Yesterday was a funky day; I realized that it wasn’t just
for me, but for so many others. But I have something to say about it (as with everything
else). Before I do, I’d like to start off with this (don’t worry; there won’t
be a test later):
The idea of collective consciousness began initially as a
part of studies done of transcendental meditation and the ‘unified field’
consciousness within a group, but has since been picked up as being viably
scientific. Studies have not only been done on families, countries and the more
common groups but also on the stock market, marketing and trends in consumer
behavior. Other variations (and not as much of a stretch as one may think) are
peer pressure, the (mistaken) perception and current popular references of
lemmings, mass hysteria, and even in the ideas of ‘keeping up with the Joneses’
and ‘misery loves company’. Mob mentality is the term used to define the
negative of the herd mentality, the cooperative behavior of groups.
What do all of these have in common? The fact that each
group shares a particular belief or set of beliefs that arise out of a shared
set of emotions. The emotional base is the energy behind all of these
collectives, no matter the size.
There is energy in emotions. The energy that comes from individual
people’s emotions combine to create a larger field, a collective. The stronger
the emotions, the stronger the energy. Scientific data aside (and there is
plenty), this can be proven simply by walking in a room where two people were having
an argument. They may have immediately stopped when you walked in but you are
aware that they were arguing, even if they smiled at you in greeting. Why? What’s
the common phrase? The tension was so
thick you could cut it with a knife. That is a direct reference to the energy
outside of and created by the two people arguing that is palpably felt by
others. Collective consciousness occurs when others around are experiencing emotional
energy that matches or has a frequency close to that energy they come into
contact with. If the energy matches, they can join together; if the frequencies
are close enough, they can be ‘persuaded’—so to speak—to follow, and the field
gets bigger. If you were already experiencing negative emotions when you walked
into the room, theirs would feed yours and you would leave feeling worse. If
your energy was more positive, you would be able to brush it off without a
thought.
In many of the negative cases the emotional base is fear
(fear of exclusion, fear of being singled out, fear of being considered different,
fear of harm, etc.) and/or greed. Love and happiness are equally strong
emotions. But the magnetic attraction of energies happen only when their
frequencies match. For comparative purposes, the widely-used opposite ends of
the scale are fear and love, with every other emotion being somewhere in
between. We either make a decision based on fear (the fear of the repercussions
of any other choice, what we perceive to be the lesser of two evils, fear of
leaving a comfort zone, etc.) or love (something that we know will make us feel
happy).
The so-called lemmings, the people who wish to keep up with
the others, those who are accused of being easily swayed or influenced or ‘not
having their own mind’ are still following the pull of their own energies based
on their emotional states. This is not to say they are victims or easy prey, so
much as they are unaware of their own base beliefs and feelings and of their
true ability to control them.
Collective energy has no boundaries. It can be carried and
spread across everything, time and space included. Anything that carries
emotion is a conduit for energy. Even words. Sometimes, especially words. The power of words is carried in the emotions
they evoke. The art of persuading people has to do with either being able to
tap into their current emotional state or having the ability to raise or lower
their emotional frequencies to create a desired belief. You can easily convince
a person that a situation is unfair even if he or she has no active part in it
if that person is already in the state of feeling unfairly treated by another,
unrelated situation.
Think about it. Fighting
the man. Voting for the underdog.
Oppression and subjugation. Family feuds that stretch across generations.
Sympathy pains. All—and more—are carried and strengthened by a knowledge and
acceptance of the emotions underneath, even by secondary participants.
I often refer to music the “Universal Leveler”. It brings
people together because of the emotions
it evokes. Music has the ability to resonate with our emotional energies,
and can both raise and lower them. We’ve all seen the many videos on YouTube
set to Pharrell’s Happy. People have separate
playlists for romantic dates and working out. How many times have you heard
someone say, “This song gets me pumped!”?
How do you feel when you hear Amazing
Grace? What about We’re Not Gonna
Take It? What’s it like being in a bar and hearing that song?
Another point about the art of persuasion and emotional
energy: mob mentality starts with one person who has negative emotions about a
situation (sadly, this could even be just the one person who is never happy who
feels better when everyone around is also unhappy, or gets pleasure by taking
people down). That person finds someone who feels the same way, and then
another. Persuasion comes in when the
group is being built deliberately. Here is where peer pressure begins. Mass
hysteria comes out of a concerted effort to fan the flames of emotion.
