It's like monkeys.......

.... like when one monkey figures out that if you pick up wheat from the sand and throw it in the water, the sand sinks and the wheat floats, so you can eat the wheat without getting a bunch of sand in your mouth.

Pretty soon, a few other monkeys see the first monkey do that and follow suit. Then soon, all the monkeys are doing the same thing because they see that the first monkeys are successful at getting yummy food.

Corporations have used this same "monkey see monkey do" technique for decades. They create TV commercials showing happy people being happy and successful buying their product and living the lifestyles they portray, and just like the monkeys watching the first monkey separating the sand from the wheat, they mimic what they perceive to be success.

Ghandi said "Be the change you want to see in the world". This is because when you become the person you want to be, and are successful in attaining true happiness, people who see that will mimic you. You can preach to folks til you're green in the face, but people, ultimately, will only change when they see something actually work, when they see the end results.

Problem is, you are competing with 24/7/365 corporate TV/Radio/Internet propaganda constantly feeding people a false illusion of success. TV shows, sitcoms, movies, all are written to show people engaging in a certain lifestyle, namely, a corporate projected lifestyle, wearing certain type clothing, turning their yards into grass instead of gardens, living in energy wasting homes that don't utilize any sustainable energy systems, driving gas guzzling SUVs, going out to restaurants and clubs all the time instead of cooking healthy meals, all this subliminal suggestion showing how your life should be lived. All this is so subtle that most people aren't even aware of it, and it creates a standard in your subconscious mind that this is what everyone else is doing and you certainly don't want to be singled out of the herd or you'd be open to slaughter from the lions or worse - shunned by your peers.

The latest trend now is to locate people who don't follow a corporate projected lifestyle and make fun of them. TV shows like Hoarders, Intervention, Jerry Springer, all focus on outrageous lifestyles no one would want to follow. The shared mockery of these people reinforces the corporate projected lifestyle as being the preferred lifestyle, by getting people to identify with other corporate projected lifestyle followers to "gang up" on the strange lifestyle they saw on TV the night before, secure in the notion that they, like their peers, are following the preferred lifestyle. It also serves to make these same people afraid to deviate too much from the corporate projected lifestyle for fear again of being shunned, ridiculed or mocked.

On a side note - this mocking of people who are 'different' and who don't follow the status quo has been rampant in schools for decades also. Children follow their parents' lead, and "peer policing" becomes another way in which people are kept in line from an early age to maintain the corporate projected lifestyle and squelch free thinking.

Fox News especially uses this technique in their coverage of news stories that their corporate sponsors, and specifically, Rupert Murdock, disapprove of. Behavior that is counter to the corporate projected lifestyle is quickly ridiculed and portrayed as counter to the preferred lifestyle, swiftly quelling any notion the participating viewer may have of accepting those views. They'll cover something like the Occupy Wall Street movement and refer to them all a bunch of homeless smelly bums, or Zeitgeist Movement members as cult members or marxists. Regular viewers of Fox News eventually identify with the newscasters the same way Hoarders and Jerry Springer watchers identify with each other as members of "the herd", thus feeling safe from attack because they are part of a large, protective mass that is 'in power', therefore, 'successful'. Mimicking the 'successful' media, then, becomes the "monkey see, monkey do" survival technique that has been reinforced in humans since our arboreal days.

Once these manipulations are recognized, though, it's difficult to ignore them, and they'll begin to appear in a lot of places you haven't noticed them before. It becomes like the "Emporer's New Clothes", or like the first time you can finally "see" the "Magic Eye" 3D effect. You start seeing through the manipulations and it's like a light coming on.

Unfortunately, the first thing most people do when you turn on the light is close their eyes.

Relying on logic, on recognizing what truly makes you happy, recognizing true success, trusting your instincts and living your own way, you can become the change you want to see in the world. Just be patient though. There is a lot of competition out there. Movements like The Zeitgeist Movement and Occupy Wall Street can help to bring people together who see this, and supporting their events shows the followers of the corporate projected lifestyle that the false illusion of the corporations' commercialism is there to manipulate them.

Supporting these movements gives them a new monkey to follow - one that actually cares about them.