Ai is to Thought as a Dildo is to Sex
Yang brain is the problem
Would you like to put plastic into your sexy place or would you rather enjoy the company of your own species in loving embrace? Just asking, because there is more to tantra the the beast with two backs. Tantra is Being There. Sex is the Now. We are in constant union with the Divine Vortex, but the part of us that protects us from getting clobbered while we enjoy the glory of existence, our Left-brain hunter; is out of control.
So This Happened
This is a note from a local news feed called Nextdoor. The writer expresses a common problem in Modernia that I call “Left Brain Mania”.
The wannabe, demigods at the Sa**wy Pharmacy really need a lesson in humility. The staff is snotty at best, and their automated refill system is like some relic from the 90's. Called in my refills for the month and it was all fine and casual until I got to one prescription. their system had a shit attack. Had to call back three times to finally talk to a living being. The gal was very sweet, asked the number, and told me there were no issues. I said, so a "system brain fart"? She said "yup, happens all the time." Seems like the left and right hands have no idea what in the Hell is going on. Remember that whole, automated drawer thing they had? Poof! Gone and back to bags with meds in them. Trying to be all things to all people is decades long task. Alb**ts/Sa**wy Corp is mucking their way around in the dark, hoping to find some kind of "magic".
My response to this man’s complaint….
Modernia’s impersonal dilemma is a direct result of Digital Systems that now control too many aspects of daily life. Rather than depend on other humuns to run our systems, we have allowed the un-human digital system called Ai to interact on our behalf.
The people who push the buttons that run The System are now compartmentalized into a small areas, like bedrooms and home offices. Limited to pushing a few buttons, we are incapable of understanding The System itself. We are not involved in the processes of our own Being.
We live in a sea of strangers.
I wonder if any of us can understand the systems that run Modernia.
When we bought into the idea of Convenience during the 20th Century, could we have know the outcome of our easy ways? Could we have seen that a simple convenience would reduce us to an infantile state of helpless frustration? We don’t create the objects of our life. We buy them from other places, made by other people pushing buttons that initiate mechanical processes.
None of us are strangers to the bureaucratic "talk to the hand" response that our so-called "providers" push our way when the buttons they pushed don't respond properly. They cannot fix their own domain. The girl at the corporate pharmacy window is cranky because she is helpless to help you. She is a frustrated humun.
She has no “customer satisfaction” button to push, so she gives you the cold shoulder, the “meh'“ stare.
As this this un-humun digital monster devours our souls we must get tough again. We must remember the skills that brought us to the present. Shall we sit around weaving baskets while the community pot simmers? That would be an improvement over tapping light screens.
Ai can’t do those things because it doesn’t have hands. Ai is fake intelligence. A tool. How intelligent is a screwdriver? Ai is no different, but more dangerous because it can tighten the screw without feeling the pressure. The operator must feel the pressure and turn the screw accordingly. This requires the User’s sensibilities. Ignoring sensibilities is oh so Modernian.
“Get to the Point!”
The people who think Ai is intelligent are Left Brained Maniacs who chop the picture into parts and think they know how it works. In search of “the point,” they ruin the picture.
How can humuns get back to self sufficiency? We can change our preferences. Support local businesses rather than corporate chain stores. Get to know each other with dinner co-ops. It won't be easy at first, because we forgot how good it feels to share our lives, to interact, but easy is the problem!
How to Get Empowered
Avoid imports when possible. If you can’t find a thing you want locally, consider not wanting it or making it yourself.
Keep a ledger. Sharpen a pencil!!
Take a moment to engage with the cashier. Step down from your head into the center of your vortex, the heart.
I have the advantage (and the frustration) of remembering a time when we called a business, to get a service. The person on the other other end of the phone line; at the desk; at the concession counter; knew how the business operated and had the job of connecting the customer’s needs to the service’s services. That was “a job.”
That person was able to speak to his/her cohorts in an effort to work through a problem on my behalf. They had a thing called "Agency".
What does that mean? Agency.
The Agent is The Actor. The One Who Acts, who does stuff. This position can look like a competent boss or a careless bully. Here in Modernia, we have fewer of these characters taking the reigns of their lives because our range of experience has been narrowed down to pushing a few buttons within a limited range of activity/action.
We no longer work with our entire bodies. We work with our fingers. Tap tap tap.
When I teach art, the most important instruction is to “use your whole arm” to make lines on paper. We are so compartmentalized by the reductions of left-brain thinking that we don’t feel our entire body. We relate to the parts as separate. How can we connect to nature, as they encourage us to do, when we cannot connect our fingers to our hearts or belly buttons?
Our actions are limited by rules, regulations and buttons. Tap that button, only. Not the other one. There is only one way to tap. Do it that way and forget other ways. Ignore the “other” button.
The young womun at the pharmacy counter is unable to answer your question because she has no access to the button that contains your answer. She is helpless to help you and that feeling creates in her, a rage that she is trained to ignore, to push down, to deny.
I don't know if you know this, but....
Energy pushes back. That is called Science
Contained rage will leak from its box like black mold lining the edges of your damp window frames. It eats away at us, one by one.
Across the shiny pharmacy counter, sanitized as it is, the creeping rage of trapped souls, forced into a matrix of repetitive button pushing will end in a variety of unwanted forms. Such as …
Apathy, sarcasm, nonchalant denial, rejection, refusal, shut-down, ADHD, HSP, RSS, psychosis, narcissism, etc. And we continue to call these reactions “mental illness,” when they are the actual responses to an increasingly violent form of Soul-Murder that we call Modern life. I call it Modernia.
Modernia is a left-brain monster who sees the parts of a picture but not the painting. The Left-Brain Monster thinks he is alone, The Agent who operates for his own benefit, for his own sake, for his own goals. He doesn't have a family, children, friends. The Left Brain is a toddler whose mother isn't around to hug him. Well, she is always there. She’s always there, so why can’t we relate to her? Where is she? Why is the toddler rampaging through the market, alone?
She is here and now. The Now. And what have we done about our Nows? We rush right past them. In brave Actor fashion, we rush toward targets of our imagination.
They say that the most powerful moments in a speech, are the pauses. There is more content in a sigh. More truth in a look.
When the girl on the other side of the shiny counter, inside her cage, growls at you, see her with your heart, instead of your eyes.