Everywhere I look I see people discussing symptoms. People are adept at recognizing and addressing symptoms. Blogs, books, articles, lectures, and conversations brim with symptom analysis, but this endless analytical percolation of information yields very little in the way of proper diagnosis. Simply put - people see the symptoms, but are blind to the disease.
Part of this stems from a common misinterpretation of symptoms. More often than not, symptoms are not recognized as signs of any underlying illness or problem, but are instead erroneously regarded as illnesses or problems themselves. The enormity of this oversight cannot be overstated. It is not a case of a simple misdiagnosis, but the utter absence of any diagnosis at all - akin to recognizing sudden weight loss without recognizing the cancer that caused the sudden weight loss.
This obliviousness inevitably leads to the prescribing of ineffective cures. Thus, increased calorie consumption would be the logically prescribed cure for the disease of sudden and unexpected weight loss. This cure might alleviate the symptoms for a short time, but it will do absolutely nothing to hinder the progression of the real disease hiding in plain sight underneath it all. In fact, the prescribed cure might actually only make the disease worse.
And this is what I find myself encountering, day in and day out when I visit blogs, or pick up books, or listen to lectures, or follow conversations. Symptoms, symptoms, symptoms. Cures, cures, cures. And all the while, the real disease grows ever more malignant and continues to spread.
It has reached the point where I have become convinced that the disease can no longer be treated collectively in this time and place. Not because the disease has reached the point of reversibility at the collective level, but rather that the existence of the disease itself is willfully unacknowledged at the collective level. Put another way, at the social/civilization level, we are in complete denial.
Nevertheless, I believe there is still hope at the individual/small group level, which, for the time being, appear to be the only levels where it seems possible to regard symptoms for what they truly are - as signs of an underlying disease.
It should go without saying what that the disease in question is not physical/material in nature; and once the proper diagnosis has been made, it's not too difficult to figure out the proper (and only) cure.
Part of this stems from a common misinterpretation of symptoms. More often than not, symptoms are not recognized as signs of any underlying illness or problem, but are instead erroneously regarded as illnesses or problems themselves. The enormity of this oversight cannot be overstated. It is not a case of a simple misdiagnosis, but the utter absence of any diagnosis at all - akin to recognizing sudden weight loss without recognizing the cancer that caused the sudden weight loss.
This obliviousness inevitably leads to the prescribing of ineffective cures. Thus, increased calorie consumption would be the logically prescribed cure for the disease of sudden and unexpected weight loss. This cure might alleviate the symptoms for a short time, but it will do absolutely nothing to hinder the progression of the real disease hiding in plain sight underneath it all. In fact, the prescribed cure might actually only make the disease worse.
And this is what I find myself encountering, day in and day out when I visit blogs, or pick up books, or listen to lectures, or follow conversations. Symptoms, symptoms, symptoms. Cures, cures, cures. And all the while, the real disease grows ever more malignant and continues to spread.
It has reached the point where I have become convinced that the disease can no longer be treated collectively in this time and place. Not because the disease has reached the point of reversibility at the collective level, but rather that the existence of the disease itself is willfully unacknowledged at the collective level. Put another way, at the social/civilization level, we are in complete denial.
Nevertheless, I believe there is still hope at the individual/small group level, which, for the time being, appear to be the only levels where it seems possible to regard symptoms for what they truly are - as signs of an underlying disease.
It should go without saying what that the disease in question is not physical/material in nature; and once the proper diagnosis has been made, it's not too difficult to figure out the proper (and only) cure.
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