to bhaswati@post.harvard.edu.
www.drbhaswati.com