Notice the trends on social media. What happened with ebola?
(Side note: what happened after its diversion was no longer needed?)
Two people arguing on the same side, as in complaining about
a current situation together, will create a separate collective that can build
just by inviting another person of the same opinions as theirs to their cause.
Like the old Faberge Organics Shampoo commercial, “and they’ll tell two
friends, and so on, and so on…”
Verbal persuasion does not rely only on select words, but
the tone behind them. The tone sets the emotional base. How the first sentence
is spoken can make the difference between a debate and an argument.
Constructive criticism or a difference of opinion can be taken as a verbal
attack based on the quality of how it is delivered.
What adds to a negative collective is often
misunderstanding. This is not exclusive to those who were a part of the origin
of the group; in many cases situations get inflamed by someone who joins late
who is misinformed, does not have all of the facts or does not understand the whole
situation, but because his or her own emotional base matches the general
feeling he or she will pick up the torch and set everything around on fire.
These people are specific targets of people looking to persuade a larger group,
for whatever reason. Lemmings and mass hysteria, anyone?
How does one go about destroying a particular collective? Go
after the weakest link; the one whose emotional base isn’t as defined as the
rest. A marriage isn’t ruined by an outsider; there is really no such thing as
a home wrecker. If the emotional commitment was equally strong on both sides,
there is no thought of temptation. We all know the adage about the grass being
greener on the other side.
A happy person cannot be persuaded by anyone; they make
choices based on how they feel. One large problem is is that not everyone is
happy. When you are in a negative place it can feel so very hard to get out of
it. And jumping on a bandwagon of other unhappy people for a united cause is a
pleasant diversion from facing and dealing with our own unhappiness or unrest.
That way, we can outwardly express the emotions we feel, but on someone else’s
lawn.
But emotions can be controlled, or at least modified a
little at a time. Smiles are contagious, tears can be contagious. Tension and
anger are also contagious, even if the causes are different. But it’s the
emotions that determine participation in anything.
Why don’t night owls and morning people view 5 a.m. the same
way? Why do I want to hurl a snowball at my lovely friend, Tina, who expresses
joy at every snowflake that falls?
The emotions around the events are different. They will not
combine.
Collectives are wonderful when they spread positivity, and
destructive when not. Isn’t it better to use our energies on building rather than
breaking down? Re-building can take a lot more energy and sometimes more time
than we have. Wouldn’t we rather use our powers for good?
Before we react or join in any collective—we are not drawn
in or persuaded to join; we are invited and we have a choice in whether or not
to accept that invitation—that is in any way incendiary we need to make sure
that our emotional involvement is tied to a full understanding to avoid things
being destructively blown out of proportion. And sometimes, even if we have a
small opinion about an event, we need to let it be fought out by the actual
participants and stay out of it (unless, of course, it is your intent to
control a desired outcome).
--here I will take a break, and laughingly and
self-deprecatingly repeat Alex Fletcher’s line from the movie Music and Lyrics:
“I have great insight. I’d use it on myself only I don’t
have any problems.”
Yes, that was self-directed snark. I am not attempting to
get anyone to believe that I have everything under control, especially my emotions.
We all need to pay attention to where we put our energy, and
whether or not we are concerned with construction or destruction. We need to
understand how and why we feel a certain way about anything, and what emotions
underline our opinions. Whether or not our scales are tipped towards fear or
love.
If we have been a part of something destructive (it doesn’t
matter the size of the role we played), we need to take a step back and
re-examine the situation and see if we want to re-build.
If the choice is to give up, examine why you feel that way,
too, with the understanding of which way your scale is tipping. Keep in mind,
leaving a situation for dead will leave a sour taste in your mouth that you
will savor at every thought of it. That energy will carry on (and so on, and so
on, and so on…). Who knows where else you will be influenced by it.
(Uh oh. Here comes the fucking cheerleader)
ON THE BRIGHT SIDE, even after destruction can come a
stronger rebirth, a stronger unity. As long as we breathe there is hope, right?
Just as negative energy can bring us down, positive energy can raise us up.
Even if you look at that selfishly, if all you care about is how you feel, it is still in your own best
interest to put your energy on the collective side of positivity, so that that
energy keeps coming back to you.
We can rebuild. Always.
Today is a new day; now is a new moment.
Let’s just blame yesterday on the needless Daylight Savings.
(How do you feel about
that?)
No comments:
Post a Comment