Anna von Reitz – From the cradle onward we are deliberately taught to think in ways that profit our predators. This is done by those who stand to profit from these purposefully engendered failures of logic.

For example—remember yourself as a child playing with a set of colored blocks, marbles, or similar objects. What were you taught to focus on? You were taught to focus on and identify differences—- difference of color, size, shape, texture, material, transparency—any kind of difference at all was important and emphasized and you were required to recognize and note it. The sameness or similarity of things was used merely as a means to identify differences. Why?

Why isn’t recognizing similarities inherently as important as recognizing differences? Without recognizing similarities first, we wouldn’t be able to discern differences, but similarities are downplayed because similarities provide the basis for unity and peace and compassion.

Those who profit from keeping us divided and endlessly at war don’t want us to think in terms of similarities. If we did, we would see the way this learned emphasis on differences allows us to be manipulated and misled, how it teaches us to fear, how it nurtures prejudice of all kinds, and how it makes us susceptible pawns for war-mongers and demagogues. This early emphasis on perceiving differences also leads us to think in terms of parts instead of wholes, and in terms of “us” versus “them”. This same learned perceptual prejudice results in instinctively thinking in terms of “either/or” when we would be better served by thinking in terms of “and”.

We are taught to think in terms of endless duality: good versus bad, rich versus poor, right versus wrong, black versus white,Democrat versus Republican, Baptist versus Catholic—all because it is easier to limit and control and manipulate us when we think this way. The slave masters set up the two goads and drive us endlessly between them, and our patterned way of thinking prevents us from breaking free. We become like “dumb, driven cattle” caught between the carrot and the stick, never questioning who is manipulating us or for what reasons.

In the same way we are taught to think in terms of groups, not individuals. The value of “teamwork” and “command structure” is drummed into us until we feel useless and paralyzed as individuals. We innocently accept such concepts as “collective guilt” or “shared pain” or “group action”—–none of which really exists.

The individual is the unit of human experience—and is also the limit and expression of all human experience. All the pain that can ever be felt is felt only by individuals –one by one– and it is the same with guilt, happiness, or any other emotion. All actions are taken by individuals—one by one. If you stop and think beyond the outright false or half-truth assumptions you’ve been taught—- “we” are only sums of “I’s”. Continue reading →